COMPUTER MUSIC CONTROVERSY
Foreword
I am very surprised that musicians who should be concerned by this text, to question their musical activities, DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT I MEAN ! Are they so closed in their own outside-controlled world that they cannot see, hear what happened in reality, or am I living in a dream-world frustrated by illusory reasons ? English become the international language to communicate but nobody can understand each other ? Artists what are you doing ? Just resolve your software problems ? What's beyond ? Are you just doing your job without thinking what are you doing ? Nobody understood my Computer Music Controversy ? My English was understandable? Do I have to re-send the text with explanations? I hope to create a debate around these serious questions.
Here is the re-re-text [1, 2, and 3 as theme and development] with no "air" and with explanations: I am not against computer music, I am against social system built around computers i.e. privileges and manipulations:
"ENOUGH, ENOUGH: for whom, for which music makers is computer music ? For music makers living under the threshold of poverty outside Western rich countries or even inside ? What is the purpose of the Western artist ? To fit his colonialist civilization ? To support its imperialist ambition ? To follow the fashion, and to feed the capitalist system i.e. the social inequalities among people on our planet ? 3% of people on earth have access to a computer ! The gap between rich and poor people grows too fast. Some people eat every day, some people don't. Why do you make music with so expensive tools ? Which are even not yours: by buying a new computer, you support the computer company. How many labeled companies build computers ? 3, 2 soon 1 ? Who controls who ? Who can crash who ? In how many places you can plug your computer to make music outside Western rich civilization ? What is the role of the artist in the society ? To decorate the "beauty" of our Western political and economic system ? Like this caricature example of most Hollywood artists ! Art became a commercial propaganda for: the army, the richest world companies, and the governments ? What became the independence of artists ? Have they become scared of the "poverty", I mean detached themselves from the Western comfort ? Do they play Monopoly game too ? Or they are just slaves, without knowing, to serve the ambition of the concept "America" to erase all other cultures. Everybody who is working to improve computer performances, serve the Western ambition: one Customer-Culture for the world. Because technology is used as an ideological weapon emphasized with Internet connection. With the computer technology you can control the people on the planet, you can control the information: people with power are really excited by the project ! Artist, what is your price and how much do you cost ? How can an economic system control the creativity of the artist ? How can you accept it ? Aren't you ashamed ? A permanent vomiting and invasion of expensive equipment (who and how many people can support that continuous financial solicitation to buy these devices ?) that follows the rule of capitalist system : a nonstop buying solicitation making obsolete what you bought not so far ! This is a part of the world Customer-Culture: "buy and do not disturb our system." We have the illusion that it becomes cheaper and cheaper. False. The same price (or even more expensive) is only divided among several parts of the system. You don't buy the instrument, you buy it in parts. (With money in part too: the credit system ! And who takes advantage of it ? The people who governs you.) Artists, do you sell your art too ? Where do you find money to buy these expensive toys ? Artists, do you sell your art too ? Which minority has this money ? 3 billion people live under the threshold of poverty on our planet. What is music made with computer ? To spend most of our time deciphering software, repair crashed system than making music. Are you really making music for people ? For the other 3 billion with an empty wallet ? Without following the false and controlled economic market rules ? Who is free to create ? The computer artist ? Who is building computers, musical instruments and selling music, and for what ? The same big companies who indirectly control your creativity. You have just to fit in their economic-feed-circle to feed their power. Which music maker has access to this economic-colonialist culture ? What is the price [not cash!!] to lose our identity and independence by spending time with computer [not music] ? Computer tools make us busier than ever, and this is what these few people who govern the world want! These TOYS are supposed to be for artists ! They are not. Which experimental artist is enough blind to play this game ? How can you continuously upgrade and update your toys ? Where is creativity in this activity ? COMPUTER MUSIC IS THE OFFICIAL "ART" OF THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION. Who cares about programming in music ? The people who govern you. Who cares about computer problems ? Music makers ? What is this, the present of our future music, the Globalization of the Western Music ? The mondialization of the Western culture ? Are you these supporters ? Aren't you ashamed ? When are you going to support the END of this globalization of the Western culture from rich countries ? When are you going to support more equilibrium among the different cultures of the world ? Experimental Computer Music ? What a laugh ! What a lie to ourselves ! Computer music is the result of a privilege ! [3% of people in the world have access to a computer] And a fabulous trap for naive people ! To keep them busy by brainwashed and dead people's mind manipulated. The fascination for a "magical" new toy ! (Can computer people influence non-computer people to join the controlled "magical" club ? This is the wish of some powerful ones !). Who cares about computer music problems and how it is resolved ? The people who govern you, and music makers who don't know what is music for. Enough. Stop. Too much. One hides him/herself behind technique activities ! The easiest way to hide his/her lack of free creativity that nobody teaches in our Western civilization because the free creativity is the worst enemy of all kind of powers. People in free creativity cannot be controlled. WHERE IS MUSIC FOR PEOPLE ? It's time to awake and think about others. It's time to stop the Western globalization process. It's time to stop the privileges and share with others. It's time to start a solidarity among creators to stop the money-system process. It's time to make free music under any false commercial rules or governmental institutions that serve only the power of few people. It's time to make music for people, not for money. It's time for computer toys makers to join artists not the big companies (or to imitate them) which are working to submit and control the world.
Good by
Mathius Shadow-Sky
CMC answer #1
Some musicians (are they?) miss their job: "We have to be responsible and careful: "the artist and the philosopher are both doctors of the civilization" F. Nietzsche"
I will answer to some questions you asked me.
- Yes, the education system is a continuous problem since the beginning of our Western civilization (starting with Christian Church and even before) because people who govern want to keep people uneducated to control them. This now can be changed because of the fastest ways of communication. Anybody who wants to know can learn: and this is only the beginning.
- "have you even be poor"
My experience drives me in these fields several times. My experience is: you have first to eat to survive, you cannot perform with an empty stomach. If you re-act, it is only when you get so angry to find your last energy to act against inequality: some people eat, some people don't. With a full stomach you don't need to scream your anger, your body feels comfortable and you don't care what happened outside yourself.
- Sorry to offend your nationalism [Mouvement des individus qui prennent conscience de former une communauté nationale. Larousse dictionary]. I was born in France from Polish and Greek parents and now I spend most of my time in the US with my Brazilian wife and my daughter. What is an American ? The Natives who were quasi exterminated and now parked ! Or the majority of "aliens" living on the US territory ? But this was not the subject. The American Foreign Policy wants to take the lead of the world through economic and cultural weapons (see for example the IMA project, AMI in French that was fortunately dismissed thanks to non-governmental organizations through the Internet [yes!]). The American government act outside the US (less and less inside!) to slave other countries to American rules. Clinton said: "The US is the indispensable nation for the world" !!! America wants to buy the world to control it. What a strange project by the way !
It is why most of the non American people hate America and American people educate with a colonialist mind: expressed mostly through tourism. In other hand people outside the US are fascinated about the false American splendor and the symbol Dollars support this false image. Culture and communication are the most fabulous weapons to brainwash people. In Hungary, Czech and Poland for example the US film market is above 90%. Washington threatens them on saying that they will not have access to the OCDE [Organization of Economic Development and Cooperation] if they refuse to diffuse American movies. And if you know what is it -a pure American propaganda- you get scared for your children because this culture "attacks" your children: Walt Disney: the false splendor, Coca Cola, Mc Donald,etc.: the anti-healthy food, Hollywood TV and film companies: the brainwashed movies, etc. These products are disgusting ! America wants to be the new Napoleon, with cultural and economic weapons to erase all other cultures than American and to transform free people as their customers ! They must have headaches in Washington and Hollywood !
- By equilibrium I mean "équilibre" in French supported by respect of other cultures and people, the opposite of colonialism.
A last thing:
"The business of music is more often than not a world of small minds and little soul, where success is dictated by the ability to locate trends and accordingly manufacture the most lucrative product available. In this context, the lowest forms of capitalism emerge in insidious ways: the isolation and ghettoization of easily controlled "genres" and the encour-agement of planned obsolescence as ways to keep up the flow of "product" become the techniques for success. Vision, integrity, significance and expression - the driving forces behind the creative act - are sac-rificed as mere obstructions to the working of business." Peter Wetherbee/Axiom.
Some Institutions follow the same policy as private companies but with tax money from citizens, it is even worse !
Money has nothing to do with art, and everybody should know that to stop the process of privileges and manipulations.
Mathius Shadow-Sky
We do not want to offense anybody.
CMC DECEPTION
Cette fois je vais m'exprimer en français [ma langue natale] car depuis mon premier envoi concernant ma controverse à propos des musiciens utilisant l'ordinateur pour faire de la musique, je n'ai reçu [à part une ou deux] que des réponses insultantes ou des désirs, souvent anonymes, de me voir quitter la Maxlist ! Qui sont ces musiciens ? Je n'ai jamais rencontré autant de mauvaises fois, autant d'incompréhensions, autant d'insultes dans un si court laps de temps ! Pourquoi ? AI-JE TOUCHE UN POINT SENSIBLE, UN TABOU ? Certaines réponses ont été vraiment naïve comme par exemple me faire dire que "je veut changer le monde", c'est une remarque absurde et facile puisqu'on n'y fera rien. Personne n'a élevé le débat. Penser n'est pas tabou pour un musicien même parmi des problèmes pratiques à résoudre des problèmes techniques. Mon désir en tant que musicien est simplement d'ÉCHANGER une réflexion sur le rôle du musicien utilisant l'ordinateur hors du monde des privilèges. Ma controverse a démarré quand j'ai rencontré un certain nombre de musiciens sans le sous et qui auraient AUSSI aimé essayer de faire de la musique avec un ordinateur. Où sont les accès ? Par exemple l'investissement minimum pour avoir un système de traitement du son en temps réel cela coûte l'acquisition d'un ordinateur suffisamment "puissant" + un disque dur AV + une carte son + le/s programme/s + tous les autres à-côté nécessaires à faire fonctionner l'ordinateur au mieux. Tous les musiciens n'ont pas les moyens ! Personnellement je travaille avec un ordinateur obsolète me dit-on [un PPC 8100/80 port NuBus] qui ne peut pas faire fonctionner les derniers programmes ! Et je refuse le jeu de notre système économique: jetez -> consommez... Puis, je suis fatigué de la course aux upgrades qui ne fonctionnent jamais bien. Depuis que j'ai été introduit à la musique sur ordinateur en 1980, beaucoup de monde rêvaient aux possibilités extraordinaires qu'il pouvait réaliser. En 20 ans, ces rêves sont toujours des rêves, car la majorité des programmes supposés faire des choses extraordinaires ne fonctionnent pas vraiment bien et assembler un système dans certaines conditions (ne serait ce que climatique, ou même par manque de courant électrique) est parfois tout simplement impossible. Quand j'utilise un ordinateur sur scène, je sais le risque que je prends car à tout moment il peut "crasher", et cela m'est arrivé plusieurs fois. Par cette controverse mon désir est de PARTAGER en remettant en question l'utilisation de l'ordinateur en musique pour TROUVER DES SOLUTIONS PRATIQUES à cette activité en dehors des privilèges et des manipulations économiques. Il est possible de concevoir un ordinateur et des programmes bon marché sans rentrer dans l'excès de la course au plus de... Mais en relisant les réponses que j'ai reçu, QUELLE DÉCEPTION ! Tous ces "artistes" ne connaissent pas le sens du mot GÉNÉROSITÉ, et ils font de la musique pour les autres !
Continuez à m'attaquer si cela vous soulage, je continuerai à questionner.
A bientôt
Mathius Shadow-Sky