Think with the Goodiepal
Jan. 26th, 2009 05:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusI'm sitting in the front row of the Club Transmediale lecture theatre when I feel a hand on my shoulder. "Thank you for the song," says Goodiepal. The song in question is track eleven on Joemus, the one that recommends we "swing with the Goodiepal".
Although I've written a song named after him, I'd never met Faroese electronic musician, artist, educator and eccentric Kristian Vester, better known as Goodiepal, before his Berlin lecture yesterday afternoon. He came to the Kunstraum Kreuzberg to deliver a lecture at Club Transmediale entitled "Radical Computer Music and the War on the Scandinavian Education System". Although his lecture was hilariously bizarre -- he tipped a table on its side and started chalking illegible diagrams on it -- it also made a lot of sense. Goodiepal's main points were:
1. Computer Music and Media Art are stupid to the extent that they ask us to replicate the way computers think rather than complement it with our own human ways of thinking. Even computers, should they develop intelligence, won't want us just to do what they already do. They'll want us to do something different. We should fox them -- and fascinate them. We should make art and music that is "unscannable".
2. The same argument that applies to the relationship between computers and humans also applies to the relationship between Scandinavia and America. There's no point Scandinavian educators regurgitating American music theory from the likes of Kim Cascone, John Cage and Morton Feldman. They must provide an alternative, another way of thinking, a specifically Scandinavian one.
Goodiepal also used the lecture to demonstrate his handmade vinyl artworks and his artist's books, many of them concerned with finding new methods of music notation which avoid showing music as a simple progression from point A to point B.
I made a ten-minute video of edited highlights of Goodiepal's lecture yesterday. He began by telling us the lecture had lost him various prestigious Media Art jobs all over the world and even got him bashed on the head with a beer bottle. (I think this talk of being beaten up for his sharp tongue is a running joke of his.) He went on to show us a model of "black dystopian America" and give a hilarious impression of Bjork.
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Today between 3pm and 7pm Goodiepal supervises a workshop entitled Mort aux Vaches Ekstra Extra (pre-registration required, maximum fifteen people). And even if you're not in Berlin, you can hear him rehearsing the themes of his lecture in this mp3 walkthrough (with accompanying snaps).
To give you an idea of where this visionary Dane comes from, here he is in a forest outside Aarhus eight years ago, playing flute music:
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And here he is in Malmo last year playing a cosmic planet game and making a soundtrack for it:
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What an interesting man!
Although I've written a song named after him, I'd never met Faroese electronic musician, artist, educator and eccentric Kristian Vester, better known as Goodiepal, before his Berlin lecture yesterday afternoon. He came to the Kunstraum Kreuzberg to deliver a lecture at Club Transmediale entitled "Radical Computer Music and the War on the Scandinavian Education System". Although his lecture was hilariously bizarre -- he tipped a table on its side and started chalking illegible diagrams on it -- it also made a lot of sense. Goodiepal's main points were:
1. Computer Music and Media Art are stupid to the extent that they ask us to replicate the way computers think rather than complement it with our own human ways of thinking. Even computers, should they develop intelligence, won't want us just to do what they already do. They'll want us to do something different. We should fox them -- and fascinate them. We should make art and music that is "unscannable".
2. The same argument that applies to the relationship between computers and humans also applies to the relationship between Scandinavia and America. There's no point Scandinavian educators regurgitating American music theory from the likes of Kim Cascone, John Cage and Morton Feldman. They must provide an alternative, another way of thinking, a specifically Scandinavian one.
Goodiepal also used the lecture to demonstrate his handmade vinyl artworks and his artist's books, many of them concerned with finding new methods of music notation which avoid showing music as a simple progression from point A to point B.
I made a ten-minute video of edited highlights of Goodiepal's lecture yesterday. He began by telling us the lecture had lost him various prestigious Media Art jobs all over the world and even got him bashed on the head with a beer bottle. (I think this talk of being beaten up for his sharp tongue is a running joke of his.) He went on to show us a model of "black dystopian America" and give a hilarious impression of Bjork.
[Error: unknown template video]
Today between 3pm and 7pm Goodiepal supervises a workshop entitled Mort aux Vaches Ekstra Extra (pre-registration required, maximum fifteen people). And even if you're not in Berlin, you can hear him rehearsing the themes of his lecture in this mp3 walkthrough (with accompanying snaps).
To give you an idea of where this visionary Dane comes from, here he is in a forest outside Aarhus eight years ago, playing flute music:
[Error: unknown template video]
And here he is in Malmo last year playing a cosmic planet game and making a soundtrack for it:
[Error: unknown template video]
What an interesting man!
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GO GO GOODIEPAL!!!
Date: 2009-01-26 05:38 am (UTC)Goodiepal against Cage against Branca... I think I might side with the Parl! That is great that you got to see him live...please listen to the walkthough, everyone, and listen closely and patiently! Also, remember that Goodiepal does not consider himself to be a conceptual artist, but a music educator! And anyone who can aquire his school book can become part of his Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra composition... which i would say is the vangarde of music composition right now...
Sarah from i^3
Re: GO GO GOODIEPAL!!!
Date: 2009-01-26 05:41 am (UTC)and hair!
but i still love you!
Stalkers
Date: 2009-01-26 08:38 am (UTC)Re: Stalkers
Date: 2009-01-26 11:33 am (UTC)Re: Stalkers
Date: 2009-01-26 12:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 12:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 12:46 pm (UTC)I think what he means is "We should be making art that exceeds the replication capacity of current computer technology". We should be expressing the complexities of human existence by pushing the boundaries of "unreplicatability".
You could argue that all art except computer generated art has a degree of unreplicatability. For example, seeing a painting on your computer screen isn't the same as seeing the three dimensional textures of the paint in real life. The same goes for music even though we generally don't stray far from digital stereo. Last year I went to listen to Roberto Cuoghi's sound installation Šuillakku (http://www.ica.org.uk/Roberto%20Cuoghi:%20%8Auillakku+17448.twl) at the ICA and this installation cannot be replicated with current home technology or as an MP3 file. You need a room full of speakers because the sounds come from many different channels and two 2 separate rooms at once.
Sound and vision dominate art and digital technology, in fact there's no technology at present that can replicate taste or touch (smell has been attempted). However, there are good examples of other art that requires the 3 neglected senses.
I'm going to see the Lucky Dragons (http://www.myspace.com/luckydragons) play later tonight and they incorporate touch into their gigs, it's a major aspect of their art:
"Lucky Dragons shows are about the birthing of new and temporary creatures, creating equal-power situations in which audience members cooperate amongst themselves, to build a fragile network of digital signals connected by touching on the skin."
I'm probably gonna raise a few eyebrows by mentioning this guy but I'm a fan of the so-called culinary alchemist Heston Blumenthol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heston_Blumenthal). Food get's a raw deal in the art world, it seems to be separated off from it for some reason.
He obviously represents the smell and taste aspects of unreplicatability in art. He treats food like science and creates meals that try to replicate human memories and experiences, his most famous being "The sound of the sea".
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 12:59 pm (UTC)The second one, however:
There's no point Scandinavian educators regurgitating American music theory from the likes of Kim Cascone, John Cage and Morton Feldman. They must provide an alternative, another way of thinking, a specifically Scandinavian one.
Firstly, assuming that you agree with Goodiepal here, don't you think it's always tended to be the role of educators to establish the status quo, and of the students to challenge that status quo?
Secondly, although my musical education is seriously limited (a rather tepid GCSE qualification), it's struck me that by and large music education has never really had a strong nationalistic remit. Cage, I know, admired Satie, for instance. I know too that you push the post-nationalist idea in click opera..
I suppose the idea here is that because the US is some kind of cultural-imperialist behemoth, even in the field of avant-garde media art, it is the role of The Rest Of The World to blithely reject the ideas of Cage, Feldman et al. because of their implicit association with said imperialist behemoth.
Which I think is pretty stupid, actually..
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 02:20 pm (UTC)Goodiepalindromes
Date: 2009-01-26 02:27 pm (UTC)But what if we really do give the keys, so to speak, to the computers themselves, and liberate them from our silly human limitations at last? Allow them to play not so much for or with us but for themselves (not that this hasn't been tried already). No good, no evil, no difference, none of those self-limiting carbon-based lifeform binaries. I'm probably not making any more sense here than I normally do, but I suddenly had this fear that in the future our computers will, without any help from us, become roboticized Celine Dions and Barry Manilows, serving up the frothiest schmaltziest cyber-melismatic emotional gush, with realistic intensity and synthetic tears--because, you know, computers are, after all, only human. And we'll have to listen to it in airports and on esplanades everywhere.
No, I'd rather have Harry Partch's music machines come to life and play themselves, screw and noodle and fondle and funk each other. Are Buchla and Subotnik the Muzak of yesterday's future?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 02:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 02:48 pm (UTC)Food get's a raw deal in the art world, it seems to be separated off from it for some reason.
I can't agree with this. Food-as-art is such a trendy meme it's in danger of getting over-exposed. The first event at the last Documenta was a meal in a restaurant, presented as a performance. The founding work of the Relational Aesthetics school is Rirkrit Tiravanija's Thai curry suppers in various galleries. And I just interviewed Jerszy Seymour for ID magazine, and Jerszy is staging banqueets in various museums as artworks these days.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 02:49 pm (UTC)The Faroes are part of Denmark.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 02:51 pm (UTC)Re: Goodiepalindromes
Date: 2009-01-26 03:13 pm (UTC)What do you make of this?
Ben
PS The best palindrome I've ever come up with is "Stiff O Dairyman in a myriad of fits" ... I'm imagining a Robin Askwith film soundtracked with either Mr Proctor or Strewf!
Re: Stalkers
Date: 2009-01-26 03:18 pm (UTC)Reading jail?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 03:22 pm (UTC)"Reject" is the wrong word. "Complement" is better. Goodiepal simply doesn't want peripheral points to replicate the information in central points. Just as computers will thank us for being humans rather than replicant computers, so Americans will thank us for being Swedes, Danes etc rather than replicant Americans. That's what his beatboxing (in the video) is about. Do Berliners want a Swedish beatboxer, when they could have an American one? No, because of Sweden's social situation it's pretty unlikely to be better than the original. Sweden should supply specifically Swedish culture. Goodiepal mocks this a little (with his Bjork-as-Nazi impersonation), but what he's really saying there is that nationalism is only bad in the context of power. When nations like Iceland are nationalistic, it's quite different. As I see it, Goodiepal is supporting "asymmetrical multiculturalism" here -- the idea that everything depends on context and power balances when it comes to nation and race.
And I certainly wouldn't say that I push the post-nationalist idea on Click Opera. I'm very much into Japaneseness or Germanness or whatever. See Tutti frutti requires fruit, but folk soul doesn't require Hitler (http://imomus.livejournal.com/308507.html). The idea is that specific rooted cultures and multiculturalism are in a symbiotic relationship. You can't have one without the other. They complement each other. That's what harmony means: different notes resonating well with each other.
Firstly, assuming that you agree with Goodiepal here, don't you think it's always tended to be the role of educators to establish the status quo, and of the students to challenge that status quo?
I only half agree with Goodiepal -- obviously I discuss Cage et al as much as anyone else. But I also discuss Goodiepal, and I think it's crucial that we keep encouraging people like him, who are actually much fresher and more relevant to what's happening now than Cage or Morton Feldman is. Their rootedness in Scandinavia is central to this freshness. Goodiepal's riff on Mickey Mouse isn't just a joke. How can Mickey be our friend when he's everywhere and has done everything? We can never say "My friend Mickey would never do this!" Because Mickey has done it all. He has no flavour because he has no limits. And the US is rather like Mickey. We cannot befriend something with no limits, no flavour. And we cannot avoid the question of our friend's power. What we can do is avoid the blandness and blindness that power brings with it. But, again, it isn't either/or. We don't destroy the US, we complement it. We offer compatible alternatives.
As for teachers and students, they also complement each other, but I don't think the roles have to be as fixed as you're suggesting. Either can challenge, and either can represent the status quo.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 03:32 pm (UTC)Okay, I know we're no longer talking to eachother but that's the best typo I've seen today
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 03:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 03:40 pm (UTC)You're more up on this than me I have to admit, I wasn't aware of those examples you'd given. I find it fascinating. And yet, even when food gets a chance at the centre stage it's disregarded as a "trendy meme" in the art world. It seems odd to me to dismiss it when this surge of interest in branching out is a good thing. I'm constantly asked by artists to look at their work, or listen to it, it's much rarer to be asked to taste it, or touch it or smell it. This approach so neglected because people don't take it seriously.
Human's engage with their world through thier senses. With regards to art, I still thing smell, taste and touch are seriously over-looked even if "food art" is due to be the next big art fad of 2009.
I also wanted to ask you, are you aware of KIE magazine? I don't think I've seen you mention it on your blog
What's your opinion of it?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 03:46 pm (UTC)Life's too short.
Re: Goodiepalindromes
Date: 2009-01-26 03:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 04:00 pm (UTC)"My favourite magazine at the moment is Kateigaho International Edition (KIE), a magazine about traditional Japanese culture which comes out four times a year. I was reading it last week at Cha No Ma in Vienna, and thinking that it gives me more pleasure than, say, defunct youth culture mag Relax ever did. With Relax I always had to put up with features on graffiti and skateboarding and the pretense that Californian culture was the most beautiful anywhere -- something I knew to be a lie.
"Relax is dead, and Spike Jonze isn't as young as he used to be. Meanwhile KIE continues to serve up features on traditional Japanese culture which look -- shockingly -- as fresh as a daisy, as if this stuff -- trad Japanese sweets, or bathing, or jewelry -- were something happening in the future rather than the past."
Unfortunately, KIE has just called it a day. The current edition will be the last.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 04:09 pm (UTC)It's a real shame KIE is coming to a end. Ping Mag is dead too.
R.I.P. Japanese-arty-stuff
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-26 04:14 pm (UTC)