RATIONALE / CONCEPT - DIGITAL MONSTER?

Just because something is powerful, should it be feared and considered evil? I believe it’s how we as humans use and manipulate it that matters...
The subject of power that I’m looking at is to do with the Internet. The Internet offers endless amounts of possibilities, as nowadays technology is accelerating and growing at a high rate, which is making anything seem possible. This can excite both euphoria and fear.

I’ve decided to make a sound piece to portray the internet as something powerful, capable of mass destruction that has been dormant but is awakening. As what the internet offers, is an amalgamation of ideas and machines from past centuries. Now our technology is able to conceive such ideas, as previous technologies weren’t advanced enough. The piece shows this internet beast creating fear and terrorising civilization.

I’m almost creating an auditory movie, in terms of story and it sounding like a film soundtrack. I Hope that the sound is enough to tell the story, rather than using moving image. Using just sound, and doing it well, will enable the audience to imagine it themselves and allows the mind to be creative. Just as Cloverfield included no background story in the film, but through random websites, cryptic clues and possibilities of the story are there to be explored, enabling viewers to come up with our own theories and ideas.

My piece is mimicking and amalgamating the stories of H.P Lovecraft’s novel ‘The Call of Cthulhu,’ Godzilla, and the Cloverfield monster. The internet is being portrayed as this monstrous digital creature, awakening at the depths of the earth to unleash itself on the world. All these creatures from films such as Godzilla and Frankenstein, are all metaphorically and realistically representing our cultures anxiety’s and fears form certain periods of time. Examples include, Clovefield- messing with nature or disrupting our planet, Godzilla- the greed of people and the threat of the A-Bomb, Frankenstein- Tampering with life. They all follow this idea of mans creation becoming more powerful than us, and wiping us out.

My monster will be representing our modern day fear and paranoia of the Internet. As without knowing it we are open to identity fraud with all our bank details, and your boss sacking you for seeing inappropriate pictures of you on Facebook ect. Events such as these can often destroy someone’s life. So that is why my digital beast is represented as destructive.

However, I believe a lot of this online paranoia is stuff we should be aware of, but not let it get in the way of using it for good things. The piece comes across as this is something to be feared of. But infact, if it wasn’t for the internet I wouldn’t have been able to create this track, as a lot of sounds used where recorded or downloaded off the net. I then used music programmes (which I had downloaded, rather than pay £700 or so) to sequence and manipulate them.

To conclude, it’s a double edged sword when defining if the internet is something to be feared of. As it offers amazing possibilities, but due to this it also creates fear of the unknown or unthinkable, like the depths of the ocean. Like I said earlier, this can excite both euphoria and fear. What if this power is the wrong hands? What if we misunderstand such powers in the world? What could happen? But in my case, I just used the internet’s power to aid me in being creative and make a piece of music to demonstrate our cultures latest anxiety and paranoia.

kristos animal nets

EXAM PROJECT - So Far.......

For my end of year project, i have decided to make a sound piece.

The piece will be more ambient and sensual, rather than melodic tunes and tight rhythms.

The track will be representing technology of the internet as a huge kind of monster/creature/beast. The piece will show the progression of this beast being dormant(sleeping), but then arising and unleashing itself on the world. It will be kind of mimicking the story of Godzilla or Cthuhlu, arising and attacking the world.

I intend to use sounds found by myself on the internet, as well as from old horror movies such as Frankenstein and Godzilla. I'm also creating sounds using live instruments, as well as using Midi. I will use several music programs to create it. The main one being 'REASON'.

I did think of using visuals, but after thinking it over and discussing it with my tutor, i thought best to focus on just the sound, and make it really strong.

Dissertation - Summary - THE WORK OF AURA IN THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

To begin to summarise, I believe that the rise of mechanical reproduction, has radically affected how art, film and music is created and distributed as well as making us question how we create and classify art. Due to the breakdown of traditional methods, classifying art can come in limitless forms. It could be argued that within the wider context, an entirely new art form has been created which affects all these different media that encompasses both its creation and distribution as fairly equal aspects. However it could be said that the digital era is leading to the extinction of physical formats. This is inextricably linked to the demand of our current culture for instant accessibility to multimedia. Our current society is highly immersed in technology which has become a commodity of everyday life. Through a large and complex system of information and communication, multi- media are made accessible on many formats which are also open to manipulation.

The machinery and technology that is argued to dictate our digital culture cannot be represented in physical terms no more. Computer technology is making information almost disappear and become invisible. But it is almost becoming natural to us to conceive work as data rather than something tangible. The same can be said of how multi- media is increasingly being created and represented. Through the rise of capitalism and it’s compulsive drive towards abstraction, it has broadly shaped our Digital landscape. Which could say that aura in physicality is becoming of less importance or relevance as our culture demands instant access to the broad spectrum of media, and capitalism is there to provide at any expense or consequences. Just as in the film Blade Runner, the world is run by capitalist companies, such as Tyrell, that has made advancements in the means of technology and are able to clone humans. But this seems to of come at some consequence of the planet, as it’s always dark and raining.

The distinction of aura is constantly being blurred as it seems to be very relevant to the past that tie in with nostalgic elements. Time and development of technology is continuously liquidating aura and nostalgia. It is forever changing as everything is relative to what came before and after. But the ever increasing rate at which it is now morphing and becoming ever abstract, is constantly multiplying in pace due to technologies capabilities nowadays. It’s almost like a fast-forward effect that makes development happen at a dramatic rate in a short amount of time. A speeding up of the process, which can excite both terror and euphoria.

Walter Benjamin argued that aura is lost when an original piece of art is reproduced. However that is not the case in digital culture, as different mediums are a created in digital formats, so an original was never there. So how will aura be defined in digital work? I feel that nostalgia will be forever present in defining aura in the same way that certain smells and sounds can evoke specific and vivid memories of childhood and is essentially informed by the perceptions and experiences of the viewer relating to the work. Different artifacts of work are now accessible on many different formats, but more and more it only exists as information located in a broad digital media scope, such as the internet or our personal mp3 players and computers. No longer will something such as a CD have its own individual aura of physicality. The content itself can trigger nostalgia, but I certainly believe that it loses a considerable amount of its experience, due to it how it’s viewed, or listened to in a digital format.

There might come a time when we will no longer be able to revisit old artifacts such as a vinyl, and be listened on a record player. Not only would this trigger nostalgic aura in terms of the music itself, but interacting with this artifact of the past gives it something unique due to its interaction and physical experience. Whereas viewing films, or listening to music on your computer as just digital data, it has a more generic experience. A simple few clicks and you’re viewing a feature length film. This definitely does not ruin your viewing, if anything its better thanks to the digitizing of media. It allows greater variation of interacting and viewing it, but only as digital information. But I believe this is at the expense of physical formats and machines that can also be integral to a certain piece of art or media.
Through the huge blanket of communication created by our digital culture, people are beginning literally to take matters into their own hands, and manipulate and evolve our culture through the means of technology, at a rate never previously achieved.