| Alessandro Ludovico on Sun, 23 May 1999 00:54:24 +0200 (CEST) |
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| <nettime> ludovicogram 052299 [digest]: scanner, deb levine interviews |
Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 18:47:50 +0200 From: Alessandro Ludovico <[email protected]> Subject: Scanner interview --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interview excerpted from 'Neural', Italian magazine about the digital culture at large, web: http://www.pandora.it/neural/ mail: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scanner is one of the most acclaimed music terrorists, experimenting with stolen sounds and conversations. >Do you think audio devices constantly connected to the net would be as >intriguing as the webcams? In a sense yes, but then again isn't it just as curious sometimes to just listen to your own neighbours through the window? i wonder who really attends to watching these webcasts, do they only do it in case they catch the glimpse of flesh, sex? >The audiospace you create is really 'physical', 'cause it involves the >voice, one of the well recognized sign of the human presence. Do you work >to render it as much physical as you can, or your goal is to make the voice >the most abstract? As the years have passed so my ideas about voices and the use of sound has evolved. Earlier on i would use the voices openly and bluntly almost to draw attention to the brutal physicality. Recently i have used them in more abstracted manner, processing them more and using them more as a texure, in fact such that they have become a backdrop at times to the use of my own voice in the work. So i have not left the voice behind, merely displaced it for the time being. >If you can make an object talk, which would be of your choice and why? what a strange question - well, i often wonder how speakers remember things, the sounds they have heard, and would love to hear a speaker describe its history. think of all the terrible sounds your poor speakers have had to endure over the years as you grew up! >Do you feel eavesdropped sometimes? When? I think we all share this feeling at times. i realise the more public ones work becomes though the more self conscious one becomes. people you meet might already have an idea of who you are or what you do, this is an odd feeling to adapt to. i do my utmost to guard my personal space. >After Surface Noise, the recent performance on the double decker bus >touring the tourist London, what's your next creative effort you care so >much of? I do seem to work on some grandscale quite experimental projects- for the moment i am working on London Calling, a show in the Metropolitan Museum in Korea, soundtracking the show for a royal visit by the Queen of England in April, then i am working on ideas towards a permanent sound installation in the Science Museum in London starting year 2000. >Tell me an audio art project you'd be enthusiastic to be funded for. I am still attemping to work on a piece whereby i have access to all the undelivered mail in a city and install speakers inside post boxes to read this lost mail. it is the against the law in this country to tamper with post so i could not complete this project, but with the right resources i am sure it would be possible. >Do you think the computer speech synthesizer software could be a musical >instrument of the future? quite possibly. remember people would never had expected computers to be producing music in the past, nor half the instrumentation we use. >What could be the interaction between literature and music in the digital >domain? i wonder...ummm. we are already experiencing the new threshold of musical exploration in the digital age and how samplers how totally changed our perception of creativity, yet the word still remains on the page and seems destined to, perhaps it needs to. i have friends who use experimental typefaces and i wonder whether this is how the text will adapt to technology, the ability to mutate and live on the page. >What you think about the generative music? Is it realistic to think it'll >evolve so fast to generate soon endless melodies enjoyable by anyone? I have yet to be impressed by any generative music, that is not to say i do not appreciate the concept, just that the final sounds are always a rather sugary disappointment. also i would question the validity of producing such software - does it imply that we all wish to become musicians, that we need this opportunity. i wonder whether if someone produced software that wrote a detective novel, a romance, a science fiction book, how people would respond? i am really not sure. >Sampling conversations might imply to changing the context of the phrases, >and so their meaning. Do you care about that? in a sense yes. that is what a lot of visual art has played with, this deconstructing an image, taking it into a new context, making you see or listen with sound in a new way, to slightly alter the sense of normality one would presume. i like to play with narrative and leave more work up to the listener. recently i have worked on several BBC radio commissions which have followed these ideas - Jean Cocteau's The Human Voice last year and currently Midsummer Night's Dream. >Would you enjoy to create artistic answer machine's outgoing messages? Actually i still find too much pleasure in hearing other peoples messages and how they create their space. >If you could substitute the survaillance cameras placed in London, what >you'd like to install there, instead? tiny speakers that play the sounds of other places, displacing the listener subtlely. so a quiet street could have the sound of water passing through, the countryside the sound of train passing and so on. >Could you tell me anything about your current work with Laurie Anderson? >How is it evolving? we worked on a performance piece in london 18 months ago with 100 violinists in London and i intend to work with her again to record a string quartet she has written for a new label i set up called Sulphur Inc. Alessandro Ludovico [email protected] Neural Online - http://www.pandora.it/neural/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 18:48:00 +0200 From: Alessandro Ludovico <[email protected]> Subject: Deb Levine interview --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interview excerpted from 'Neural', Italian magazine about the digital culture at large, web: http://www.pandora.it/neural/ mail: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deb Levine is the author of 'The joy of cybersex' and owner of the 'Ask Alice' sex help line in USA college campus. >What's the weirdest question you've been asked to reply? The truth is, most of the questions I get from people about sex, love and relationships are quite normal. People want to know how much sex is the "right amount," if their genitals are "normal" size, and how to know if they're in love. Funny, I thought the questions would be stranger in nature, but instead I get very similar questions over and over again. Okay, though, you want something strange? Here's a funny one: A woman accountant screams out figures (numbers) whenever she's having an orgasm. Her boyfriend wanted to know if this was normal behavior. I said, "As long as she's happy and you're not turned off by it, what could be the problem?" >What's, in your opinion, the worst difficulty for men, and for women, >while approaching online? I always tell people that if they're using the Internet to meet others romantically, to make sure and take along their common sense. There's no reason to lose your head, or suspend judgment just because the Internet is involved. Most important, before going on-line to meet people, think about what you want out of the interaction. Is it a long-term relationship? Some fun and laughs? A sexual release? A new friend? Whichever it is, act in ways that will attract who you want. For example, if you want a long-term relationship, don't have cybersex with someone before you meet them in person. And if you're looking for a "quickie," you don't need to know a whole lot of identifying information about the person with whom you're about to cyber. >What would be the positive and negative psychological consequences of >anonimity in cybersex? The good part about the anonymity of cyberspace is that it allows people a freedom to explore their sexuality that's difficult to do in "real life." Our societies are obsessed with sex -- we use sex to sell cars, perfume, clothing and more. Yet we rarely talk about our sexuality in open, honest, direct conversations. The Internet allows that. The anonymity gives people a chance to ask the questions they have about sex without any fear, shame, or embarrassment. The bad part about the anonymity is that sometimes it brings out the worst in human nature. Think about it: Have you ever gone to a cocktail party where a guy walks in and announces, "Anyone want to have sex?" It just doesn't happen. In a chat room, it's a common occurrence for a man to enter a room and ask, "Anyone want to cyber?" Fortunately, the crass tact doesn't work all that well, because most of these guys shape up in a hurry. (Internet etiquette and all) >If some AI software (as Eliza) would be coded to attract humans with its >fictious (perfectly rendered) >words, would the real persons get annoyed to interact each other, asking >for virtual perfection, as >frequently seems to happen today with the visuals? No, I don't think so. People say what they like most about cybersex is the feeling of being desired by another person. When you know "the person" you're cybering with is really computer software, the same magic isn't there. Some people probably have more vivid imaginations and will be able to enjoy computer simulation of cybersex, but for most of us, it's the human being on the other end that turns us on. >Is there anything that simply seems to doesn't work online (any >technology/tools/actions)? Well, the on-line world is not a substitute for real life sex. Humans still need physical contact and intimacy. While cybersex is great as a form of exploration, sexual release, safer sex and more, it just doesn't provide the intimacy that a real-life interaction can. Not to mention, in order to propogate the species, we need to have physical sex. ;) > If the net'll work very speedy, what'd be an innovative tool to use? I think the most interesting use of real-video on the Net would be for sex therapy. Right now, sex therapy is only legal in a few places, and there are very few licensed sex therapists in the U.S. (only in major cities such as New York and Los Angeles). It would be wonderful if people who needed a boost to their sex lives or sexual technique could have on-line sex therapy sessions where they could "meet" the therapist and "see" the techniques. And possibly even have cybersex with a virtual sex surrogate to help them overcome any sexual problems. Alessandro Ludovico [email protected] Neural Online - http://www.pandora.it/neural/ --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: [email protected]