A rare and unique opportunity to hear four Koan music engines in “the ecstasy of communication.” (Jean Baudrillard)
- Music engine 1 representing Noise
- Music engine 2 representing Voice
- Music engine 3 representing Rhythm
- Music engine 4 representing Tonality
4x12 hour performances
Transmitted via 4 towers at the “Klangpark”, an open-air acoustic projection space in Linz.
Each tower will be assigned a simultaneous signal. The distance between the towers:
- 2 towers near the Brucknerhaus: 60 meters
- 2 towers near the River Danube: 80 meters
- Distance between the Brucknerhaus and the river: 120 meters
DARK SYMPHONY—if you want to see, first you must hear.
“Music is in advance, because music reaches the limits of any given code before the rest of society does. You can create different possible musics within a given code much more rapidly than you can explore the possible ways of organising realities. Matter is more difficult to transform.” (Jacques Attali)
Why has the music engine appeared at this point in history?
Has it found any value yet, as a mass cultural identity?
DARK SYMPHONY—Image=signifier
The music engine is a composing/erasing image.
“When it’s new there’s less instruction, it’s not that there’s less law, it’s just not written down yet. When it's new, you have to find new rules in yourself, when to work, when to love more.”(Jean-Luc Godard)
My concern here is what images can in and of themselves best communicate the phenomenon of the music engine. And can this phenomenon stand out alone, as truly as say, the cinema does from painting?
DARK SYMPHONY—in a state of disappearing
The music engine, like the search engine, is a device for the selection and erasure of memory. For each image it presents, we should also consider that far more potential information is being forgotten, the music engine is not merely affirming existence, but also erasing it.
DARK SYMPHONY—the image is always after the fact.
In the moment of singularity, in that frame, we name “the present.” Where the gaze rests, the music engine has made its choice, and all further potential is erased.
The music engine cannot stop projecting images until you turn it off.
The output has many varying risks.
When we listen to it, what will it say?
Contributors:
Paul Cohen, Tim Cole, Tim Didymus, Brian Eno, Andrew Garton, Richard Garrett, Michael Hagleitner, Mark Harrop, Al Jolley, Yoshio Machida, Kelvin L. Smith, Emilia Telese, Mashashi Genzan Yano
Editing: Al Jolley / Tim Didymus
Curated by Tim Didymus
Dark Symphony at ARS Electronica 2003