Bill Hartenstein — ThisDjisXtremelyNervous
Cosmos & Compost — Winter 2023
Automated and randomized real-time endless blend between two decades of Top100 pop song acapellas and an ever-repeating pop anthem instrumental. Song selection by Spotify curators. Created by Apple Automator. Built-in massage function. 100% automated satisfaction.
“Discussing his invention of the ‘readymade’, Marcel Duchamp said his invention was to free the art from the sphere of the handmade; a sample is like a sonic readymade, and artists who make music out of samples are freeing music from the sphere of the hand-played.” (Simon Reynolds, “Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past.”, 2011.)
Adorno writes about the “Regression of Listening”. From my understanding, Regression of listening by Adorno, means something like, that our brain gets used to an increasingly homogenous music format and becomes less curious, a transformation that I consider to be partly correct in the context of an increasingly extensive "quantification" of the individual, a de-individualisation and a potential isolation of the individual. The calculated way in which trigger-rich nostalgic material is used on SoundCloud or TikTok fits quite well in the context of the regression of listening and the de-individualisation of listening habits. But I think there is also a much more positive view on music recycling, flipping or sampling as a creative practice. (Theodor W. Adorno, “Essays on Music”, 1938.)
The author, beatmaker and rapper Said, Amir states “Hip hop is actually a culture of sampling”. (2015, p. 50) By framing hip hop culture in this way, Said refers to the abilities of the residents of the South Bronx who, suffering from the fragmentation caused by the South Bronx Disaster, took parts of the American mainstream media and converted them/flipped them to suit their own needs and values. Sampling as a practice can create identity and be a breeding ground for completely new musical or cultural developments, such as the famous 5.2 second "amen break" sample is responsible for the emergence of jungle and drum and bass. (Said Amir, “The Art of Sampling”, 2015.)
There is often the assumption that nostalgia refers exclusively to the past. As stated by Svetlana Boym that is not entirely true. Nostalgia can also be seen as as a progressive force, a restitution of a sense of community due to a deficiency of the present. Working with nostalgic material never recreates something past. Sample based productions coordinating something already emotionally charged into the present and the outcome of this is a new collage, more like an encounter between the past and the present aimed to satisfy present desires. (Svetlana Boym “The Future of Nostalgia”, 2001.)
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