A Million Keys

New Romantics


Caspar David Freidrich, The wanderer above the sea of fog

Michael Bell Smith, Continue 2000

Read this tidbit from things magazine, one of my favorite blogs, this morning:

There’s a lack of depth on the internet, a world with an atmosphere just one pixel thick that has reached out across all forms of media and turned everything into a vast, shallow pool that stretches as far as the eye can see. All visual culture is instantly at our fingertips, with the thrill of discovery superseded by a high fructose corn syrup buzz that comes from near-constant, 30fps stimulation….

...What does it all mean? Maybe we’re happy with living in simulation. Those people who ‘buy the download to listen to, but … get the vinyl to own’ are clinging to the last few bits and pieces that are no longer bits and bytes. Objects are dematerialising, reduced to little square jpgs that you can shuffle through. The imitation of depth and the deluded sense of global cultural immersion is creating a modern flatland that is reducing everything down to one level.

Coincidentally, I also read this article on Sibelius in last week’s New Yorker which touched on his alienation in the 1920s from the more vanguard composers of the period. As well as an article by Celeste Olalquiaga in the new issue of Cabinet on Andre Breton’s obsessive collecting habits and its fundamental relationship to the increased rationality of things in the early twentieth century. There’s a very clear parallel between the romantic rejection of rationalization- especially in the realm of objects- in the early twentieth century and contemporary dubiousness about the current direction of technology and its impact- as evidenced from the things article above. I know that connection has been evident to most of us for a while now- but for me in the last week it’s been especially perceptible.

Last night a friend of mine pointed me towards Splice Music – a website that allows users to collaborate on music live with other users. The site is still in development, but I assume it will be like flickr- but sound based and more interactive. A modern flatland that reduces everything to one level? Mmmmm. In some ways. But think about the end result. See below for a sample of Splice.