Webspinna - Modernity

Tectonic Shift
Stockhausen, Es Ist Ihr Gehirn, Das Ich Suche
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Air Raid Siren


Artist's Statement

Like most of the assignments in this class, the webspinna project required me to take advantage of modern media through the use of computer technology and the internet. Technology in the digital age has opened the doors to a myriad of creative possibilities, but it also implies some negative consequences as well. Thematically, I decided to observe the age of modernity and technology in both celebration and denunciation. The piece opens with anonymous inorganic sounds, addressing the concept of using inventive tools to master one’s domain by separating machinery from nature. Next, the trance-like electronic wave sounds celebrate the new variety of sounds made possible in the digital age and, by extension, the diversity of creative potential available through the use of modern computer equipment. Conversely, the soliloquy about urban unrest entitled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by poet Gil Scott-Heron illustrates the discord that is possible in the contemporary age, especially in the sprawling metropolitan environment. The monologue is filled with pop culture references about television and modern commercialism. Finally, the mix ends with the unnerving, prophetic sound of an air raid alarm siren, which exemplifies the atrocities that have become possible through advancements in military technology. This contrast in themes illustrates the spectrum of benefits and difficulties that accompany the powerful capacities of modern scientific application in technology.

Sharing my webspinna proved to be a rewarding experience. I worked very hard to select and orchestrate my sounds and spent a great deal of time rehearsing them. The day after the performance, I received multiple compliments on the piece from my peers in the class, which culminated in a rather serious case of the warm-fuzzies. The evening of the performance was an excellent opportunity to network and bond with my fellows, and was a uniquely entertaining experience.

This webspinna is simply an arrangement of preexisting recordings or generations of sound, which draws upon cultural preconceptions as artistic shorthand in drawing associations. As this eclectic compilation is presented, new thematic meaning and artistic value emerge. Paul D. Miller (aka “D.J. Spooky”) deliberates on this phenomenon: “The artist, navigating the innumerable ways to arrange the mix of cultural ideas and objects that bombard us, uses technology and art to create something new and expressive and endlessly variable. Technology provides the method and model; information on the web, like the elements of a mix, doesn't stay in one place. And technology is the medium, bridging the artist's consciousness and the outside world” (Rhythm Science). Even though the sounds collected in my webspinna are not my own fabrications, their synergy became my own unique creation at the moment of their assemblage.

Pablo Picasso’s mixed-medium collage entitled "Compotier avec fruits, violon et verre" (1912) is conceptually similar to the webspinna assignment: both are collations of preexisting imagery compiled in a manner that generates new meaning that is different and more than the sum of the componential fragments. True to the nature of Picasso’s cubist style, the piece offers a depiction of fruit and a guitar (both are auteur motifs in his art) in a shattered mode of existence. In fact, the collage uses only enough explicit imagery to suggest the presence of those objects covertly, but they are present nonetheless. Also like the webspinna, the components have been removed from their original contexts, thrusting their precise identities into obscurity. However the identification of the original intent for each fragment is unimportant. All that matters is the aesthetic characteristics of the components themselves as they contribute to the medley.

Pablo Picasso "Compotier avec fruits, violon et verre" (1912)