Xenakis, Leonardo Electronic Music

7/21/2019 Xenakis, Leonardo Electronic Music

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CD of The Most Wanted Song (5min.) and The Most Unwanted Song (21 min 59 sec). The first is a mid-tempo rock love song of blisteringblandness that will be unavoidably anduncontrollably `likedby 72 12% oflisteners,as Soldier explains in thesleeve notes. Vocalist Ada Dyer squirmsher way through Nina Mankins like-ablelyrics (Lying in my silken sheets/I think of ways that we might meet)

and is answered by a deep-voicedRonnie Gent, sounding a little likeMeat Loaf. After a couple of minutes,Vernon Reid of Living Color steps infirmly on electric guitar, as Gent muses,Maybe she likes reading Wittgenstein/Fancy dinners drinking good red wine.This odd intrusion of the Austrian phi-losopher is presumably because 21% ofthe survey said they want intellectualstimulation when they listen to music.

The song gets even funnier as it cli-maxes, with guitar and saxophone (AndySnitzer) both contributing solos that

subtly parody the clichs of the genre.Meanwhile the Most Unwanted Songlurches from loud to soft and from fastto slow tempos, while a soprano (the un-

wavering Dina Emerson) sings aboutcowboys, politics and advertising.Theres an infuriating childrens choirand, of course, plenty of accordion andbagpipes. Wittgenstein pops up here too,as a sturdy 21% named intellectualstimulation as their least important re-sponse when listening to music.

Amidst their statistical breakdownsand three-dimensional pie charts, Komar

& Melamid ask: What kind of culture isproduced by a society that lives and gov-erns itself by opinion polls? In a world

where the music business seems to relyever more heavily on marketing cam-paigns, a world in which Celine Dionsells a disturbing number of records, thetastes of the masses are certainly a cru-cial issue. In Soviet-era Russia, artistsstruggled to produce peoples artthat

would hopefully be encouraging forworking people, but was also based on aconfident prediction of what the peoplereallywanted. Marxist Leninism pro-

vided a special analysis, a means of know-ing what the people wanted better thanthey knew themselves.

Nowadays I feel that people workingin mass media such as television andtabloid newspapers have this samehaughty confidence, this same superiorinsight into what the man in the streetlikes. And of course these beliefs areself-fulfilling, for the culture promotedby TV and tabloids is assumed by every-

one to be overwhelmingly popular. Thisis the subject of Thomas Franks stir-ring essay Alternative To What?:

The culture-products that so unavoid-ably define our daily lives, it is be-lieved, are a givena natural expres-sion of the tastes of the people.Thishas long been a favorite sophistry ofthe industrys paid publicity flacks aswell: mass culture is fundamentallydemocratic. The workings of the mar-ket ensure that the people get what

the people want; that sitcoms andSchwarzenegger and each of the vari-ous sneering pop stars are the embodi-ment of the general will [1].

TV both tells us what we like and ex-ercises a stranglehold on it. TV is so con-

vinced that it knows best about the realworld that everyone who works within itor appears regularly on it carries a dis-tinct air of unreality about them.

But then the whole world of culturaltaste is like a jungle, a war zone full ofsnipers. You may have a passion for early

white gospel, but others will tell you it is

pass, or trendy, or not right on,or abit 1980s, or elitist, until you think howmuch simpler it would be if you likedthe same music as everyone else. Thankgoodness that Komar & Melamid haveprovided some hard figures about thepublics musical taste, even if their sur-

vey only involved 500 people and wasbone-idly conducted by posting thequestions on an Internet site. At least, asDave Soldier says, This survey confirmsthe hypothesis that todays popular mu-sic indeed provides an accurate estimateof the wishes of the vox populi.

Reference

1.Thomas Frank, Alternative To What?,Baffler,5,reprinted in Commodify Your Dissent(New York:Norton, 1997).

THEFENCE

by Jon Rose. ReR Megacorp, ThorntonHeath, Surrey, U.K., 1998.

Reviewed by Renvan Peer, Bachlaan 786,5011 Tilburg, The Netherlands. E-mail:.

A major achievement of the U.S.A. inthe twentieth century was the victory ofthe Civil Rights Movement, when racialsegregation was banned from publiclife. Finally the basic tenet of the Decla-ration of Independence, that all menare created equal, had found its wayinto legislation and its implementation.

A line that had been drawn to separatepeople had been erased. Such lines ex-ist everywhere in this world.

Violinist Jon Rose ran into one ofthose lines when he was in Finland toparticipate in the 1995 Viitasaari NewMusic Festivala barbed-wire fencemarking the border between Russiaand Finland, a remnant of the IronCurtain. He recreated a model of it forthe festival and played it as a long stringinstrument. This performance was thestarting point for a larger project aboutfences all over the world, which re-

sulted in a radio play commissioned bythe Berlin broadcasting service SFB,and is now released on CD.

Rose constructed the musical mate-rial of the piece mainly from recordingsof the long string instrument he built inFinland; one passage is a recording hemade of a border fence in the Austra-lian outback that separates desert fromemptiness. In some places, violin and

voice have been added. The soundscoaxed from the long strings are simplymagnificent. Bowed, beaten andstroked, the strings emit alluring tones

full of shimmering, ringing harmonics.Especially wonderful are the extract re-corded in Australia, where the stringsare played by the wind, and a passage in

which a voice sensuously curves aroundthe pitch of the string, evoking wildlypulsating difference tones.

These sounds provide the setting for10 miniatures portraying fences in dif-ferent places. The narrative, sometimesbased on clips from radio programs re-porting on one of these metal dividinglines, consists of studio-constructedcameos of the places and voice-over

commentary by Rose in German. Start-ing in Finland, he moves to Belfast, thedemilitarized zone between the Koreas,Cyprus and several other hotspots

where fences are used to deny peopleaccess to a certain territory. He takesthe listener on a tour of conflicts stem-ming from the various differencespeople may perceive between eachother: ethnic (as in Cyprus and Bosnia-Herzegovina), religious (as in NorthernIreland), political (as in Korea), or par-ticularly potent admixtures of motiva-tional differences (as on the Golan

Heights between Israel and Syria).Most of these conflicts have exacer-

bating secondary motivesespeciallystrong when they are economic in na-ture. There is a bitter irony to this, andthis is where Roses satire unfolds in fullforce. The Berlin Wall, which replacedbarbed wire fencing in 1961, wasbreached by people from the easternpart of the city who did not want theirmovements to be constrained anymore


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by their political leaders. After the Wallwas pulled down, the huge serpentinescar of no-mans-land running acrossthe reunified city was developed assoon as possible. Not only should thecity be prepared for its reinstatement asGermanys capital, butlooking intothe brave new future on yonder side ofthe millennium divideit apparently

wanted no reminder of recent historyto remain. The most coveted part of

this immense vacant lot, the PotsdamerPlatz, was sold away to corporations

who matched their bid with the dimen-sions of the high rises erected there. Itis here that the irony kicks in: the newcapitalist owners have erected fencesaround their property to protect theirbuilding investments. Again, the move-ments of the people are constrained,now by powers on the other end of thepolitico-economic spectrum.

These fences are here to stay. JonRose likes to point out that since thisrecording was made, enmity has flared

up in several places he portrayed on it.There is more to it than that, how-everas dividing lines between people,fences manifest a mentality that is in-grained in our very being. Their era-sure from the law has not removedthem from individual hearts or minds,or indeed from society.

The Fenceis similar in its setup toother albums by Roseit documents aradio play of his in which his music un-derpins a narrative that is replete withsatire. What distinguishes it is the seri-ousness of the topic. Although Rose

still directs your attention towards theabsurdity of the human condition, hegoes beyond merely poking fun at hu-man folly. The juxtaposition of the seri-ous and the absurd shines in the irides-cence of the long strings. While Rosebasks your ears in an alluring luster, hetaunts your ease of mind like a gadfly.

This piece is paired off with Bagni diDolabella,which is rather more run-of-the-mill Rose. The ingredients are simi-larmusic (here real-time and sampled

violin) with a satirical narrative built ontop, consisting of a monologue and

evocative sound effects. Based on anoriginal document found by the RomeCity Sewage Department,this radioplay for Italian State Radio (RAI) trans-ports you to Ancient Rome, where amasseuse guides you on a tour aroundthe thermal baths, divulging the cor-ruption of a top brass politician. Appar-ently nothing much has changed sincethose times. Although Roses playing issuperb as always, The Fencereaches fur-

ther and deeper as a composition and anarrative. In pieces such as Bagni diDolabella, Rose is merely an observerfrom the sidelines, amused by the futil-ity of human endeavor. The Fenceseemsto stem from genuine personal involve-ment, which makes the bite of its satirehit home. It is as if Rose has discoveredsomething within himself that he is notat ease with. He has looked straightinto it, and now offers it to the listener,

saying, And how about you?

ELECTRICENIGMA: THEVLFRECORDINGSOFSTEPHENP.MCGREEVY

by Stephen P. McGreevy. London, UK:Irdial-Discs, 1998.

R&D (1996)R&D2 (1998)ANTIPHONY(1998)AL-JABR(1999)

by Disinformation. London, UK: AshInternational.

THECONET PROJECT:RECORDINGSOFSHORTWAVENUMBERSSTATIONS

London, UK: Irdial-Discs, 1998.

Reviewed by Renvan Peer, Bachlaan 786,5011 Tilburg, The Netherlands. E-mail:

.When you wake up around sunrise dur-ing springtime, you may be greeted bythe dawn chorus. In the still of morn-ing, all manner of song-birds add their

voices to a collective daily burst of en-ergy. It is an intriguing notion that,around the same time (that is, whenour planet turns from under the blan-ket of the night), electromagnetic activ-ity in the atmosphere reaches a peak.Though inaudible, this activity can bepicked up with antennas and thentranslated into sound. Like the collec-

tive singing of the birds, this is called adawn chorus. It is part of a collection ofelectromagnetic waves and dischargesfrom natural and man-made sourcesthat constitutes the basic material of anumber of recently released albums onthe Irdial and Ash International labels.

Electric Enigmais a double album onwhich California-based artist Stephen P.McGreevy has documented recordingshe made of Natural Radioelectro-

magnetic emissions in the very-low-frequency band caused by massive dis-charges and their after-effects in light-ning storms and by the solar wind buf-feting the earths magnetic field, visibleas Aurora Borealis and Australis. It

would normally take long wires to pickup these emissions, which would ham-per the mobility of a listener or record-ist. McGreevy developed a portable re-ceiver with a whip antenna, allowing

him to travel to places with optimal re-cording conditionsthat is, anywherein temperate to polar zones, but awayfrom urban settlement and powercables. He further improved the unit bytransforming it from a hand-held de-

vice to one that he could mount on hiscamper, so that he did not need tobrave adverse weather conditions in or-der to make his recordings. The mate-rial onElectric Enigmawas all recorded

with the newer design.To the ears, a gritty soundscape of

crackles and pops unfolds that one will

immediately associate with lightningstatic on the radio. These crackly veilsof ever-varying density may be shotthrough with short whistles, mostly fall-ing but sometimes rising in tone, withhigh-pitched pops, croaks and a sus-tained, discreetly undulating band ofhiss. A strange dichotomy exists be-tween the dry, short crackles in theforeground and the more liquid

whistles and hiss further back. It is likeviewing pond-life through a grid.

Even if you do not know what causesthese sounds, they provide a captivating

experience. Something is going onhere, obviously. In fact, knowing what

you are listening to only adds to thewonder: it is the awareness of the pow-ers at work here, and the fact that wedo not yet fully understand how theyoperate. These phenomena sound as if

whatever generated them is chargedwith life, and some of them must havebeen instrumental in making life ap-pear on this planet.

In the two booklets included in thealbum, McGreevy maps out what isknown about these emissions, gives de-

tails of the equipment used, provides adetermination guide and writes exten-sive notes about the extracts. Unfortu-nately, it is in the text that this produc-tion shows its flawsit would certainlyhave benefited from more thoroughproofreading. One feature beyondMcGreevys control was the presence ofOmega, a global system of guiding bea-cons for aviation that became obsoleteafter these recordings were made; this


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system is audible as protracted beeps atthe upper end of the hearing rangethat shift pitch every few seconds.

Two albums that are in a similar vein,though broader in scope, are R&DandR&D2by Disinformation, the name un-der which London-based Joe Banks re-leases his radio-reception recordings onCD and presents them to live audiences.Released 2 years after R&D, R&D2 be-gins its track count from the end of its

predecessors, suggesting that Banksviews these albums as parts of an ongo-ing project. The first CD starts off with arecording that could have come fromMcGreevys collectionelectromagneticdisturbances and discharges in the at-mosphere and guiding-beacon beeping.

From there, however, Banks casts hisnet both wider and closer to home thanMcGreevy does. While the latter concen-trates on natural phenomena in the at-mosphere and tries to keep away frommains interference, Banks has turnedtowards it and explored its potential. Ba-

sically, his equipment consists of a radiowith a converter that enables him to re-ceive frequency bands in the very lowand high ranges that are usually avoidedbecause they are prone to a variety ofdisturbances. Some of the recordings onR&Dare of data broadcasts from un-known sources. This data can be eitherpulsed or continuous, resulting in athick, growly, throbbing hum with a pe-riodically shifting pace and pitch. Onetrack on which both types of data havebeen received in combination soundslike the throttled roar of an engine over-

laid with bursts of breath. Further on,Banks focuses on electromagnetic trans-missions generated by the oscillator inTV sets, which translates the incomingsignal into lines on the screen, and com-bines it on one track with the 50Hzmains hum (and its harmonics). The lat-ter is an especially complex, multilay-ered piece in which the polyphonichowls of the oscillator are set off againstthe constant, rich drone of the alternat-ing current (AC), radiating from elec-tric wiring. Banks has found that variouselectrically powered tools radiate the

50Hz frequency but differ in the har-monics added to that frequencyeachhas its particular sonic signature.

R&D2continues this theme in fullforce with a live presentation of ACwave radio reception processed throughfilters and a pitch shifter. The dense,pulsating throb gets topped by a recur-rent grating that gradually expands andaccelerates until it is abruptly cut short.

It precipitates into the persistent, deep,but very clean hum emanating from aTIG welding appliancein a sense, alow-register whistling. This is aug-mented by transmissions from a lathe,

whilst high-pitched, glassy trails piercethrough twice, like shooting starsthese were, in fact, trains passing over-head, as the recording occurred in a

workshop located in an arch under aLondon railway viaduct. Downright dis-

concerting is a track called Stargate,ahigh-frequency emission from the sunon which one hears the Earth being bat-tered by an unrelenting blaze of exces-sive heat and radiation.

There is a considerable difference be-tween listening to these recordingsthrough headphones and through loud-speakers. While the former conjures upan (admittedly) delusional spatialsound image, the latter makes the roomcome alive with unexpected apparitionsthat condense on different places in thespace, only to dissolve in the surge a bit

later without a trace. Sometimes con-frontational, sometimes elusive, theserecordings share an uncommon, unde-niably fascinating intensity. Most of thesounds are data streams that can bepicked up by radio in everyday domesticsurroundings. There is a regularity tothem that suggests intentionality. In re-ality, however, if these signals carry in-formation at all, they cannot be readilydeciphered; though they appear in theguise of information, one can derive nounequivocal message from them. Conse-quently, ones mind can be deceivedinto interpreting these signals andpulses as musical.

This ambiguity lies in the phenom-ena themselves. Joe Banks does not at-tempt to bring out the musical content;indeed, he plays it down by making thepieces start and stop so abruptly. Heends R&D2with a reprise of the throb-bing AC hum, making it shudder, stut-ter and howl by shifting pitchesthrough filters, and concluding by let-ting it drop away so that the radio onlyproduces a recognizable transmission.The ambiguity is reflected in the art-

work on the inserta grim, mask-likeface staring into a gritty expansethrough heavy rods. In fact this is a

video still of a reinforced concretestructure succumbing to atmosphericconditions; what is more, the structurebelongs to a derelict parabolic soundmirror, formerly used by the militaryfor the reception of arcane data.

Apart from presenting these phe-

nomena live to audiences, Joe Bankshas taken this work a step further by let-ting musicians use his recordings. Theresults were compiled on the double al-bum Antiphony(glossed as any musicalor sound effect that echoes or answersanother) and Al-Jabr(the bringing to-gether of elements). Although the ap-proach on these three discs has beenthe same, each has its own distinct char-acter. Roughly speaking, the two disks

of Antiphonyrespectively present therugged and the spacey aspects ofDisinformations material.

The musicians make an adventurousand often surprising use of its sonic po-tential, especially on the first disc. Par-ticularly inspiring are the contributionsby Kapotte Muziekwho mold varioussource sounds into a coherent newpiece, as if cutting the umbilical cordthat connected it to its originsandPeople Like Us, who start from a densestuttering and extend it until out of the

widening creases a catchy pop tune ma-

terializes (Electric Light Orchestra?),which disintegrates when the folds closeagain. Pieces by Chris and Cosey andMark Van Hoen on the other hand jux-tapose the original recordings with dis-appointingly unimaginative musical ma-teriala bass rhythm on the former andbass/keyboard/percussion on the latter.The second Antiphonydisk has a rathermore ambient atmosphere, moving at acalm pace with frequent appearances ofdrones, delay and reverb. This is in evi-dence most strongly in the first twotracks, which seem to hark back to the

New-Agey, melancholy tunes concoctedby Brian Eno and his associates in theearly 1980s. Mark Poysdens Breath-sweep,the final track, proves that onecan progress with thoughtfulness and

yet refrain from effects suggesting largespaces and a dreamy state.

Al-Jabras a whole seems more con-densed and intense than Antiphony,butdoes have playful moments, such as

when Jim ORourke bounces bunchesof pitched plips and bleeps between theleft and right channela curious expe-rience, to say the least, when listening

over the headphones. In their respec-tive contributions, Simon Fisher Turnerand Mechos make mincemeat of JoeBankss recordings, a pungent salsa ofchunks fresh out of the processor. The

pice de rsistance, however, is LondonsOverthrow, the long manic opening trackby saxophonist Evan Parker. On top ofthe driving, pulsating and sometimesscratching AC hum, he has wound two


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wildly writhing and lashing melodiclines that howl and dance with the in-tensity of the charged ground layer.

The musical significance of this workderives from the ambiguity of thesoundsorigins. Too often, when hear-ing music constructed from or withsamples, it is difficult to avoid trying toidentify the source material, regardlessof whether it was musical to begin withor concrete sounds. Bankss recordings

are not exactly concrete sounds but nei-ther are they clearly musical. They de-rive from activity that the ear does notregister without the aid of transformingequipment. These sounds are not laden

with associations with past experiences,and they rarely trigger memories. Ifthey do, it is after several listenings ofthe two R&D albums, and they still donot call any distinct object or event tomind. An accurate explanation of howthey are produced falls far short of theirimpact and fascinationthere is indeedsomething magical in these sounds.

One can imagine that people findsuch sounds spooky and intimidating,but their connotations are not as sinis-ter as those of the so-called NumbersStations, documented on a quadrupleCD by the CONET Project and origi-nally released by Irdial Discs. NumbersStations transmit coded messages ondifferent frequencies in the shortwavebands. As with the electromagneticemissions compiled by Joe Banks, theyappear in the guise of information withno distinct, interpretable meaning. Thedifference with most of Bankss mate-rial is that these stations operate by in-tention and their messages are inten-tionally obscure. They generally start atransmission with an alert signal, oftena piece of music (for example, the fa-mous restaurant-Gypsy-violinist show-case piece The Skylark,used by a stationtransmitting in Romanian). After abrief introduction and a call for atten-tion, the bulk of the message follows asstrings of numbers or letters read ingroups. These can be in a variety of lan-guages, such as English, German, Span-ish, Czech and Romanian. Other sta-

tions transmit precisely tuned noise.Essays in the accompanying booklet

argue convincingly that these messagesare linked with espionagepurportedlythey are instructions to agents abroad.It seems to be well-nigh impossible todecipher the code of each individualmessage. Apparently, and disconcert-ingly, this activity has not abated sincethe end of the Cold War. Another weird

twist lies in the types of voices used bysome stationsthose of a child, or of a

woman ostensibly in a state of sexualarousal. One can only guess what inter-ests are served through such activities,and what sort of people decide what ex-actly these interests are, and whose in-terests they are. There is a shroud ofmystery around Numbers Stations, a dis-orientating feel that immediately callsto mind the subject matter and mood of

Robert Ashleys opera eL/Aficionado.Italso evokes the dark and sinister over-tones of Philip GlasssEinstein on theBeach: after hearing Numbers Stations,one cannot help wondering what thecomposer may have been telling to the

world, and who exactly he addressed.Numbers Stationsdoes have the charac-

teristics of an elaborate hoax feeding offpostmodern existential confusion andthe latter-day predilection for conspiracytheories as well as an irrational turn-of-the-millennium conviction that the hu-man race is irrevocably, irredeemably

and irrefutably doomed. On the otherhand, much of the information can eas-ily be checked by tuning the radio to thefrequencies listed in documents that canbe accessed via the Irdial-Discs web site.There is evidently quite some activity go-ing on through the air. In their gran-deur, the skies above may pervade theoverworked human mind with a whole-some tranquillity. In reality, they arethemselves not much less overwroughtthan the brain, through natural and arti-ficial causesa wonderful reflection ofour state of mind. If being aware of real-

ity is as crucial to our sanity as peace ofmind, perhaps we are indeed doomed.

LANGUAGE, MESSAGE,DRUMMAGE: COMPOSITIONSFORTAPEANDFORINSTRUMENTS

EMF CD 00614

WAYFARINGSOUNDS:COMPOSITIONSFOR

INSTRUMENTSANDTAPEEMF CD 00624

MUTATISMUTANDIS:COMPOSITIONSFORSOLOINSTRUMENTSANDENSEMBLES

EMF CD 00634

SAWDUST: COMPUTERMUSICPROJECT

EMF CD 00644

by Herbert Brn. Electronic MusicFoundation, Albany, NY, 1998.

Reviewed by Robert Coburn, ConservatoryComputer Studio for Music Composition,Conservatory of Music, University of the Pa-

cific, Stockton, CA 95211, U.S.A. E-mail:.

Herbert Brns reputation as a com-poser, theorist and teacher has spread

widely throughout the music worldsince he came to teach at the Universityof Illinois in 1962, but opportunities tohear his music have been limited. Now,for the first time, a major collection ofBrns compositions has been releasedon the Electronic Music Foundation la-bel, and the long wait has been well re-

warded. Four CDs covering composi-tions from 1940 to 1997 offer listeners aremarkable portrait of this unique andtalented creative artist. Works recordedhere include compositions for solo in-struments (piano, snare drum, viola,speaking voice, bassoon, flute) with or

without tape, compositions for chamberensembles (from duos to string quartetsto large mixed ensembles) with or with-out tape, and compositions for elec-tronic tape alone.

Brns music is extremely hard to cat-egorize. In fact, it appears that one ofhis musical goals is to avoid associations

and predictability in the service of acompositions larger meaning. This isrepresented best in his own words fromthe liner notes for String Quartet #3(1963) on the CD mutatis mutandis:

If played and heard often enough, ev-ery musical gesture is prone to be in-terpreted, by musicians and listeners,as a gesture of musical speech. As thegesture becomes familiar, and thusrecognized by society, the composedstructure, in which the context gener-ates the meaning of its components,will be misunderstood, instead, as onein which the components give mean-ing to their context. In order to retard

this development, this visitation ofcommunicative familiarity, for as longas possible, I have attempted, in sev-eral of my compositions, to anticipatethe gesture-forming tendencies withinthe composed structure and to reduceeach of them ad absurdum by way of anon sequitur. I wanted, thereby, to robtrivial perception and partial recogni-tion of the paralyzing effect that alltoo commonly is mistaken for the un-derstanding of music.


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In his notes for Wayfaring Sounds(1959) on the CD of the same name, hespeaks of the growing power of soundsto shun predictability:

Everywhere, in theater, in poetry, inlanguage and music a powerful move-ment has started, scorning all categori-zation and mocking the conventionalassociative patterns. Everywheresounds are on their way to take posses-sion of articulation and communica-tion, augmenting them and trying to

liberate them from outdated routinesof misunderstanding.

In some of his works he describesthe role that algorithmic processes,rule-driven techniques and stochasticchoices play in their composition. Withthis highly intellectual, creative ap-proach to composition, the result ismusic that is unique, strikingly freshand, at times, forcefully demanding.

In his electronic/computer music,Brn shuns the temptation toward theseductive qualities of new sound ascompositional determinants. He limits

his aural palette to sounds clearly elec-tronic and to texts that function be-tween sound and meaning. In doingthis, he avoids simple associations andimbues the composition with meaningbeyond the immediate.

The CD Sawdustpresents a series ofcomputer music compositions from1976 to 1981. This project allowed himto work with the smallest parts of wave-forms, linking them together and,through repetition and transformation,creating whole compositions. Theseven works from this series present

both a remarkable document of this re-search and a set of unique and chal-lenging compositions.

Rather than attempt a cursory de-scription of many pieces, I will addressmyself to two works that I found particu-larly rewarding. From the CD WayfaringSounds,Sentences Now Open Wide(SNOW)(1984) and on stilts amongducks(1997) are wonderful examplesof Brns ability to merge intellectualprocesses and creative expression inworks that are at times powerful, chal-lenging and humorous.

Sentences Now Open Wide(SNOW)is scored for two flutes,French horn, two bassoons, cello, gui-tar, piano, three speaking voices andtape. It was composed for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ExperimentalMusic Studios at the University of Illi-nois. The text, four verses written byBrn, responds with discontent to thecommonplace of power: Let us do ourbest for you, or else!The speakers re-

cite it counterpointing words againstwords. The tape part was created withanalog techniques from the 1960s. Itplays music constructed in analogy tosocial movements which will, if we failthem, fail us.The instruments won-der how they got there while calling

with remembered and with inventedgestures for answers to the questions:`What was? What is? What next?Allcommentary, like the composition it-

self, is true Brn, at once thought pro-voking, relevant, artistically creative,and touched with a slight dusting of

wit. The music speaks clearly, whileleaving the listener to ponder morequestions than answers.

on stilts among ducks,written forviola and tape, is equally rewarding andenigmatic. In this case the liner notesreveal little that is specific about thecomposition. Brn provides a short

verse about the relationship between I,Viola and Duck. At once humorous andthoughtful, the verse depicts well the

effect of this piece, a romp throughsounds truly electronic by a viola freedof its inhibitions. This wonderful piecealone is worth the price of this disc.

It is exciting to see the ElectronicMusic Foundation producing record-ings such as these: compositions un-likely to be released commerciallybe-cause of their demanding and unusualnature. It is to all our benefit that wehave an opportunity to experience thismusic that dodges predictability in fa-

vor of provoking deeper connections.In the end Brn himself says it best,

Whether our music is to be wished for,only those can decide whose pleasurein fulfillment and response is provokedby wishes and questions.

BOOK

MSICADEINVENO

by Augusto de Campos. EditoraPerspectiva, So Paulo, Brazil, 1998.

274 pp., illus. Paper, R$30.00.

Reviewed by Carlos Palombini, UniversidadeFederal de Pernambuco CAC, Departamentode Msica Av. Acadmico Hlio Ramos, s.n.Cidade Universitria, Recife, Pernambuco50740-530 Brazil. E-mail:.

Msica de inveno(hereafter InventionMusic) is a collection of articles writtenby Augusto de Campos that originally

appeared between 1957 and 1997 inSuplemento literrio de Minas Gerais,Enciclopdia Abril,the magazine SomTrsand the newspapersFolha de So Paulo,Jornal da tardeandJornal do Brasil. Thebook is divided into an introduction,three chapters, one post-chapter, twoappendixes, and an index of illustra-tions. Chapter I, Word and Music,contains articles on Occitan music,Ezra Pounds Le testament,the musics of

Pound/George Antheil and Stein/Thompson. It also includes bothCamposs recreation of O.E.Hartlebens translation of AlbertGirauds Pierrot Lunaire and Camposstranslation of Schoenbergs preface tothe piece. Chapter II, Radicals of Mu-sic,contains articles on Erik Satie,Scott Joplin, Walter Smetak, Anton von

Webern and Edgard Varse; it includestranslations of excerpts from Saties

writings. Chapter III, Musichaos,con-tains articles on and pastiches of JohnCage and Camposs interview with Bra-

zilian composer J.J. de Moraes. Post-music,the post-chapter, contains ar-ticles on Giacinto Scelsi, ConlonNancarrow, Antheil, Luigi Nono,Galina Ustvolskaia, Henry Cowell andpost-music. Appendix I, Notes onNotes,contains articles on timbre,melody, microtonalism and Stravinsky.

Appendix II, Polemics,containsCamposs 1957 defense of PierreBoulez and his translation of BoulezsHomage Webern.On the backcover, Brazilian composer LivioTragtenberg sets the tone: the book is

for those who enjoy music with love &rigour.Campos has been the first totackle composers such as Webern,

Varse, Cage, Boulez and Nono, thefirst to champion true undergroundsonic earthquakessuch as Antheil,Cowell, Nancarrow, Scelsi andUstvolskaia.He is the poet of post-ev-erything,now introducing readers tothe post-music of silences, sounds, andnoises.Invention Musicis the most im-portant book on the subjectever pub-lished in the land of deaf musicians,a.k.a. Brazil.

As Campos explains in the introduc-tion, the articles serve no systematicpurpose. What links them is the factthat all deal with what he terms, afterPound, inventor musicians.Havingfought for the Tropicalist composers ofthe 1960s (Gilberto Gil, Tom ZandCaetano Veloso) and seeing them en-throned in the media, Campos nowturns against the aural desensitizationto contemporary music.It is utterly


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Leonardo Reviews 71

unacceptable that the marvelous ad-venture of . . . high musicbe thwartedby aural lazinessand the mercantileeagerness of the media.We must allrise from the sound cushions of palat-able musicand listen to the thought-music of the great masters and inven-tors,the saints and martyrs of the newlanguage.Campos will tackle ques-tions to which contemporary invention-music has given admirable answers.

Between the lines, he will recount a bitof the history of artistic guerilla.

According to Camposs introductionto Pounds ABC of Reading, there aresix categories of writers: (1) inventors,those who may be held responsible forthe discovery of a new process; (2) mas-ters, those who explore some such pro-cesses; (3) diluters, the less successfulfollowers of the former two; (4) good

writers without qualities, who producereasonable work in period style; (5)belles lettres types, who cultivate par-ticular fields; and (6) faddists, fashion-

able but forgettable. The best critics,Pound says, are those who effectivelycontribute to improve the art they criti-cize; then come those who focus atten-tion on the best writing. The worst arethose who divert attention from thebest to second rate works or to them-selves. One recognizes a bad critic

when he or she starts going on aboutthe author and not about the work.The preliminary and simplest test is tocheck the words that do not work.

As both Marjorie Perloff and JohnHollander have noted, the concrete po-

ets of the Brazilian Noigandres group(Augusto de Campos, Haroldo de Cam-pos and Dcio Pignatari) are not par-ticularly remarkable for their aural ex-plorations [1]. Invention Music isprodigal with assonances, consonances,alliterations, epithets, commonplaces,adjectives and metaphors, though notalways in the best possible taste: the mu-sic of Provence is a prowess; the eraof Erikis the era of rag; music is themost abstract of artistic genres;Ustvolskaia is the musical Sphinx fromRussia; Steve Reichs music is theprovocation of molecular tautology;Cage is the prophet and guerillafighter of interdisciplinary art; Cowellspieces adumbrate the polyrhythmicpranks of Conlon Nancarrows un-bridled pianolas; Hanns Eisler is thatmediocre disciple of Schoenberg, whomthe bad conscience has sought in vainto raise to the rank of first rate.Out-bursts of reactive rhetoric are legion.

Apparently, de Camposs artistic guerilla

warfare started when Willy Corra deOliveira vetoed Universidade de SoPaulo Press support of one of his pub-lishing projects.

How does Campos fare when Inven-tion Musicis set against Pounds agendaas expounded by Campos himself? Nei-ther a belles lettres type nor a faddist, hestands in between. Specializing inrecord reviews, Campos sets forth theins and outs of his modernist creed

while inexorably marching towards theconcluding instance of record com-pany vituperation. This kind of upperhighbrow Hello!leaves no room whatso-ever for whatever theoretical apparatusthe subject may require. Those whoshare in Camposs tastes will find thathe fulfills the task of the second-ratecritic. He talks about other authors, yetcannot help diverting attention to him-self. As to the works, he has preciouslittle of interest to say: Long Life

Webern!Long Life Varse!mindthe similarities between these titles!

The reader is made witness to a compe-tition to ascertain: (1) who discoveredthe latest composer first; (2) who wroteabout his or her first work first; (3)

who bought his or her first record first.Having made the wrong choices, Mariode Andrade (nationalism) and WillyCorra de Oliveira (bolshevism) havelost their ways and lose the game. Sec-onded by Arthur Nestrovski, Campos

wins. Invention Musicwears the appear-ance of a biblia pauperum of the con-crete poets musical cult. On a page ofScelsis Quattro pezzi per orchestra, Cam-pos superimposes Scelsis signatureand symbol. On a photograph of

Webern in the Alps, Campos superim-poses a page of Piano variations op. 22.On a close-up of Schoenbergs eye,Campos superimposes Schoenbergsdodecaphonic scheme. On a close-upof young Varse, Campos superimposesa page of Ionisation; on a close-up ofelderly Varse, Campos superimposes apage of Hyperprism.On a photographof an interstellar phenomenon, Cam-pos superimposes middle-aged Nonosbalding head (Big Bang Nono!). Onthe photograph of another such phe-nomenon, he superimposes elderlyNonos balding head (QuasarNono!). On a photograph of Cageand himself, Campos superimposes thescore of 4'33. Campos himself is every-

where to be seen: with Olga Rudge inCastel Fontana in 1991; with membersof his household chezCage in 1978;cleaning lipstick from Cages face in1985; molesting Cage with concrete po-

etry in 1985. Invention Musicabides bythe rules of neither etiquette nor schol-arship. So why should Campos? And

why should we?In his Pequena histria da msica

(Short History of Music) (1942), Mrio

de Andrade states that also in trios,

quartets, and quintets, there has been

a most interesting harvest, employing

the most unusual and curious soloist

ensembles (Kurt Weill, Falla, Ezra

Pound, Anton Webern).This leadsCampos to conclude that Andrade was

a musicological travesty. Yet one reads

in Invention Musicthat from him

[Nestrovski] I have received two tapes

with musical novelties: Wishart,

Ferneyhough, Smalley, Philip Glass

etc. Everything very interesting.Now,

the founding father of Brazilian

ethnomusicology was a modernist in

the early twenties, when being a mod-

ernist was de rigueurfor a bright youth

of progressive So Paulos intelligen-

tsia. The modernist Campos is a late-

comer; the postmodernist Campos isunconvincing. He fits strictly into the

high-art-plus-best-of-pop-culture pat-

tern that Georgina Born has identi-

fied at Institut de Recherche et Coor-

dination Acoustique Musique

(IRCAM) [2].

So far as it presents an essentially vi-sual poet in the role of avant-gardemusic beacon, Invention Musicindeedis, as Tragtenberg wishes, a uniquedocument on the Brazilian musicaland cultural life of the last decades.Campos is to be held responsible for

the fact that facile punning has cometo be viewed as an honorable form ofmental activity, and hence for the factthat pop singers have come to beviewed as intellectuals. In this manner,thinking has been debased. The easewith which the amateur Campos col-lects and distributes novelties fromabroad is the same ease with which theretired intellectual Cardoso collectsand distributes writs from the Interna-tional Monetary Fund. The musicolo-gist Campos will be rendered redun-dant by the World Wide Web. In the

meantime, Brazilian poets are post-everything, Brazilian composers arethe greatest of the Americas, Braziliantransvestites are the most sought afterof Europe and Brazilian men are themost potent in the world. Abroad, theycome from the land of coffee, carnivaland football. At home, their housesare barbed-iron fenced and their teethare missing. They have been raped bya feudal elite of modernist zeal. Yes,


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72 Leonardo Reviews

ns temos Augusto de Campos!Anyoneinterested?

References

1.Marjorie Perloff, The Music of Verbal Space:John Cages `What You Say . . . ,in Adalaide Mor-ris, ed., Sound States: Innovative Poetics and AcousticalTechnologies(Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Caro-lina Press, 1997); John Hollander, Vision and Reso-nance: Two Senses of Poetic Form(1975).

2. Georgina Born, Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM,Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical

Avant-Garde (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of CaliforniaPress, 1995).

CONCERT

ARNALDOCOHENPLAYSCHOPIN

Convention Centre of the Federal Uni-versity of Pernambuco at Recife, Brazil,

16 April 1999.First part: Ballades I, II, IIIand IV; sec-ond part: Nocturne op. 6 n. 2 Fantaisie-im-promptutudes op. 10 n. 3op. 25 n. 1andop. 25 n. 12Scherzi I and II; encores:Minute Waltzandtude pathtique(Scriabin).

Reviewed by Carlos Palombini, UniversidadeFederal de Pernambuco CAC, Departamentode Msica Av. Acadmico Hlio Ramos, s.n.Cidade Universitria, Recife, Pernambuco50740-530 Brazil. E-mail:.

In early April 1999, lecturers, workersand students in the Music Departmentof the Federal University of Pernambucoat Recife were invited for a recital by theLondon-based Brazilian pianist ArnaldoCohen and requested to RSVP. The invi-tation was issued by Banco Sudameris,

which is affiliated with BanqueSudameris of Paris and controlled byGrupo Banca Commerciale Italiana ofMilan. Sudameris is opening its campusbranch in the recently inaugurated facili-ties of the University Convention Centre,

where the recital would take place.What would become (through a his-

tory of rebellions and treasons) thePernambuco state originated from one ofthe first administrative successes of the

young Portuguese colony. Rich in brazil-wood, the region was fought over by theDutch, the French, the Spanish and En-glish pirates. The city of Recife grew un-der the view of Olindaa UNESCO-declared historic siteas a merchantspendant to the aristocratic old town,

gradually taking over the economic leadand rising to the position of metropolisof the Brazilian northeast. On theseshores, Brazil was discovered by VincentePinzon and not by Pedro Cabral, and theferocious CaetIndians devoured theaptly named Bishop Sardinha, anticipat-ing urban anthropophagi. Nowadays, lat-ter-day saints from North American mis-sions stroll around, alluring withsanitized blondness mamelucos, cafusos,

mulattosand mestizos.Pernambuco boasts the oldest aristoc-

racy in the country. Mrs. Mayrink Veiga,formerly a top-10 best-dressed lady ofRio society and a beauty, now earns herlivelihood here, telling the lower stratathe dos and donts of upper class eti-quette in the pages of the local equiva-lent to the London Sun(devoured as herfortune has been by extortive interestrates charged on former employeesso-cial security monies, which she used toborrow from the Brazilian state): inthose days, men used to wear tails . . .

now they complain about wearing ajacket!This was my coming-out eveningand I wished neither to overdo nor un-derstate it: light brown suede shoes,

white socks (suburban in London butcomme il fautin Recife), beige trousers,best white shirt (with mother-of-pearlbuttons), bespoken terracotta linen

jacket and a silver-coated chain hangingfrom my trousers pocket. For sleazylooks, a bit of that exquisite Schwarzkopfgel wax that I brought from Dublin and,to round it off, the woody undertones of

Everby Applewoods. Carlos, how beauti-ful you are!my neighbor uttered in

wonder as I left.Those who earn over three hundred

pounds sterling a month are not sup-posed to take buses in this country.However, I remain convinced that oneshould not always go native in the tropi-cal regions. A seat on the left affordedthe view of a beautiful pair of thighs onthe right and with no further ado I tookit. Lost in contemplation, I was awokenby the noises of hit and broken glass,female shrieks and myriad glass frag-ments landing onto my face. Ladies

crawled, robbery and rape stamped ontheir faces. No more discomfited thanGeneral Giuseppe Federico vonPalombini in the aftermath of the Na-poleonic debacle, I gazed around, as-sessing the likelihood of another bulletand pondering the wisdom of surren-dering ones course to the ubiquity offleshly gifts. A stone thrown at the busby one of the countless children whoroam the streets of Recife had crossed a

window pane on the right, just behindthose thighs, at the correspondingpoint to where I was seated on the left,before it went out through a left win-dow pane two seats behind me. I hadbeen saved by the imponderable laws ofrelative movement.

One queues for everything in thiscountry. In So Paulo, at theConsolao branch of the Brazilian Air-line, one queues to get information as

to whether one should queue. InRecife, at the campus branch of the Bra-zilian Bank, one queues for one hour topay a check. Those who earn over 100pounds a month qualify as special cli-ents, and special clients queue in spe-cial queues. Those who earn over 350pounds a month qualify as doubly spe-cial clients but doubly special clientsqueue in simply special queues. Onehour before the concert, the Conven-tion Center offered a double choice ofqueues. I took the shortest. It was theslowest. Wearing all the appearances of

clients of a distinctively selective Euro-pean bank, a stocky gentleman, hisplump wife and their marriageabledaughter arrived in full swing. Thegentleman shouted abuse at a pair of la-dies who exchanged ideas with theticket collector at too slow a pace. His

wife attempted to grab my place. Hav-ing set the queue going with his yelling,the gentleman set about propelling itfurther with his belly. Thus, at the dropof a hat, I was rubbing shoulders andprivate parts with the upper echelons offinancial society. Inside the concert hall,

conversation ranged from basic Italian(a scherzo?) to real estate. At 9:00sharp, a pair of attendants approachedand removed two young ladies who hadbeen sitting in the front row for half anhour. Reservation labels were stuck totheir seats. The Vice Chancellor wasushered in and offered the seats. A

video screen unfolded, and BancoSudameris had us know that it was oneand the same with the struggles of theBrazilian people. The local representa-tive took the stage. He repeated it.

Cohen was a sight for sore eyes. He

brought to life the dramatic contrastsand manifold transitions of Chopinsset of Ballades with uncompromisingtechnique and variegated hues. Halfwaythough the Third Ballade, a fortissimopassage sent me away from the hall anddeep into the music. I resurfaced. Re-freshments were served. Soft drinks cir-culated freely. Italian white was the pre-serve of the fittest. Guests were invitedto return to their seats. Procrastinators


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Leonardo Reviews 73

were gently pushed in. The Vice Chan-cellor climbed the stage. BancoSudameris was thanked and a publicand high-quality universitywascheered. With a Debussy-like perfor-mance of the Second Nocturne, Cohenrose to the rarefied heights of DinuLipattis historic Nocturne in D-Flat in-terpretation. Fantaisie-impromptu, theThird tude Op. 10, the First andTwelfth tudes Op. 25, and the First

and Second Scherzi followed. Havingmade his way through terminal cough-ing, wristwatch beeps and mobile-phone calls in the way of a man who ac-cepts all things, and accepts them inthe spirit of cool bravery, Cohen wasawarded a standing ovation. He re-torted with a finely crafted, superblyphrased and unbelievably fresh Minute

Waltz. At half past twelve, Scriabinstude Pathtique drew the evening to aclose.

Jose Miguel Wisnik summarizes theprogram of the modernist cycle of mu-

sical nationalism in Brazil:

To synthesize and to stabilize a musi-cal expression of popular base, as ameans to conquer a language that rec-onciles the country in thehorizontality of its territory and theverticality of its classes (raising the rus-tic culture to the universalized scopeof bourgeois culture, and giving thebourgeois musical production a socialbase that it lacks [1].

The middle classes like Chopin. Theviolence that, for centuries, the ownerperpetrated against the slave was de-

mocratized by decades of military dicta-torship and has been sanctioned by thedemocratic regime [2]. In Brazilianpolitics today, it is not the rustic land-owner from Bahia that rises to the uni-

versalized scope of bourgeois culture,but the cosmopolitan intellectual fromSo Paulo that sinks to the scope of na-tionalized bourgeois brutality. Like thefamous fur coat with which the FinanceMinister Cardoso de Mello sought toimpress the Prince and Princess of

Wales at a Rio gala evening, the fabricof Brazilian society is moth-eaten be-

yond repair. Slaughtered or ostracized,the Indians alone remain unsullied.They enshrine the nationhood thatmight have been.Ena mokoc-c-mak.

References

1. Jose Miguel Wisnik, quoted by Gerard Bhaguein Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Search for Brazils MusicalSoul(1994).

2. Joseph A. Page, The Brazilians(Perseus Press,1995).

MATERIALSRECEIVED

Multimedia Products

BorderlandProduced by Plokker. Plokker, France. CD-ROM. 1999.

Conversations with Angels

Produced by Andy Best and MerjaPuustinen. VRML CD-ROM plus picturebook. MEET Factory, Helsinki, Finland.1999. 25 Euros.

DOC(K)SLa Trilogie des Medias: Tome 2: ChantierSon.Journal (in French) plus 2 audioCDs, 1998. 300 FF.

Form Function in ArchitectureR. Thomas Hille. Univ. of Michigan Press,Ann Arbor, MI, U.S.A., 1999. 2-volume CD-ROM.

ISEATERROR98Department of Fine Arts, ManchesterMetropolitan University, Manchester, U.K.,1998. CD-ROM for Macintosh.

Masterworks for Learning: A CollegeCollection CatalogueAllen Memorial Art Museum. OberlinCollege, Oberlin, OH, U.S.A. 1998. CD-ROM.

MediamaticVol. 9, No. 1, Spring 1998. Journal plus CD-ROM.

MediamaticVolume 9, No. 2/3, 1998. Context Issue.CD-ROM for Mac/Windows.

MusicworksNo. 72. Fall 1998. CD plus magazine.

Shock in the EarProduced by Norie Neumark. Univ. ofTechnology, Sydney, Australia, 1998. CD-ROM for Macintosh.

Audio Compact Discs

19701973Mother Mallards Portable Masterpiece Co.Cuneiform Records, Silver Springs, MD,U.S.A., 1999.

The Alpha Wave VariationsPaisley Babylon. Zombie Records, SanAntonio, TX, U.S.A., 1998.

Divine DoorwaysAndrea Goodman and Gerry Hemingway.Ruby Throated Music, Boothbay, ME,U.S.A., 1998.

The FenceJon Rose. ReR/Recommended Records,Surrey, U.K., 1998.

Hidden Reflections: Chamber WorksLior Navok. NLP, Boston, MA, U.S.A., 1998.

HordeMnemonists. ReR/Recommended, Surrey,U.K., 1999.

HyperpianoDenman Maroney. Mon$ey Music, Monsey,NY, U.S.A., 1998.

InsideBarry Truax. Cambridge Street Records,Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.,1996.

Live from CaliforniaDos Hermanos. Grateful Dead Records,CA, U.S.A., 1998.

Live in TokyoCassiber. ReR/Recommended Records,Surrey, U.K., 1998.

Out beyond IdeasMandir. Satsang Music, Missoula, MT,U.S.A., 1998.

Portals of Distortion: Music for Saxo-phones, Computers, and StonesMatthew Burtner. Innova, St. Paul, MN,U.S.A., 1999. $14.97.

Pragma

Tim Hodgkinson. ReR/RecommendedRecords, Surrey, U.K., 1998.

RadiophagyLou Mallozzi. Penumbra Music, Grafton,WI, U.S.A., 1997.

Room PieceMichael J. Schumacher. SFB Records, NewYork, NY, U.S.A., 1998.

Les Rumeurs de la VilleGuigou Chenevier. ReR/RecommendedRecords, Surrey, U.K., 1998.

Whole or by the SliceHal Rammel and Lou Mallozzi. PenumbraMusic, Grafton, WI, U.S.A., 1998.

The Wind RisesIstvan Martha, Sandor Bernath/y/[electroplenair sound diary]. ReR/Recommended Records, Surrey, U.K., 1998


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74 Leonardo Reviews

LEONARDODIGITALREVIEWS

Leonardo publishes reviews of books,digital publications (CD-ROMs, on-line

works, World Wide Web sites), audioCDs and tapes, events and exhibitions.

Accepted reviews are published eitherin Leonardo Digital Reviews (a sectionof our electronic journal LeonardoElectronic Almanac), on our Leonardo

World Wide Web site (http://mitpress.mit.edu/Leonardo/e-journals/home.html) or in our print journalsLeonardoor Leonardo Music Journal.

We do not accept unsolicited re-views. Individuals interested in joiningthe Leonardo reviews panel should e-mail a brief professional biographywith an example of a review [email protected].

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Organizers of events or exhibitionsand authors of on-line publicationsand events should e-mail informationto [email protected].

Readers with comments or reactionsto published reviews may send themfor publication consideration [email protected].

Books

Melodic Similarity: Concepts, Procedures,

and Applications (Computing in Musicol-

ogy II)Walter B. Hewlett and Eleanor SelfridgeField, eds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA,U.S.A., 1999. 235 pp., illus. Paper, $28.00.ISBN: 0-262-58175-2.

Music, Cognition, and Computerized

Sound: An Introduction to Psychoacoustics

Perry R. Cook, ed. MIT Press, Cambridge,MA, U.S.A., 1999. 734 pp., illus. Trade,$60.00. ISBN: 0-262-03256-2.

Periodical

Computer Music JournalVol. 22, No. 4. Dancing the Music.Interviews: Oliveros, Spiegel, Thome,White. Magazine plus CD. $12.00. ISSN:0148-9267.

World Wide Web Sites

Art and PhysicsEdited by Leonard Shlain, author of thebooks Art and Physics and The Alphabet Versusthe Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and

Image.

The ArtChivistA site dedicated to the digital publishingproject Archiving as Art,presented byKaren ORourke as a part of the CentreNational de la Recherche Scientifiqueresearch program Archives of theCreation.

CAiiA-STARWeb site of the Interactive Arts program ofthe University of Wales and PlymouthUniversity under the leadership of RoyAscott.

Clifford A. Pickover WebsiteDeals with computers and creativityeducational puzzles, computer art, fractals,etc.

The David Bermant CollectionIncludes the work of kinetic and lightartists. Artists include Duchamp, GeorgeRoads and Nam June Paik. The DavidBermant Foundation also awards grants tostudents working in the technological arts.

Exotech IndustriesWeb site for performance artist and writerCoco Fusco. See particularly documenta-tion of performance at JohannesburgBiennale and Festival of Latin AmericanPerformance.

The Experimental Studio on Internet of the

CICV Centre Pierre SchaefferFocus: platform for research and experi-mentation.

Fractal Music

Galileo: Diary of Science and Analyses of

Global IssuesIn Italian and English, edited by MicheleEmmer.

The Media Centre of the Musee dArtContemporain de MontrealOffers French/English information about

all areas of contemporary art and culture.Information on the Media Centre itself;directory of resources in contemporary artand culture available on the Internet.

Metamusique

Women on the WebElectronic Media(WOWEM) WWW siteThe WOWEM WWW site was introducedin Fall 1996 as an information repositoryfor young women interested in digitalmedia. WOWEM serves as a starting point

for those interested in music and visual artby showing various career options andopportunities. WOWEM also providesinformation of special interest to youngwomen, with discussions on technology aswell as links to and interviews withestablished visual artists, graphic designers,composers and multimedia artists workingwith technology, and young womens websites and on-line services..

Documents

Xenakis, Leonardo Electronic Music