Traditional time/performance based
practice
(music, theatre, dance plus folk practices)
- “stored” via aural and body memory and/or
written notation (score, script, etc)
- each work balances or is some combination of improvisatory,
interpretative freedom and repetitive consistency
- at what point does the concept of a “fixed
work” emerge?
- earlier work (i.e. pre-19th
century) and performance practice seems to have been more adaptable to specific
acoustic and social contexts;
-
the emergence of the “paid performance” (concert hall, opera house, etc) begins
to “fix” the work for repetition, but it also provides a showcase for the
virtuosic interpretation by the soloist (cf. Attali, “Representing” in Noise)
How does fixed medium documentation change these practices?
-
new art forms emerge: film, recording, video/TV and digitally based new media
-
there is a range of approaches to the use of fixed media, along the continuum:
Documented performance <------> Document as performance
-
“documented performance” implies a certain neutrality to the capture, but in
fact is influenced by every aspect of the documentary medium (e.g. microphones,
cameras, formats, fidelity) and whether it provides a single modality (e.g.
audio only) or multiple
-
note that early anthropological field practice documented (and distorted) folk
music with notation, then recordings
-
“document as performance” is often team produced, and often based on
standardized production values and practices; gives the illusion or image of an
actual performance, ranging from the pseudo-real, idealized, hyper-real, to
completely artificial, imaginary (“virtual”), constructed realities
-
preferred placement along the continuum differs by genre; e.g. classical music
traditionally identifies the live performance as the norm and reproductions an
image of it (as challenged by Gould, Culshaw et al.); pop music tends to view
the recording as the “real” document, and any live performance strives to
simulate it for promotional purposes (cf. Théberge)
-
the historical development of each of these parallels changes in listening
habits and preferences (Thompson, Sterne, Simes, Katz, et al.)
-
recordings in turn influence future generations of live performers,
particularly those involved with improvisation, aural tradition and so on
Contemporary art music practice today
-
acoustic – mixed (live + electronics) – electroacoustic (fixed medium and live
performance) – new media (cf. Manovitch)
-
note archival problems associated with each of these: succession of formats
(e.g. vinyl, tape, DAT, CD, digital files) all of which need machines to read
them
-
with improvisatory forms, the choice of “fixing” a live performance vs
maintaining the machines required to produce the live work (can the latter
“migrate”?)
-
multi-media/new media works multiply the problems of documentation
-
some works may be fixed; others indeterminate, algorithmic, stochastic,
interactive, distributed (i.e. internet based), conceptual etc
-
fixed medium works, however, can lead back to live performance (diffusion)
interpretations
-
physical survival of art works vs their cultural survival when marginalized
-
does digital data and software make cultural artifacts more ephemeral or give
potential longevity?