Transmediale '08 'Conspire'- Berlin
part 2
(the crap bits)
part 2
(the crap bits)
One lesson I think I learned from the Transmediale was never make assumptions.
My assumptions about what i thought the definition of music is, was challenged while listening to some of the musical performances at the festival. Sonic Wargame was one such event; it involved four teams, situated at four mixing desks at opposing corners of a room at Club Transmediale at the Maria am Ostbahnhof. each team would play music, and make votes based on how one of the other teams were playing. A chairman dude stood at a mixing desk in the center of the room, and controlled what music was played after voting, and probably did one or two other things that were indeterminable to me. Giant display screens at each end of the room graphically displayed the results of the voting, like some amphetamine tweaked election night news coverage. It all sounded quite good on paper, but I felt more than a little confused by the whole event, unsure what was really going on at any given moment, and at a loss to make any sense of the barrage of feedback and noise assaulting my ears. The guys behind the decks seemed to be getting well into it though, one of the pair staring intently into a laptop, and making furtive glances at the display board and dude at the mixing desk, while the DJs bobbed now and again at the wheels of steel, grinning and giving winks of approval to the other teams.
I looked around the crowd, and saw that the confusion I felt was mirrored in the faces of some of the others, who looked as ill at ease with the 'music' as I was. I began to feel like there was a private joke going on between the DJs, with none of the crowd privy to the funny gags the musicians were telling behind their hands. I began to wonder what it would sound like if the DJs had some quality choons to play with, some blinding cuts and deep funky rhythms - four musical maestros banging out some twisted music, and couldn't help but feel they'd do better than this non-music exploration i was hearing.
On to the next room, were the feedback sound had been fuel injected, the sound a cross between audio computer data emanating from a ZX81 cassette player locked onto the highest volume, and a television set with the aerial unplugged, being fed into a industrial food blender. Which nobody has turned off. I tried to overcome the knee-jerk reaction of it all being avant garde arty bollocks, and really give it a proper listen, but it did no good, the magic was lost on me and I had to gave in. It's a shame, and I like to think I wasn't being prejudiced - I've heard much more inspiring music at club nights and festivals, where there are also often many visual installations and multimedia trickery, that were just as experimental and far less alienating to the crowd than these performances.
The other assumption I learned to challenge in Berlin was even if you believe your camera is set to record everything in lossless raw format, and not crappy jpeg, always check, and double check. It wasn't till I returned home and plugged my faithful camera into the computer, that I realised I hadn't changed the camera back from the one and only time I've ever shot in jpeg. So all 460 shots of Berlin captured digitally are lossy compressed quality, and in a nutshell- pants. I've got a couple of rolls oldskool film to be processed, so mebbe I've managed to get a few decent shots somewhere. I was a bit gutted at first, but I realised I've got even more excuse to go back to Berlin now, so roll on the summer so I can go shooting there again.
next post some more positive and cool Berlin highlights
.
My assumptions about what i thought the definition of music is, was challenged while listening to some of the musical performances at the festival. Sonic Wargame was one such event; it involved four teams, situated at four mixing desks at opposing corners of a room at Club Transmediale at the Maria am Ostbahnhof. each team would play music, and make votes based on how one of the other teams were playing. A chairman dude stood at a mixing desk in the center of the room, and controlled what music was played after voting, and probably did one or two other things that were indeterminable to me. Giant display screens at each end of the room graphically displayed the results of the voting, like some amphetamine tweaked election night news coverage. It all sounded quite good on paper, but I felt more than a little confused by the whole event, unsure what was really going on at any given moment, and at a loss to make any sense of the barrage of feedback and noise assaulting my ears. The guys behind the decks seemed to be getting well into it though, one of the pair staring intently into a laptop, and making furtive glances at the display board and dude at the mixing desk, while the DJs bobbed now and again at the wheels of steel, grinning and giving winks of approval to the other teams.
I looked around the crowd, and saw that the confusion I felt was mirrored in the faces of some of the others, who looked as ill at ease with the 'music' as I was. I began to feel like there was a private joke going on between the DJs, with none of the crowd privy to the funny gags the musicians were telling behind their hands. I began to wonder what it would sound like if the DJs had some quality choons to play with, some blinding cuts and deep funky rhythms - four musical maestros banging out some twisted music, and couldn't help but feel they'd do better than this non-music exploration i was hearing.
On to the next room, were the feedback sound had been fuel injected, the sound a cross between audio computer data emanating from a ZX81 cassette player locked onto the highest volume, and a television set with the aerial unplugged, being fed into a industrial food blender. Which nobody has turned off. I tried to overcome the knee-jerk reaction of it all being avant garde arty bollocks, and really give it a proper listen, but it did no good, the magic was lost on me and I had to gave in. It's a shame, and I like to think I wasn't being prejudiced - I've heard much more inspiring music at club nights and festivals, where there are also often many visual installations and multimedia trickery, that were just as experimental and far less alienating to the crowd than these performances.
The other assumption I learned to challenge in Berlin was even if you believe your camera is set to record everything in lossless raw format, and not crappy jpeg, always check, and double check. It wasn't till I returned home and plugged my faithful camera into the computer, that I realised I hadn't changed the camera back from the one and only time I've ever shot in jpeg. So all 460 shots of Berlin captured digitally are lossy compressed quality, and in a nutshell- pants. I've got a couple of rolls oldskool film to be processed, so mebbe I've managed to get a few decent shots somewhere. I was a bit gutted at first, but I realised I've got even more excuse to go back to Berlin now, so roll on the summer so I can go shooting there again.
next post some more positive and cool Berlin highlights
.
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