DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE

Before someone coined the term "abstract", the term "synthetisch" was quite in fashion. Likely due to scientific vulgarisation. Kadinsky, Malevich (Kazimir is Sacha's 2nd Name) and the flock of art critics used it extensively.

In the name it means that the mixture is "artificial", not what is mixed. Generic, I create "musique concrète" only, "Look mom, no hands!".

Le malheur du temps est le naufrage du nouveau dans le duplicata, le naufrage de l'intelligence dans la jouissances de l'homogène. La production, sans doute, est rare, elle attire les parasites qui la banalisent tout aussitôt. La production, inattendue, improbable, déborde surabondamment d'information, elle est toujours et immédiatement parasitée.

The misfortune of (our) time is the shipwreck of the new in the duplicate, the shipwreck of intelligence in the enjoyments of homogeneity. Production, no doubt, is rare; it attracts parasites who trivialize it immediately. Production, unexpected, improbable, overflows with information in abundance; it is always and immediately parasited.

Michel Serres — Le Parasite (1980)

Les associations du vivant, qu'elles relèvent du parasitisme ou au contraire du mutualisme, ont joué un rôle clé à certains moments de l'évolution en modifiant profondément la structure et le destin de l'arbre de la vie. Dans cette véritable course aux armements qu'est l'affrontement des parasites et de leurs hôtes, on chiffre le temps à l'échelle de millions d'années.

Living associations, whether parasitic or mutualistic, have played a key role at certain moments of evolution by profoundly modifying the structure and fate of the tree of life. In this real arms race that is the confrontation of parasites and their hosts, time is calculated on a scale of millions of years.

Claude Combes — L'art d'être parasite, Les associations du vivant (2010)

Too much to say here. I hope this two references will do. Anyways, parasites are smart asses, because usualy they pass under the radar, be it biolocical, social, societal, economic, technical. Most importantly, they transforme the linear, bi-polar model of communication science (diode/triode) of emitter to receiver into a triangle where every nodal can turn from informant to noise (parasite).

Non! Like me, he started to draw before he walked. But, it is law in France like in most countries to send your off-spring into th national education system. Unteaching, unlearning takes a lot of effort.

I'm very traditional. I grow up in the "Völkerkundemuseum" (museum of ethnology) in Berlin, Dahlem. There I had my art education as a kid and they had a great collaction of ethno music to which I had been exposed regualrly, plus concerts. My parents had been into Rock'n Roll and Johny Cash. The first recording of contemporary music I reiceived by a women in th public library of my district that was in my school. Mauricio Kagel's Exotica.

Musical instruments in museum of ethnology are usualy categorised like westen instruments, like strings, winds, percussions, etc. That seems quite irrelevant for me. What interests me is that frequently the players are also the makers and that the process of fabrication, creation is actualy never stopping. People work on their instruments as much as on their music making their whole life.

Also, depending of the degree of hierarchisation, often ther is no viruosity as in western practice. It wouldn't cross their mind to pretend to play better than their neighbour. It's a collective act like hunting, cooking, dancing and often one wouldn't got a reply on who is the best archer of the clan. It's an absurd, even offensive question.

Good question. With all due respect, I won't us to be confused with any free impro avant trickster nor any Cage disciple. There playing of gadgets from the 2 Euro store still wants to appear like mastery and control. We foster a different apprach. I come from the visual art where you make a trace, step back, make another and look what that's turning out to. I would never have started making music without the recorder. My first Grundig CR-455 was my teacher. Now, the motors help us to step back and listen, while the assemblages run on their own and we can concentrate on the mix of all we can transport (by train).

Hard to say, because when you change from one plae to another you also move onwards in time. Berlin to Barcelona was at the same time distict and similar. Only, artist who are going through the trash at any occasion hasn't exactly been the fashion among catalan pataphysics. Ou equipment arrived only in small deses to Barcelona and for a long time we had to be satisfied with either what you have or can find. But with the construction work going on for the upcoming olympics it was paradise.

Later in France, things changed. We found more and more discarded consumer electronics that still worked, at least partialy. In our set, besides a couple gear motors and speed controllers everything else had been fished out of the bins.

French Style. They had someone apponted for the "diffusion", to my regret.

That was with the late and regretted Salvador Frankesch, not with the late and regretted Victor Nubla. Rendering the floating ambient sharp and the sharp concrète noises floating. No gimmic, all about the balance and I had an idea what to expect, knowing these guys and their work since decades.

In the meantime we did meet, twice actualy. Don't think it changes anything much ?! It's different for playing live. You need a precise idea of how reactive someone can be with his/her set. It's real-time. But for recordings, it takes a lot of time anyway. But also with my close collegues when DSM was more of a group, we exchanged recordings and every one would work independently and time and again we meet and put things together. I guess that's what today is called "workflow". We always had it.

One could pretend that now, with the internet everything is fster. But that only counts for sending recordings around. The decision making has never changed. It's a slow process. Different maybe, when it's more like for a re-mix project like "Tulpas" where one has full autonomy over the result of once piece.

Non. Actualy one, french "critic". But it's somethging I can very well live with. Unfortunatly (for me, not for him) Morton Feldman had his DAAD artists residency in Berlin just when I left for Barcelona. Also I had the chance to meet a bunch of the "important" academic composers, I usualy try not to get too close to the heroes. But I would have had a bunch of question for Mr. Feldman. Variation and repetition is the game. As Xenakis said "sound is just the fashion of time". Our's I hope, are out of time. Soyes, I believe that bordom can be the canvas and in good measure it can allow, tiny variations to appear bigger than they actualy are and a bad balance can drown the whole bloody thing.

I don't care. The last thing I am is nostalgic. I lived the 80's in Berlin. I played my first show in the fall of 1978 in a parish hall in my district in front of "these older guys" who thought that they have seen it all because they believed that Jesus and Frank Zappa had been the same guy. I can't remember much, only that after 10 minutes, I was pretty much alone. Must have been alright.

I saw plenty of the groups of the VOD catalog in Berlin or when being uproad. I don't feel like warming up the soup again and again. There are great new things the plenty. I live in the present! Last year we had 10 shows and 2 exhibitions. The VOD Fest show will be our 7th this year plus two more exhibition done.

If someone has nothing better to do than emulate 80's sounds with todays tech, so be it. Waste your time.