Transgressive Shareability

Last year, my essay-dialogue with new media theorist and philosopher David Gunkel covered a wide range of issues including remixology, remixthebook, glitch aesthetics, transgression, and even university art school politics. The dialogue was published as a chapter in Transgression 2.0: Media, Culture, and the Politics of the Digital Age (Routledge). Here is an excerpt:

In my book META/DATA, I see this co-emergence and the co-response-ability that comes with it as a way to affectively become what I call the not-me. The not-me rejects a self-situated ethics of being and instead remixes digital flux personae into a transgressive form of networked performance that experiments with subjectivity in the field of distribution. It's like what Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) writes in Rhythm Science (2004) when he refers to "persona as shareware" and Ettinger refers to as "transgressive shareability" (Ettinger 2006, 168) Daily remix practice is not a self-centered ritual of dissipating the ego. It's much more intense than that. I think of it as a kind of embodied praxis where the artist-medium builds their chops by conducting an open source, cut-and-paste as-you-go, digital lifestyle practice that operates as part of this larger, com-passionate agenda to nurture feelings back into the mix. This is the only we can even approach what Whitehead refers to as the Higher Phases of Experience.

The entire chapter can be downloaded here.


Keywords: remixology, glitch aesthetics, transgression, Mark Amerika, David Gunkel, Bracha Ettinger, DJ Spooky, Routledge

Micro-Cinematic Essays... On Exhibit @calit2 in San Diego

On January 17, 2013, Micro-Cinematic Essays on the Life and Work of Marcel Duchamp dba Conceptual Parts, Ink opened as part of the Three Junctures of Remix exhibition at the @calit2 gallery at UCSD in San Diego. The exhibition runs through March 15, 2013 and is curated by Eduardo Navas.

According to Navas, "The exhibition THREE JUNCTURES OF REMIX features the art of Mark Amerika & Chad Mossholder, Arcángel Constantini, Giselle Beiguelman, and Elisa Kreisinger, a group of international artists who have explored and reflected on the implications of the creative act of remixing since the concept became popular beginning in the nineties. The art works crossover and explore three junctures (moments of production) of remix: the pre-digital/analog; the digital; and the post-digital which developed in chronological order, but after their initial manifestation, became intertwined and currently are often reintroduced in conjunction to inform the aesthetics of remix as a creative act in art practice. The exhibition is curated to reflect on how computing has enabled people to recombine pre-existing material with unprecedented efficiency that is relatively affordable just about everywhere information-based technology is widely used. This has affected how local and global communities view their cultural production, from politics to the arts."

Micro-Cinematic Essays on the Life and Work of Marcel Duchamp dba Conceptual Parts, Ink is a collaborative "conceptual art" album featuring my own writing and vocals (much of it recorded using my iPhone Voice Memo app) and the sound design of electronic music composer Chad Mossholder. The work consists of nineteen experimental tracks that we refer to as "close readings" focusing on the work, language, and notes of Marcel Duchamp as well as his influence on contemporary forms of remix practice. Many of the tracks actually remix my own voice with the voice of Duchamp. An exploration into glitch, microtonality, and the spectral analysis of recorded voices over time, Chad and I surgically alter the aesthetic frequency of what is often referred to as "the artist's voice" and, in the process, invite the listener to rethink the interrelationship between critical writing and critical listening.

The work is now available in limited edition either through our Bandcamp site or by contacting the artists directly.

Keywords: calit2, SDSU, Three Junctures of Remix, Mark Amerika, Marcel Duchamp, Chad Mossholder, remix, Symbolic Sound, kyma