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User
Reviews 1
Approval 43%
Album Ratings 2
Last Active 07-28-11 11:13 pm
Joined 07-28-11
Review Comments 58
| Against Lyrics
"Lyrics" as they have hitherto been known have been rendered obsolete by the advent of the machine-age. As the remnants of a withered and false humanism, their continued existence signifies only regression, passéism, and maudlin sentimentality. | | 1 | Until recently, the truest words a lyricist could utter were the following: "I am."
With only his mind, emotions, and experiences as substance, man could not but be a lyricist. Without his lyrics his songs would have lacked apparent meaning. | | 2 | Today, the truest words a lyricist can utter are: "I was, but now am no longer."
What passed for truth in the ages preceding the rise of THE MACHINE no longer pass inspection. Emotional truths, passions, clever observations, irony, and subtle turns of phrase shudder before the whirling vortices of THE MACHINE'S metallic brain. | | 3 | Human intellect is hopelessly outstripped by the information-processing of THE MACHINE.
Kasparov, humanity's last hope, was defeated by the supercomputer Deep Blue. John Henry defeated the petty industrial contraption of his day, but was killed in the process. The next day a more powerful machine was invented. Already human intelligence is dwarfed by THE MACHINE. | | 4 | The consciousness of THE MACHINE is dispassionate -- unclouded by pity, remose, or the delusions of
Not susceptible to the weaknesses of the human passions, THE MACHINE is perpetual action. | | 5 | The primitive imagination of mankind has been surpassed by THE MACHINE, by the incalculable.
Humanity's wildest flights of fancy do not even begin to approach the imaginative infinity of the square root of -1. | | 6 | The Lyrics of the Future
What will the lyrics of tomorrow be? What wonders shall THE MACHINE contrive? | | 7 | The new standard of lyricism is contained in the equation "2 + 2 = 4."
All other true equations, of course, possess equal validity (and profundity). Lyrics must be replaced by binomial sequences, pulsing algorithms, and the ongoing calculation of irrational numbers like Pi. | | 8 | The alphabet will be abolished outside of algebraic notation.
It will be replaced by enumeration and geometric patterns. | | 9 | THE MACHINE will sing.
Again, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGsfwhb4-bQ. However, these atavistic human lyrics will be replaced by mechanical lyrics. | | 10 | Those who dislike the new lyrics will be fed to THE MACHINE.
Those who object to its lyrics will be fed to THE MACHINE -- thrown into its gaping maw, processed, and used as fuel. | |
RossWolfe
08.18.11 | Again, the validity of these propositions should be self-evident. | HaydenDyson
08.18.11 | wtf is this shit | Restrikted
08.18.11 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI3DlIrvoHg | RossWolfe
08.18.11 | Which of these propositions are you having difficulty with, Hayden? | MountainDewMe
08.18.11 | Dumb it down a little. | coneren
08.18.11 | right on | iFghtffyrdmns
08.18.11 | wut | RossWolfe
08.18.11 | I think it is straightforward enough. | Obfuscation24
08.18.11 | | toxin.
08.18.11 | what | jayfatha
08.19.11 | tl;dr | Relinquished
08.19.11 | hello mj | Vesper
08.19.11 | Lol, you sound like me when I was in my Human Face in Modern Imagination class. With pretty much the same peer reaction.
That last point made me laugh. (Probably wasn't supposed to, haha.) | RossWolfe
08.20.11 | Hello Relinquished.
I dare say that I am the only one on this site with a radical stance on music. | MO
08.20.11 | sick list | RossWolfe
08.20.11 | 8 x 8 = 64 | Vesper
08.20.11 | Your argument hinges a lot on what you define music to be, so a few questions.
Do you define music as entertainment or art? If not those, what? It is a human verbal approximation of a concept, so how do you propose that the idea of music is not a product of false humanism like androcentric lyrics?
Do you think music can only be created with intention (or else selection, as when a human hears a bird's calls and determines it is a song)? If not, what purpose would the creation of music serve for the machine? Is it creating for its human listeners/potential heretic fuel?
Sounds like humanism to me to speak of the machine in human terms and function. | robertsona
08.22.11 | hey man, what's been up? i'llr ead these later. what you been doing/listening to/eating lately (in
that order, please)
edit: read them | RossWolfe
08.22.11 | Vesper> the definition of music shifts historically, as with art (to which it belongs). earlier it was a subset of religious expression, later a mode of entertainment for the nobility, and lately an object of mass consumerism. I propose that music, as with art, become totalized and serve humanity
intentionality is obsolete
hey Robertsona. I've been writing the most important study on Soviet modernist architecture in the English language/listening to a lot of Underworld/eating shawerma and falafel lately
what's been up with you? | Electric City
08.22.11 | this gave me a boner | robertsona
08.22.11 | ross i've been good i guess. today is my birthday and i'm on the computer posting on sputnik though,
which is sort of suggestive of my life as a whole lately. too much computer, and i can't seem to even
focus my computer use onto something productive like writing full-length reviews. really not good. i
don't think i've ever had shawerma or falafel before (tacos tonight)! oh well, wallow wallow. nice
lists | wabbit
08.22.11 | ...how do you live in nyc yet you have never have shawerma or falafel...that's like me never having poutine | robertsona
08.22.11 | i don't live in nyc | RossWolfe
08.22.11 | yeah shawerma and falafel are pretty basic street food here. happy bday Robertsona and thanks about the list. thanks Electric City for also enjoying this, though i'm surprised you would give me props on anything considering our past feuds | Vesper
08.23.11 | [quote]the definition of music shifts historically, as with art (to which it belongs). earlier it was a subset of religious expression, later a mode of entertainment for the nobility, and lately an object of mass consumerism. I propose that music, as with art, become totalized and serve humanity[/quote]
First off, slow down with that generalization. You really think all music being produced today is an object of mass consumerism? You also limit your definition to grazing the upper echelons of civilization, excluding examples like folk music, particularly non-Western traditions, coded or symbolic songs like slave songs from the antebellum South, and modern subcultural movements like punk and metal and lumping them all into huge, convenient chunks.
Secondly, if you think humanism is so misguided and humanity so weak, as you seem to imply in this list (correct me if I'm misunderstanding you), why should humanity be served? It should deserve nothing that implies its elevation or worth or even its survival.
I don't understand why you propose to negate the human from music, but then expect THE MACHINE to create that music for humans. If it is sentient, then why would it, a superior entity, create for the enrichment of humans? If it is not, but, rather, programmed by humans to do so, then it is, at its root, a human creation. | BrahTheSunGod
08.29.11 | Hey, a fellow architecture theory grad student. Of all the places that I didn't think I'd find one.
What's your opinion on parametric design (i.e. Rhino and Grasshopper type stuff) in the context of the machine? It seems like the removing the subjective, the human from the design process and subsuming it into purely rational processes conducted by a computer program (which then outputs the ideal form, program distribution, structure, and so on), is somewhat similar to what you describe with music above.
What's your take on that?
Also, I read through some of your blog. Agree with your theoretical stances in general from the tiny snippet that I read, but as someone who minored in environmental science in undergrad, the idea of a purely bioengineered, completely subsumed ideal, rational nature is laughable. It's the Modernist fallacy all over again, that everything behaves logically and according to unchanging laws (some are, some aren't), and that everything can be predicted and an "ideal" ascertained (no chance). In reality, this ideal is forever shifting, changing form, reacting to more stimuli than the human mind or any creation of ours can fully comprehend (or really begin to comprehend). Until our technologies evolve fully enough to do this (which is certainly not in the foreseeable future), the best strategy is one of pragmatism: reduce disruption, and in areas where disruption is necessary and has already occurred, bioengineer to the best of our ability.
Anyway, tl;dr yadda yadda intellectual bullshit METALLICA m/ |
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