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Article: Producing noise: Oval and the politics of digital audio.
- Article from:
- Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine
- Article date:
- June 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Parachute Contemporary Art. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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This essay examines and historicizes a recent trend in some popular electronic music, a trend music producer and writer Kim Cascone labels "the aesthetics of failure": a specific interest in the sounds of improperly functioning digital technology--a technology that, through its intricate ordering of zeros and ones, can be seen as a virtual embodiment of Western rationality. (1) As an important early innovator making music of this type, the work of the German producer Marcus Popp, released under the name Oval, provides a basis for this discussion. (2) Oval's work is fragmentary and densely layered, with CD skip-sounds supplying a textured and irregular percussive element, ...