jim submits:

"Music From the Left"

R. G. Davis

In Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Jacques Attali argues that musical innovations prefigure social developments. For those of us interested in effecting changes in society he offers this thought: "Any theory of power today must include a theory of the localization of noise and its endowment with form" (1985, xi).

The form of most folk and almost all jazz/pop music does not (cannot) even reflect industrial social relations as we know them, much less make a comment on them. Classical music, or music organized by a trained composer, art music, is more likely to produce an instructional metaphor (and form) with which to examine the foundations of corporate society. I think that the structure/form of a musical composition, no matter what the lyrics, influences the listener's thoughts about the world. The structure contains a view of the world which the listener reiterates in his/her personal musical repetition. The structure then becomes a metaphor for a view of the world.

Full story continues at Davis

Anonymous Comrade submits:

Essays into Digital Aesthetics

Interview with Anna Munster

by Geert Lovink

PSY-GEO-CONFLUX May 8-11

New York City

PSY-GEO-CONFLUX 2003 marks the inauguration of an annual event dedicated to current artistic and social investigations in PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY ("the study of the effects of the geographic environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals"). Part festival and part conference, it brings together visual and sound artists, writers, and urban adventurers to explore the physical and psychological landscape of the city.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Punk and Autonomia"

[Please note that this is a "work in progress". The author's contact details are below.]

1. Introduction

In 1978 Crass produced a poster that said: "Germany got Bader-Meinhof, England got punk, but they can't kill it." I want to put forward the idea that it is far more analogous to punk to say Italy got Autonomia. 1977 was a year of explosions of creativity amongst sections of youth in England and Italy. In Germany it was a year of repression, of the closing of space. This contemporaneity triggers questions about potential similarities but also masks huge differences between the Italian movement of '77 and the emergence of punk rock in Britain. Punk's emergence at the heart of the Anglo-American music industry ensured the rapid dissemination of its innovations and a widespread and enduring influence. The Autonomia movement's roots however lay in a much more heated and sophisticated political environment. The Italian Communist Party (PCI) of the 1970's was the largest outside the Communist block and had a sphere of influence in the country way beyond the ranks of its members. Through the influence of the writings of Antonio Gramsci, it had developed a relatively sophisticated political culture. The development of autonomist thought out of and against this culture led to a "thorough rethinking of Marxist theory and the more systematic creation of new theoretical paradigms"(De Angelis, 1993). This highly theorised movement developed a far reaching analysis of the autonomous struggles that came to the fore in the cycle of struggles of the sixties. Also important to note is the foundational role that orthodox Italian Marxism had on the development of Cultural Studies as a discipline. Of particular note is the influence that Antonio Gramsci's ideas on the autonomy of the political had on the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. This legacy is still discernable today. A politics developed in and against this influential political culture has the potential to be of more than incidental interest. In section two I outline the main ideas of autonomist marxism in relation to the social struggles from which they developed. In section three I consider how these ideas can help us understand punk. I conclude in section four.