Of Minimal Materialities And Maximal Amplitudes: A Provisional Manual Of Stroboscopic Noise Performance

Abstract

To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. "" Karl Marx [1]The various techniques available to contemporary multimedia performers congeal, on occasion, into a set of related tools, techniques, and apparent motivations that one might characterize as a genre or scene. More often than not, in technologized audiovisual performance, these differentiable aesthetics and styles emerge with the introduction of a particular new media technology capability (see "˜electronic music' and "˜computer music' as examples of this). New tools beget new aesthetics and timbres, and software and hardware advances allow for more bits-per-second, more particles-per-frame, and more computing power-per-square-centimeter. Likewise and meanwhile, although more exceptionally, performance tools and styles also arise that are somewhat resistant to these vectors of technological progress.K. Marx, "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)," in Marx: Early Political Writings(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 64.