Self-Organizing Sound, the Technology Fetish, and the Smooth/Stepped Generator

self-organizing systems allow circuits to interfere with each other and organize themselves into musical structures. this is a bottom-up approach to music making that stands in opposition to the top-down hierarchical structures of 'generative music'
in this video i describe the marxist conception of the technology fetish and how it creates an illusion in the capitalist class of technology as a progressive force leading to utopia. the elon musks of the world use this fetish to greenwash their accumulation of wealth and exploitation of the planet
here, i try to imagine how we might use synthesizers to create analogies of distributed, democratic economic systems

[@TijsHam]

Great video! Totally agree with your explanations of the difference between random processes and chaotic ones.

[@robriki2]

I came to synthesis and eventually to modular during the pandemic after 2 decades of musical practice as an improviser musician with acoustic and electronics instruments. Surprise and imperfect feedback are driving force in my music. I really liked your discussion as it formalized some of the things that bothered me with some aspect of generative music, mostly its esthetical previsibility. It explains many of the choices I made in my music!

[@joaoceitil]

Yes I crossed with many people that really don't understand what is generative music. The name itself is a bit vague by omitting perhaps the "self" word. Self generative music, makes it more clear. Implies self organization which is only possible through feedback. The feedback it self is under the umbrella of some misconception promoted by repetition (feedback=noise). A bit like the myth of sharks hungry for human flesh. Well I think this repels people in general. There is so much in feedback that we can do that not always lead to noise. I am very happy with this video because it highlights all this concepts in a very articulated way.

[@hoofsgrow]

You make a fascinating point comparing feedback to a waterfall model in this context! The question is as analogous in small social structures as it is in the most infinite one: one god or his dance with the devil :) Great content.

[@zerobject]

Looking forward for your next video on slope generators and anarchy. Seriously though, I totally share all your philosophical views on society and our future. I encourage you (as well as others here) to explore Pyotr Kropotkin ideas on the subject, which would be of interest no doubt. Sorry for my joke above - I just think it's time to leave alone synthesisers for creating music and unite on grounds of all these thoughts you're referring to. Anyway, pleased to see like-minded person here.

[@BenjaminCarey]

Thanks for the video. I dunno though. I get and respect the analysis of technology in this sense regarding capitalist systems and world views, but I don't buy the reductive definition of generative music. This seems a little too tied to modular specific notions of generativity, when there's a whole world out there. There are so many forms of this music, many of which are focused on the bottom up. Eno's conception of composing as gardening comes to mind, as do Live Algorithms for Music (people using biological models and other low-level approaches to generate musical forms and materials). I agree though that feedback is a philosophical angle worth advocating for in system/patch design, as it's about tapping into the agency of the machine and setting up the conditions for complexity to arise, but I think this happens in a great deal of generative music as well. Agree that there are more intelligent ways of using random sources... Thanks for the vid and great patch :)

[@lasynthesehumaine6932]

agreed - and thanks for reminding me that the term 'generative music' has plenty of great historical context! i suppose i'm mostly reacting to what seems to have coalesced around the term in the past couple years - focused on buying things that inoffensively recreates blandly 'pretty' music which conforms to inherited notions of what 'good' music is. and especially as the term 'generative art' has exploded in the past year due to NFTs, the term seems to have gained a new life of its own, and one that i have to be very skeptical about

[@keisisqrl]

@@lasynthesehumaine6932 ah see now you bring up NFTs and I see where you’re coming from. I describe NFTs as recombinant rather than generative and… yeah, I can 100% see how feeding sampled random into a quantizer that controls Rings is related.

[@xibbit6322]

All systems tend towards entropy. It’s a general principle of both physics and systems theory. All we can do is try to perfect and fix our current systems.but changing the fundamental underlying system won’t actually fix anything, just restart the oscillation towards chaos. We need some mechanism to create a metaphorical damped oscillation, somehow create a self correcting fail safe if this makes any sense.

[@runglerhz5590]

Subtle placement of that Roland Kayn boxset there ;-)

[@comPOed]

To me, the universe itself looks like an analog synth with feedback (assuming spacetime is continuous).

[@Gaiafreak6969]

Hi, I don't know if you still look at your comments, but what books would you recommend for someone who wants to get into cybernetics, namely how they can relate to mycology

[@FortheSoulFtS]

belle interpretation à propos de la nature de l'electronique et vrai a mon sens. Je vais développer ce concept d ici 2 ans en parlant de la nature meme de la conscience à l'aide d'un systeme mis en mouvement. Mon support sera la création de musique techno à l'aide de systemes comme par exemple le systeme Serge et surtout de systemes electroniques.

[@gingerprince2062]

hey do u have a reading list for where I can learn more? I’m pulling together and combining ideas about cultivating ecologies of creative outputs/recombinations. creating new channels for information to flow to create networks of coevolution that are non-heiarchical and self-organizing (transdifferentiating structures that use feedback loops to generate superstructure). ultimate goal is to crowd source complexity to expand possibility space and imagine alternate futures. been thinking about how this system is pretty much just a massive non-linear modular synthesizer. i think it could be a better digital media platform that integrates creation and consumption. anyways sorry to ask but i’m looking for ways to think about these ideas and figured i’d vomit a bunch of keyword combinations and see if you have a direction you could point me. where are the communities of people working on these ideas?

[@ellismarsforman]

really cool video. shade to 'generative music' lol

[@jfracine_composition]

9:20 niiice !

Nice! Keep em coming! Best wishes from a fellow cybernetician serge user.

[@loopinnerthe]

Inspiring and interesting video, your thoughts on the technology fetish are world changing... I am currently looking at a similar thing in the digital domain. A very simple algorithm that is chaotic but not random in any way. The duration (Attack and Decay of the envelope) of a note is determined by the time at which it wants to play, this is purely sinusoidal function with time so notes get longer and shorter by the rules of a pendulum swing. The time at which a note wants to play is determined by its unique frequency (say 1 a second) however if it wakes up and wants to play there is a democratic order to adhere to, there is only a certain number of notes allowable at any one time, if this number has been exceed the note will sleep again for its given period....

[@JSlackArt]

All your videos blow my mind, thank you, but I'm curious if you think capitalism is just feudalism in disguise, I'm not gonna pretend to know anything about that, but it's something I've heard about. Also I'm trying to wrap my head around building a neuron with my own setup, it's so far led to some interesting results! Again thanks this stuff is beyond interesting.

[@Beatsbasteln]

feedback is definitely a really inspiring concept when you think about all the complex systems interacting with each other in nature itself and use that to fuel musical ideas like in this video. but i wouldn't say it's bad to have a more top-down approach to making music where some basic pattern kinda dictates everything that comes next. every song is its own little universe to me and every universe has certain constants and physical rules. having something in a piece of music that just sets the vibe and doesn't leave until the outro, wether it's a certain rhythmn or a drony pad, feels to me like that's the underlying logic of this universe. and then things that are more chaotic can actually build up on that basis and expose the complexity and nature that can evolve from the basic pattern

[@chkbt]

Have you read alot of thomas pynchon? Some fascinating deep history as it relates to cybernetics in the military and the subsequent development into the internet

[@lasynthesehumaine6932]

sometimes i think i've read too much pynchon lol

[@rubymars_xyz]

which of his works specifically focuses on these topics?

[@lasynthesehumaine6932]

@@rubymars_xyz crying of lot 49 and gravity's rainbow feature these themes most prominently, but it's one of the many threads woven through all of his work

[@chkbt]

@@rubymars_xyz bleeding edge as well

[@blackjacktopinoko]

Any rationale to help those too timid to stack multiple signals into one input get over their fear of damaging modules would be appreciated.

[@lasynthesehumaine6932]

just do it it's probably fine

[@lasynthesehumaine6932]

honestly i've never heard of someone breaking a module by stacking too many things into an input. not to say it couldn't happen, but

[@pipersolanas3322]

A question: are you a Luddite? Or alternatively, what is your opinion on Luddism? Edit: it seems you clarified it by saying Marxists aren't Luddites (assuming you're a Marxist of course; and i agree. Marx has quite the praise for technology)

[@pipersolanas3322]

I'm only 2 minutes thru but following from what you say is the reason i am highly skeptical of divorcing technology from capitalism and uncritically hoping it will lead us to communism. But i suppose I'm still quite optimistic about the prospects of technology in socialized control, though it is close to impossible to picture it at this stage.

[@lasynthesehumaine6932]

i agree - just as i push back on the capitalist notion of technological determinism, i also have to push back on other forms of determinism that can arise from (i believe) distortions of marx. technology, social relations, economic production, ideology, and cultural forms are all deeply intertwined, and progressing out of capitalism requires changes in all of them

[@pipersolanas3322]

@@lasynthesehumaine6932 just as Luddism is a bastardisation of Marxism, so is technological determinism

[@keisisqrl]

9:18 ah yes clowncore XD