Bent Not Broken

Bent not broken is a great documentary I ran across this week. Its about why noise musicians tinker around in the circuitry of "instruments" and electronics. Exploring deeper into the ideologies behind the music, most of these musicians can seem out of their minds; but, I'm beginning to see some common threads in their creative processes.

I really love the idea of chaos that these musicians seem to cling to. Music is the production of sound, and these guys are producing intriguing vocabularies of noise. Casey Clark gets to the root of circuit bending from some interesting fellows in Chicago (by the by, if you want to know some of the local Chicago traditions and culture check this out). Clark has made a multitude of documentaries, most of which with music at the core. (1, 2).

Repetition seems to be the key to all the great noise musicians. The tinkering with an oscillation until you've satisfied yourself of the possibilities that exist in that particular short circuit. So, to end on, I went through a bunch of flickr photos and image searches to see if there were any great post-dada or fluxus artists that try to highlight repetition in their visual art. The whole idea behind fluxus is community. Finding those overlapping groups (like fluxus people) of visual artists that have taken to the internet to share their ideas has been satiating. Here's a new one that goenetix has posted. It reminds me greatly of how the repetition in music transforms as it evolves. The snow melting and falling is subtle but the mood alters itself well.