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re: visuals
Loopers-
A salesman must appeal to all the senses. This is the cardinal rule for
those guys. You can
induce a sense of dread with looping dissonance or heavenly hope with
major thirds, but I
would argue (politely) that without stimulating the other senses, the
whole appeal will be
lost in exactly 15 minutes, and this is not a quantum loss. This is a slow
descent into
disinterest, unless the audience is high or stimulated by
other alternative meditative processes.
I'm definitely not criticizing. And I've never been to a loop festival.
And I'm interested,
but not for only the music. I'm curious about the whole package. I, too,
would like to
loop live. I haven't seen an act that is entirely interesting unless it
stimulates a greater
portion of my gray matter than purely aural regions. And I'm very
sensitive, as you all are
too, to sound.
Take Phish, for instance. They are not superstars in the sense
of other over-the-top acts. I've never seen Trey leap
into the crowd to be surfed from hand to hand. I haven't seen
him spit on them either. He grins a little and bobs his head at the
bemushroomed crowd.
But the lights overhead dazzle.
The lights are half the show. It's an organic unity: the lights, the
music, the collective
altered consciousness of the critical mass. In their heyday, they were the
top grossing act.
Of course, their counterparts, the Dead, didn't need necessarily to resort
to such an
outlandish display (Dead Heads, help me out here). But then again, I think
the most
stimulating movie at the time they were touring endlessly was Dog Day
Afternoon or The
Godfather. Today we have the most realistic, ultra-, meta-, supra-real
material ever to
touch the inner neurons of waking life. It's a different time. VW vans
just don't have the
hustle they used to. If a population of under stimulated, artistically
minded, musically
learned listeners can be accumulated by virtue of a single loop act, then
go get 'em, but I
would say that that artist has his/her work cut out. Unless the experience
touches and
reaches out to the far in places of an entire continuum of musical space,
unless the
appreciation of the Loop-Gestalt widens to encompass a whole gamut of
listener
appreciation, it will always be an esoteric art relegated to the
occasional, and primarily
peer supported, scene that I suspect is the case now. Perhaps there are
acts the caliber of
King Crimson out there generating a hype, but not to the extent that Neil
Diamond, Liza
Minelli, or Pearl Jam can foster. And they ain't loopin'.
Now, that said, I ask myself: what is a looper's greatest
strength? I answer his/her intelligence and technical prowess. You are all
a bunch of
highly advanced humans, and I wouldn't nor do not doubt it. Can this
intelligence be
collectively used to generate the necessary tools to engage a larger
sample of the listening
audience? Yes. How? Well, you can hash that out if you are interested. And
if you are
interested in hearing my idea, then read on. If not, then nothing lost,
nothing conveyed.
I suggest that a tool designed to be interactive via audience
output as they in turn respond to the movements of the music
be broadcast back to them so that they can experience visual feedback as
well as the
ability to determine that visual feedback based on collective behavior be
developed. What
a bunch of bamboozle, eh? No, but really, think about it--a system where
the interested
audience is outputting, via physical movement received by sensors (and we
all know how
zippy they are today), sensors for heat, sensors for frequency, sensors
for position,
sensors for I don't know what, all concerted and fed back to them via a
dazzling light
show, a light show that they determine based on their
responses to the music. The music responds to the audience (to
a certain extent); the audience responds to the music... another loop, a
greater, collective
loop--one where the music loops within the other, audience generated loops
like
planets...all for $19.95.
Something is needed to push this looping effort over the edge.
Certainly the loopers can be incorporated in a band, and I believe I've
read about these
acts. Any names? These bands probably could rely on the time tested,
high-energy
producing conventions that bands have relied on for some time. But for the
ambient actor,
the dreadful sound maker, the screeching feedbacker--for him, he's in a
different
predicament. He needs other elements. You've read my suggestion. Is this
just science
fiction, or can this be created? At what cost? Would it be patented? Could
Aurisis handle
this? Can I help with the manual?
Paul