I would say that in this particular case (golden shield music), the problem is the "abstractization" of the material. as Marco himself admitted, due to the synthesis model he used, any numbers would have triggered a not very different result, and the music alone (I don't know the rest of the installation) doesn't let the intended meaning go through.

a small, but important correction just for the sake of information.

I didn't said the music won't change much, that's what Matju argued. I only said the rhythmic structure would be the same, but notes would change.

As described on the project webpage, each one of the four fragment of the IP constitutes a single voice of the synth. So notes do definitely change in a recognizable way even with similar IPs.

Besides, "resulting notes are ordered by the amount of pages the Golden Shield obscured for each IP address: the website’s IP obtaining the highest page result on Google.com becomes the first note of the score and the others follow in decreasing order."

Which makes the composition fairly unique and related to the subject of the investigation.

I keep on believing to have reached the needed technical degree for such kind of work. Its importance to me is given by the _concept_ of (poorly said) giving a voice to banned websites through music or sound, raising awareness about the existence of this kind of censorship.

I'm still very happy to have stimulated such interesting conversation. Thanks everybody for throwing yourself in...

M

since someone asked how to make censorship clear, I would propose (in the same way to make something else clear) for example to change the sound content, so that we can get a more clear objectification of what's being dealt with. just of the top of the head I can give a concrete realisation (which will have a different result): instead of "abstract" tones, use voice samples speaking out the IPs / or flustering, as being menaced / or computer "reading" / or voice samples but with some variable distortion (that can be controlled by the country from where the site comes, ...) This would be a proposal so that the result is more connected with the concept and process of the installation. Predicting some critiques, someone can say "with the IPs I don't know what are the sites", but they don't really have to know. It should be enough to get an idea of the quantity of manipulated sites, I guess that was the intention of the installation. Or then, another level could use the whois data to sonify as well... of course the possibilities are endless.

From my side, I just resume: if you have a clear process/concept that gives it's identity to the project, it's a bit of a pity that the final result looses power because there isn't a strong enough "palpable" (whatever that is) connection. Going too far with the "palpability" could result in a "technical demonstration", but letting things too loose means that you're not expressing anything at all, you're just making "nice music" (which is what you said yourself you didn't want to do). The question is finding the balance.

And of course, you can always write an article.

Jo?o

...

This is a classic example of the ongoing (mis)communication(s) between artists and scientists. In this case, I think Mathieu is confusing the purpose of art with the purpose of a scientific paper. One's aim is to establish and demonstrate facts, the other to explore possibilities and inspire imaginative (and often non-linear) connections.

For me, far too much of this art-science stuff errs on the side of technical demonstration. And far too many artists lack the training to engage with the real media of their work and instead hire technicians to realize it for them. The flip side of that coin is that poetry is often unquantifiable ("program me something sad" says the media artist to their trusty technician) and causes segfaults in engineer-type brains ;-)

D.

On 12/22/10 9:18 PM, Marco Donnarumma wrote:

...

Matju, I see your point and I won't try to convince you that this work is something you don't believe it to be.

However, I believe our disagreement born from a very different viewpoint on the nature of an """"artistic"""" intervention. Your technical analysis is excellent, but it seems to me it goes over the real scope of the work.

-- Friedenstr. 58 10249 Berlin (Deutschland) Tel +49 30 42020091 | Mob +49 162 6843570 Studio +49 30 69509190 jmmmpais@googlemail.com | skype: jmmmpjmmmp

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