Today the copying and sampling of not just sound but of all material from infinite sources challenges the «spectacular aura» of the pre-recorded original in order to claim autonomy. We asked musicians from the Norient network: how does the digital availability of sources change music? A virtual debate from the Norient exhibition Seismographic Sounds (see and order corresponding book here).

Quotes

«My sample library is full of glitchy sounds. I started to build it years ago and I’m continuously updating it. It works like this: I make recordings from prepared instruments or amplified objects, or I record jams with digital instruments. Then I work with these sounds, paying close attention to details. I can spend hours designing just one three hundred milliseconds glitch, or I can build a huge wall of sound out of intersecting layers. These layers create beautiful and dense textures that I’m gradually transforming in my software by changing many parameters at each moment. I edit my samples to the point that they gain a totally new identity – all associations are gone and in the end just their aesthetic qualities count. Success is when I can make thousands of variations from a single sample. These sounds define my library. I think that gives a certain stamp to all of my works.»

Svetlana Maraš, Composer and Sound Artist (Serbia)

«I sample my own music. It helps to exaggerate my egomania. By recombining myself my self-referential cosmos grows day by day.»

Christoph Ogiermann, Composer, Singer, Instrumentalist and Conductor in the Fields of of Contemporary Music and Free Improvisation (Germany)

«Everything is a remix.»

Joe Bennett, Popular Music Scholar (Great Britain)

«Art and music in an archive will function like words in our minds. In the near future we will reuse them at will, just like we create sentences.»

Eduardo Navas, Remix Studies Scholar (USA)

Video Debate Statements by

Simon A. Akindes, Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Law at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside (USA)
Joe Bennett, Popular Music Scholar (Great Britain) Tonny Cajazeira, Musician (Brazil)
Antye Greie-Ripatti (AGF), Vocalist, Musician, Composer, Producer, and New Media Artist (Germany)
Keith Kahn-Harris, Sociologist and Reseacher of Metal Music (UK)
Peter Kraut, Cultural Producer, Curator and Lecturer, Bern (Switzerland)
Vladimir Lenhart, Musician, Journalist, and Founder of Lenhart Tapes (Serbia)
Svetlana Maraš, Composer and Sound Artist (Serbia)
Eduardo Navas, Remix Studies Scholar (USA)
Asma Maroof and Daniel Pineda (Nguzunguzu), Electronic Music Producers (USA)
Christoph Ogiermann, Composer, Singer, Instrumentalist and Conductor in the Fields of of Contemporary Music and Free Improvisation (Germany)
Hillegonda Rietveld, Course Director Music and Sonic Media at London South Bank University (UK)
Bruno Spoerri, Jazz Musician (Switzerland)
Stromae, Musician (Belgium)
Jonathan Ward, Founder of Excavated Shellac.com (USA)

Video Cut: Stephan Hermann, Coupdoeil