Up-close

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The beginning of Chapter 4, which discusses the digitization of music and fluidity between medias, brings yet another opportunity for the discussion of the mediation of music and how it can influence music making, understanding and consumption. In the 1980’s and 1990’s technology made possible to make our musical experiences mobile through the Walkman and CD players, as discussed in Chapter 3, and with the advent of the MP3 format in the early 2000’s, and more recently streaming services such as YouTube and Spotify, it became possible to any person to have access to a virtually endless audiovisual catalogue at any given moment or place. The 1980’s and 1990’s expanded our musical experience through mobility, however, this experience was still limited by the physical boundaries of CDs or tapes. Digitization of music extinguishes these boundaries and broadens our access, yet, at the same time, the current digital state of music reflects the XXI century’s fluidity and challenges our previous paradigms of identity in music.
This new format of disembodied digital information, susceptible to rapid multiplication, transformation, and resignification also allows for new ways of interaction between music, listeners and other arts. Sampling, the repurposing of pre-conceived musical material, is a good example of the current ever-changing fluid state of identity in music. Although sampling is not an XXI century invention, the digitization of music in the 2000’s certainly expanded its potentials. Sampling amplifies the possibilities of pre-existing music taking over new identities and being in constant recycling and transformation. It also transfers the ownership of a musical idea – the act of repurposing a given recorded material gives it a new intellectual owner, another expression of its new identity.
Among many examples, Michael Van der Aa’s Up Close (2010) is a magnificent example of fluid state of identity in music. Although the music in Up Close is enticing, this work can only be fully appreciated in its audiovisual format. The work, consisting of a String Orchestra, Cello soloist and video projection, constantly shifts our attention back and forth between the music and the audiovisual narrative. The performers on stage and the character portrayed on the projected film interact; the music is not a soundtrack for the projected film, and neither the film is a program for the music.
During its appreciation our attention shifts between the musicians and the film. At times the music will be non-diagetic in relation to the film, much like a soundtrack, yet in some moments the character in the film will react to the music giving to it a diagetic status. The same could be said about the film projection: sound effects and samples that seem to be part of the audiovisual narrative will blend and interact with the musical events. The intertwined relationship between audiovisual and live performance in Up Close eliminates the borders between these two worlds, and the concept of identity in this work becomes hard to define. Who is the main character? Who carries the narrative? The audiovisual and its character or the music and the soloist? Up Close, seems to be perfectly tailored for its time, and captures its zeitgeist like very few other works did, making it an epitome of the XXI century fluidity.  


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