"no dynamics, no change, no development, no ideas" - vomir



Java built Harsh Noise Wall (HNW) generator

Will play random harshness each time its run...

Source code for HNW

Source for HNW90



Jar file to create sound file in .au format

Creates sound file

Source for HNWwriter

Added here is a zip file of a VB .Net program which allows parameters for creation of HNW wavs Windows + .Net only...

Zip of HNW creator

Non .Net version of above - written in VB6

Zip of HNW Non .Net creator

HNW is fairly simple to create, has no teleology – i.e. the sound doesn’t go anywhere and has no coherent structure – its abstract and not (directly representational) All of this is important even if the people making and listening are not aware. (We all use electricity without knowing how and why its there in most cases- but its important) Typically music is both structured and represents something. (Typically) e.g. “I want to hold your hand”… and the pastoral symphony… It has complex structures, aesthetics and critical approaches. Talent, difficulty, novelty, invention, skill, complex logic dexterity in production emotional depth… It has “explanation” it acts as a sign a signifier for something else… love of country, of god, of sex of having a good time of youthful rejection of conformity. Throughout the last century two things were important – Time and Being.. and also language and how language can describe or model reality – Early Wittgenstein - whether in prose Virginia Wolf James Joyce.. Zola (19thC) Poetry TS Eliot or mathematics Relativity and QM…String Theory etc.. So was the idea that through time things evolve..(you know Darwin and Marx) But also the idea of a religious development – final accounting which Christianity Islam and Judaism expose. The idea of a beginning and an end. All of this makes up a way of looking at the world which has been called a meta-narrative. (Big Story) And music was part of this and represented it, whether religious or not. Words had meanings – and the world could be understood – “One small step” was an idea of a step forward into the unknown – new territories. Counter to this was the eastern idea of the never ending cycle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return It’s a very old idea – but one used notably by Nietzsche – to overcome the terrible feeling of nihilism. Briefly the eternal return to N was the most horrific thing he could imagine. No progress- nothing is ever new- nothing has any purpose or meaning as the universe endlessly repeats itself nothing stands out as significant. There is no hope of salvation or discovery… If you cant grasp this idea and how it reverses the Grand Metanarative you wont fully get the idea. So abolishing slavery was pointless as it will (slavery) occur endlessly in the future. Mankind may learn all kinds of things – but its not leaning anything new – its just remembering. The Holocaust awaits us again and again in the future… There is no escape. Nietzsche imagines a man (and it’s a man not a woman) who can see all this- feel it deeply and unlike some who see the terrible pointlessness of the world not commit suicide or go mad but bare the weight – gladly. Only a super human will can do that – he argued. The superman. Or uber man. (german Over..) Who is compared to an artist…?! Now what some may be saying has this to do with HNW. Others may see already it is the uber-music. It reverses all of the ethics morality aesthetics ideologies of the western metanarrative. Its anti-skill, anti-development, anti- meaning… etc. Its musicalogical ramifications are huge – even if those making, listening and liking are not aware. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all." "if someone calls it art, it's art" (Donald Judd). Can you see just what the ramifications are? during the 20th C the idea that the signifier (sign) is arbitrary arose which- think about it - means anything goes in art (and it did!) to the eventual idea that there is no signified. Some may baulk at that – of course there is a “real” chair underneath me. A real solid chair. I’m not going down the modern physics route – (which says its not solid) or the old “how do you know its not an illusion… “ Both are well worn but miss the point. Derrida (no hold on..) makes the point that a sentence never arrives at a final destination as a final fixed meaning. Its sent out into the world- just as I cant know how this text will be interpreted – or guarantee that it will communicate what I want it to. It will anyway communicate other things – probably my gender, race, etc. “Free Nelson Mandela” “half price ?” Back to HNW… “For me, the primary focus was harsh noise purity - a concept The Rita developed first. My dedication is to no dynamics, no change, no development, no ideas. Total static harsh noise, crusting, crushing, crackling. My philosophy tends towards seclusion, withdrawal but other HNW philosophy can be Giallo inspired, Lebanese pride or gear-only oriented.” – Vormir But what is essential here is “no dynamics, no change, no development, no ideas”.. And so you might now “get it” – but then you might not – but then getting it might be the impossible western utopian dream of communication, meaning, purpose and life. If you still believe in that dream, myth, whatever you have a duty and purpose to work towards that – or the guilt of not. The alternative – that morality is arbitrary as anything else is – means that communication in any real sense is impossible, or worthless. (Remember the eternal return – its all been said before…) Though we may think we have arrived – its to the non teleological mind an illusion. The earth is not flat so we cant walk to its end.. why couldn’t time and being be likewise. “no change, no development”… What about Giallo and the sado- masochistic and occultism – all represent in some form a rejection of the belief in a western meta-narrative. Morality, meaning, purpose, a hierarchy of taste – high art over pulp fiction. Truth over lies… Science over superstition.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_(Sade) “The philosophic, cultural, ideological ramifications are vast..” If you follow the On the Genealogy of Morality – and ideas of good and evil right and wrong – “truth” – everything that western art / culture / science stands on and for then HNW minimally exposes the falsity of the aesthetic (form, meaning, content quality, thought, message…) but that in turn undermines, reverses, destroys, overwrites the whole teleological metaphysic- with its idea of heaven and meaning- one and the same thing. The idea that the universe can be understood. So not just anti-religion but anti-science… politics et al. So of course HNW will have its detractors – from the Marx to the Pope, Republican and Democrat. Chora is the space before signification – a space and a non-space, before being and time.