blog.Crónica

La Crónica si sta velocemente imponendo all’attenzione degli appasionati di ellettronica ‘colta’ grazie a pubblicazioni che cercano di rimettere in gioco il discorso intrapeso dal movimento glitch. (…)

Il secondo volume realizzato dal progetto Autodigest prosegue invece all’insegna dell’eccedenza: un’unica traccia interamente registrata con applausi e urla del pubblico, un progressivo climax che, come è scritto nelle note di copertina, chiama in causa “La Societè Dello Spettacolo” di Debord. Ma anche Adorno e (ovviamente) Baudrillard, insistendo sulla meccanicità della fruizione fonografica, sull’apatia e sulla stupida ingenuità dell’approccio all’arte in un periodo storico in cui ‘è il processo di consumo, non il suo oggetto, che stiamo attualmente vivendo’. Impossibile, dunque, prescindere dalle intenzioni ideologiche di “Ubiquitous Eternal Live” per la valutazione di un album così assolutamente fuori dall’ordinario.

Michele Casella

Accompanied by mysterious pictures of nearly deserted places, but with a blurred photo of a cheering crowd in a stadium or concert hall, Autodigest’s new installment is a tough one to, ahem, digest. Conceived as a “history of audience applause” (“Somewhere along the way, we seem to have forgotten what exactly we were cheering for… Until we eventually stopped cheering, as nobody was playing anyway”), the hour-long track is exactly made of that: endlessly looped samples of applauses and cheers and delirious screaming. No other sounds, except for a minimal drone which actually sounds like a kind of resonance or echo of that hyper-exposed apocalyptic mess. Quoting the press sheet, “[The piece] is presented as less of an archive and more of a critical eye loaded with a few conceptual cards as foundations, from Debord to Baudrillard, from Harvey to Adorno”. Whatever. It was fun to read a few reviews which have been published meanwhile, as they spanned from “pure genius” to “pure crap” to a more diplomatic “most bizarre record of 2004”. I recall listening to an untitled work by Francisco López and thinking it was a bad joke as it was only crickets sounds throughout, then re-listening to it some years later and losing myself in it with amazement. Save for the political/conceptual differences, this is a similar case: it starts sounding like a joke, then it finally makes your bowels churn. The screaming voices, once looped and overlapping in a droning mass, pass from pop hysteria to pure tragedy – this could be a nightmare of Altamont. But on a deeper level, what makes this cd so frightening to me is the sense of futility and loneliness oozing from this sweaty über-audience – Autodigest coldly re-creates and contemplates modern nonsense as in an in vitro test.

Eugenio Maggi

At first, it makes you think of a bad joke or a divertissement: an infinite round of cheer and applause sampled from live recordings, more or less the same for long minutes. Then you notice it: there’s a drone – a dark, deep growl – lurking under all this mess. The low buzz slowly grows, while the voices start sounding tense, saturated with negative energy in dire need of exploding. And explode they do, in the shape of “soloists” (male and female fans) screaming their lungs out of bodies like if they were skin-burnt in hell flames; this progressively apocalyptic mess literally ices me (no pun intended). Such a “reality based” composition is certainly uncommon; I can only recall Ror Wolf’s “Der ball ist rund”, made with layers of football TV speakers’ voices – but “Ubiquitous Eternal Live” is sonically devastating, nerve-shattering and right to the target, which is the description of the totally idiotic behaviour and utter desperation intrinsically present in all kinds of people – especially when amassed. We’re all destined to be eaten by the “blob” that’s everyday life’s brain deterioration. Autodigest is a genius.

Massimo Ricci

Avec leur projet conceptuel plutôt dingue capable de jouer des concerts d’une seconde comme de compresser en un seul album toute l+histoire de la musique, les Portugais anonymes d’Autodigest poursuivent leur exploration des limites de la composition à l’heure où quelques secondes suffisent à télécharger un titre qu’il faudra cinq minutes pour écouter, et peut-être deux mois pour composer. Pour ce faire, ils utilisent cette fois-ci le biais de l’album live. Evidemment, il serait trop facile de s’en tenir là, et chez Autodigest, le concert, forme “brute” et immédiate du rapport entre l’artiste et son public, est avant tout un objet sociétal qui mérite d´être étudié. Que serait un concert sans la musique? Que resterait-il si seuls les spectateurs étaient présents? Résulte de cette interrogation délirante une heure d’applaudissements, de sifflements et de foule en délire compilée et remixée à partir de la totalité des albums live sur lesquels Autodigest a pu mettre la main. Hypnotique autant qu’agaçant, Ubiquitous Eternal Live, avec sa dynamique sans cesse avortée et ses mouvements internes, est un OVNI, un de ces disques que l’ón ne sait vraiment s’ils méritent d’être écoutés, en boucle, comme le suggèrent ses auteurs, ou simplement considéré comme uns curiosité situationniste de plus.

Jean-François Micard

In den Diskursen der Photographie und der bildenden Kunst geht die Idee ja schon etwas länger um: die Aufstellung eines Kanons, einer Bibliothek von archetypischen Bildern, die individuelle Bildproduktion eventuell einmal überflüssig machen. Ein erhellendes Beispiel aus den 60er Jahren ist Hans-Peter Feldmanns “Bilderfundus” aus vermeintlich unkünstlerischen Babyphotos und Passbildern, der Fragen über die Wahrnehmung und Einzigartigkeit, über die Grammatik und Semantik massenproduzierter Bilder aufwirft. Mit der Möglichkeit der Speicherung des flüchtigen Mediums Musik, speziell in Zeiten der digitalen Datenkompression, war fast klar, dass so etwas auch an und mit Musik versucht wird. Mit einem gewissen Augenzwinkern, der Unmöglichkeit und Vermessenheit ihres Anliegens bewusst, haben AUTODIGEST mit “A Compressed History Of Everything Ever Recorded. Vol. 2: Ubiquitous Eternal Live” (Cronica) dieses Prinzip auf das Klatschen, auf die Publikumseuphorie von Konzertaufnahmen angewandt. Als Musik im üblichen Sinn funktioniert das nicht, als scharfer kulturdiagnostischer Kommentar aber umso mehr.

Frank Eckert

Mit diesem Release darf ich mich zur Gruppe der Legastheniker zählen. Wider besseren Wissens versucht die Wahrnehmung mir zu vermitteln, dass da Audiogeist und nicht Autodigest steht. Diese Unverbesserlichkeit liegt vermutlich darin begründet, dass der hier anzutreffende einstündige Applaus natürlich noch eine weitere Ebene in sich birgt. Es wird nicht die Art Applaus nachvollzogen, die nach erlebtem kulturellen Genuss einen Puffer schafft, um den Widereintritt in eine gewohnte Wirklichkeit zu ebnen, sondern es geht um jenes wilde, von Johlen und Kreischen angeheizte Applaudieren, wie es bei grossen Rockkonzerten oder Fussballspielen anzutreffen ist. Momente, in denen sich ein Publikum in seiner Rolle als Publikum oft bis an die Granze der Besinnungslosigkeit selber feiert. Neben wirklich komischen Momenten offenbart sich dabei aber zunehmends die Eigenschaft des Hörers als entpersonalisierter Konsument. Für Autodigest stellt der bloße Konsum von Musik ein viel tiefergehenderes Problem unserer Zeit dar als die viel bejammerte Krise der Musikindustrie. Im Zeitalter von 20.000 Musikstücken aus der Jackentasche ist es nun wirklich einerlei, ob diese mal gekauft, gerippt, gezogen oder gebrannt wurden. Vielmehr markiert die permanente Verfügbarkeit und das notwendige Verwalten von Musik eine neue Qualität: einen beiläufigeren und geringeren Stellenwert hatte Musik noch nie und somit darf sie sich selbst dieser Tage den individuellen Soundtrack in die Entfremdung bereiten. Thank You! Good Night!

PP

Questo Autodigest inizia a starmi parecchio simpatico. II primo volume della sua storia compressa di tutto quello che è stato registrato (BU#69) conteneva una poltiglia indistinta di noise digitale alternata da stasi ambientali, a significare il riassunyo, ‘velocizzato’ e iper-condcnsato, di tutti i materiali musicali registrati nella storia della musica (!), come se 1’autore avesse veramente riregistraro tutto quanto e messo in un’ora di tempo. Il bello è che ci sono stati recensori che ci hanno creduto. Ma questo, come dire?, è il bello di Internet…

Nella secunda parte della sua opera di ricognizione intorno alla musica il nostro amico passa all’ “Ubiquitous Eternal Live: spontaneous, improvised, slow crescendo by every audience ever hosted”, come da sottotitolo. Avete già indovinato cosa contiene il CD? Esatto: un’ora di (condensazione di) applausi e fischi di mille pubblici bercianti e vociferanti in attesa dei musicisti di turno. Pazzesco. Solo applausi, fischi e urla. Nelle note del primo CD Autodigest citava Baudrillard, qui tira in ballo la Società dello spettacolo di Debord. E a ragione. Autidigest ha compreso perfettamente cosa sono i tempi che stiamo vivendo e ha riassunto in un saggio in due parti l’idea di fine del mondo che ci trapassa la vita in questi anni. L’aspetto musicale conta zero, sia nel mondo esterno che per i suoi stessi CD: nel rimescolamento infinito della musica pop e nella banalità della cosiddetta ‘avanguardia’: è quanto dice nelle note, ed è importante. Per il primo disco scrivevamo che si trattava di un “segnale dell’imminente fine del mondo”; adesso il quadro è finalmente completo. E se quello valeva (~), questo è quanto meno da (~).

Stefano I. Bianchi

Crónica’s arch satirists Autodigest serve up a second volume of postmodern pranks. Last year’s Volume 1 took as its theme the reduction of real huma experience to data streams and binary code, resulting in a sonic illustration of a world sucked down a technological plughole. funny and frightening as the concept was, the spluttering digital momentum of the superbly executed music was equally strong.

Volume 2 acts as a kind of punchline to the earlier work. The album purports to collect the sounds of every audience ever recorded and crush them into on hour-long piece. As with its predecessor, the conceptual basis of the piece is simultaneously silly and unsettling. Autodigest believe that as all art is crunched into numbers our responses to it can be as well. this is an idea likely to give any liberal aesthetes the creeps, if not send them flying into an apoplectic rage. Luckily, the new work is as carefully contrived as the older volume, allowing the listener to ponder these worrying themes at leisure as the piece unfolds purposefully.

Experiencing the sound of an endless clamour of stadium crowds is spookily disorientating, especially when individual cries and wails are picked out and the atmosphere changes from one of mass ecstasy and adoration to one of existencial pain and private alienation. Autodigest seem to be positing the notion that we get what we deserve, that the album’s opening and closing announcement “Thank you and goodnight!” is a farewell to all human-mediated cultural activity.

The concept of a piece of art announcing that art is dead may not be startlingly original, but Autodigest’s work might just be powerful enough to make you start to suspect that it’s true.

Keith Moliné