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Naut Humon on the Digital Musics Jury

You have been on the Digital Musics jury of Prix Ars Electronica since 1997. What have been the most interesting developments in all these years in electronic music? And did Prix Ars Electronica reflect them in some way or not?

Naut Humon: When I first started sitting on this jury, electronic music was a less accepted idiom in underground independent and otherwise punk, grassroots music circles in North America. Yet, at the same time, what became known as "digital hardcore"—lo-fi digital punk rock—was introduced to North American audiences by the Beastie Boys' now defunct Grand Royal label, who licensed some of the first recordings of Alec Empire's late group, Atari Teenage Riot, from his London-based Digital Hardcore imprint. Uncomfortably situated in between industrial and speed metal, NWA samples, an overtly punk attitude, and eight-bit jungle beats, digital hardcore came across as nothing more than a fashionably self-aggrandizing cartoon about adolescent rebellion in a rave obsessed and ecstasy-fueled music world. For a brief period, the hype about DHR was so overwhelming, it was almost impossible to take seriously as a harbinger of DIY bedroom electronica that would become absolutely crucial in reformulating independent and punk rock for middle class North American adolescents socialized by computer technology and hip-hop. Eventually securing their own label presence in the US, DHR recordings, such as the brash noise-hop of Bomb 20's 1999 LP "Field Manual," the jungle core of early Christoph de Babalon, and the girl-group allusions of Cobra Killer, for example, had a remarkable effect upon the sensibilities of North American artists and music fans alike.

At the very least, such DHR recordings made some electronic music acceptable to an independent music audience, who otherwise would never have opted to pay attention to a Mouse on Mars record, because of their suspicion that it might have something to do with rave or dance culture. But in a more specific sense, because DHR recordings were produced and presented within an overtly punk framework—transferring the ideology of lo-fi garage recordings into a computer setting, referencing the dangerous and most confrontational aspects of hip-hop in the manner of early punk appropriations (read The Beastie Boys and The Clash) of rap, the aesthetic imaginary of DHR records help set the parameters for what became the DIY laptop music of artists and labels such as Kid 606 and his Tigerbeat6 catalogue: an appreciation and assimilation of hip-hop and jungle beats with brash, guitarlike noises; a fascination with the history, and the live employment of computers and similar fetishization of operating systems (Mac as opposed to vintage Atari) and the like. Not to mention a similarly shared desire to make digital music translatable to a youth-oriented punk community.

While I am not necessarily moved in the same artistic ways by early DHR recordings in the same manner that I am by a Tigerbeat6 release by Max Tundra, it's hard not to connect the dots between them and such Tigerbeat compilations as the NWA tribute compilation, "Attitude," (containing a contribution from De Babalon no less,) and recall that Blectum from Blechdom had an antecedent in Cobra Killer. In terms of taking into account the historical origins of music which we have chosen to get behind in recent years at Ars Electronica, it is my assumption some DHR helped paved the way for much of what we celebrate today as being populist, underground electronic music, and thus worth acknowledging this small debt to digital hardcore.

Then there's Mego, Mille Plateaux, Warp, Schematic and other equally important labels who have help foster the other vital ingredients of today's digital audio spectrum.

What is your approach as jury member facing the huge spectrum of digital sound production? How can you keep with the speed of innovation?

Naut Humon: In order to remain contemporaneous with the speed of digital sound production, it is absolutely necessary to be fluent in four specific areas:

First, by keeping abreast of new releases by unrecognized artists, specifically underground works and productions by musicians, composers and sound designers inhabiting the no-man's land between minimal and post-techno, the electro-acoustic acousmatics, and the continually evolving tradition of found sound manipulation, music video's and AV installations.

Second, by keeping apprised of the uses of new digital formats such as DVD-A and multimedia DVD productions by artists seeking to negotiate new aesthetic hybrids combining the manipulation of space, image and sound. Today, new and innovative work is just as dependent on emerging broadcast and playback mediums as it is on compositional style.

Third, by paying attention to developments of new sound-generating software initiatives that transcend multitrack recording, sequencing and looping software. Specifically, the realm of new methodologies of media mapping such as Max MSP, Supercollider, Kyma, Native Instruments and the attendant modes of composition emerging from such creative software engineering code.

Fourth, by assiduously attending live events where new digital works are presented that have not necessarily found a disciplinary or genre-specific home in contemporary relations of sound reproduction, such as installations and festivals, which are taking on increasing importance as spaces in which to debut new, unheard and unrecorded works.

What do you expect for this year's Prix?

Naut Humon: It is my expectation that we find a clearer way of understanding the avant-garde moments in mass-produced digital idioms such as contemporary hip-hop, breakbeat and dance-DJ works. The idea here of course being that every mainstream form of musical expression contains the seeds of it's own opposition, because after all, one cannot have an avant-garde without a mainstream that it is in large part reacting against. It is inevitable that in today's over-merchandised and omnipresent media world that tomorrow's digital music radicals will inevitably display and transform the influences of today's hegemonic electronic genres in their forthcoming works.

The more submissions received representing the different musical practice—including innovative beat based or rhythm oriented music that effectively transcends the common cliched majority of releases in a distinctive or provocative manner—, the better it will be to help these marginalized practices to be taken seriously and to be appreciated for their just value. The music / media cultures that Prix Ars Electronica commonly recognizes includes a broad range of subgenres and approaches toward the electronic realm. It is hoped that the outcome of the 2003 edition will indicate to future forums that those working with pulse driven motion in digital sound can share an effective spotlight with those engaged in purely textural, abstract or free form compositions and installations.

Which is the focus of your personal work in the moment?

Naut Humon: First and foremost, I am immersed in my curatorial responsibilities at Recombinant Media Labs. In between finalizing new projects, producing recordings, and receiving residencies I am exploring ways in which to take advantage of newer multimedia formats such as DVDs in order to find diverse ways to present hybridized media works incorporating both sound and video. It is my assumption that as DIY-DVD creation tools become more inexpensive and readily available to the public at large, that we will continue to witness an explosion of fresher, digitally mediated underground arts cultures centered around interdisciplinary artistic skill sets.

It is my sense that new possibilities are currently being opened for the dissipation of traditional methodological distinctions between the visual and audio arts, and that we are in a period of radically creative considerations as to how this will take place. Such possibilities have profound implications for the future of radicalized art creation, which I am convinced current sound artists, through their deep appreciation of the creative possibilities digital technologies hold out to them, are in a unique and culturally significant space to take advantage of.

I'm also engaged in developing our facility's Surround Traffic Control multi channel AV system with new integrated compositions, custom software, international visitors and construction of a media center to open in '04.



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