having been in a fantastically unsuccessful anarcho-punk band, and following its demise, he'd become interested in the social function of music. later this was to spread to art as a whole and how capitalism made use of this impulse, at the start horsemouth was mainly concerned with jacques attali's book noise (or bruits as it was in the french), a book that put music and noise at the heart of human activity (where many musical enthusiasts like horsemouth believe it to be) rather than at the periphery. when attali briefly surfaced at the ICA horsemouth saw the chance for his first article. he'd made friends with some people at mute and they published it (horsemouth wishes to thank you all).
of course the main advantage of writing things is that you get to see your own ideas down on the page and this helps you become clearer about them. with horsemouth however, as something of an erich von daniken type autodidact, this has taken some time. again writing this may help him come to terms with it once again and see what remains unfinished.
LOST IN TRANSLATION 09 Sep 2004.
soon there will be the 10th anniversary (horsemouth may well return to the article to see how it has faired). having surfaced at the ICA attali released a remixed (copy and paste) and expanded (to take in mp3s and napster) 20th anniversary version of bruits. as horsemouth hesitates to point out this was in french a language at best reads imperfectly (and at worst understands not at all). nonetheless this did not stop him from writing a review - he'd already read most of it in english and the bits that weren't in the first edition were reasonably straightforward and not densely theoretical.
horsemouth's basic position then was that attali did not understand his own theory - one in which the current form of music (and its political economy) prefigures the future form of the wider political economy. this he derives (in part) from claude levi-strauss but also from theodor adorno's philosophy of modern music. (it is an idea ghostwritten by adorno into thomas mann's doctor faustus). it is an idea of music as prophecy. frederic jameson, in his foreward to the english edition of bruits - noise, makes this a continuation of marxist debates about the relationship between base and superstructure. horsemouth's (somewhat over-literal reading of these things) got him his foot in the door.
FIRST CUT IS THE DEEPEST 12 Oct 2006
next up was horsemouth's review of ben watson's book derek bailey and the story of free-improvisation. to write this horsemouth sat on the town beach in valencia for the month of august reading watson's book and adorno's aesthetic theory back to back. horsemouth is writing better but he relies on writerly habits to get him an ending. it was dan fox’s appreciation of derek bailey in frieze magazine (March 2006) as a ‘kind of relational aesthetics for music' that gave horsemouth the stepping stone onto the then fashionable area of nicholas bourriaud's relational aesthetics. horsemouth was initially delighted to find a whole world (art magazines) where aesthetics was discussed as if it mattered - only to move rapidly to disgust at the contrast between the claims made for art and its actually existing political economy of it.
ZOMBIE NATION 10 May 2007
here horsemouth got to write in a consistent way about the convergence, as he saw it, of relational aesthetics, attali's theories and web 2.0 technologies (the first and last of which horsemouth would confess to understanding imperfectly) and elias canetti's theries of the crowd. underpinning all of these was adorno's pessimism which led horsemouth to see some hopes for resistance in the figure of the zombie. following on from bourriaud horsemouth began to investigate ranciere (and as a result althusser). the article is too long, it is cooking with too many elements and again has no real ending. it makes it into mute's proud to be flesh compilation - horsemouth is very proud.
he should (of course) revisit these themes now that they are re-emerging from under the credit crisis.
EXODUS 11 Jul 2007
here horsemouth reviewed claire bishop's collection of writings on the social production of art participation. this was very useful in sorting out his own thinking on the matter - he argues that bishop is re-aligning herself with ranciere's position but that this will do little to help her develop her work. (horsemouth should hurry up and read her subsequent book to see if he was right).
CRISIS IN THE VISUAL SYSTEM 01 May 2008
horsemouth tries to settle accounts with (the hurriedly read) ranciere and althusser. he's still relying on reincorporation to finish his writing off for him. it's probably the culmination of his writing and yet again it's too long and too poorly structured. in truth behind all of this (and his review of participation) is derrida's spectres of marx, strangely crossed with hillel schwartz's the culture of the copy, it is his hidden.
HUNGRY GHOST 26 Feb 2009
this one, a review of artist steve mcqueen's film about the hunger strikes hunger, works quite well - but there's a stage-y quality to some of the writing (horsemouth doesn't succeed in fully displaying how narrative is used to mislead people because he's too busy (mis)leading people) - horsemouth was initially uncertain about taking this on but his editors instincts or intelligence were right - there was a lot for him here.
RUMOURS OF WAR 26 May 2010
horsemouth was a little hesitant about taking on this one also (but he said yes anyway) - a double review of steve goodman's sonic warfare and of mattin (and anthony isles)'s noise and capitalism - this was probably a bit to much to chew on at one go, and besides many of the contributors the second book were friends. horsemouth was a little disappointed with steve goodman's book (and to his shame he let it show), he failed to engage with what was new in the book (as the wire did). horsemouth largely benefited from being made to read deleuze and deleuzian accounts of music but he was wrong to focus on this is in his review to the extent that he did, it was not where goodman was going. it suffers from horsemouth's continued attachment to attali's theory - one that would focus on the economics and production of music and to musical form (if attali knew how to do this). while (n advice) horsemouth carefully wrote the bailey/ watson review to avoid conflict (and it is better because of it), in this case he did not (and this he regets).
............ horsemouth does not draw a line under it all the credit crisis arrived to reposition economy at the heart of things (again) and horsemouth overcame his isolation (a little) enough to realise that to do this properly he would have to do a lot more work (and indeed there were people better placed than himself to write this)
.... but the above marks the start of an attempt to reactivate the sediments (one to which he will return).
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