Music and Technology
Round-table discussion
THU, 1 July at 18.00
The roundtable, involving Slovenian panellists as well as Festival guests, musicians Christine Sahnoui Abdelnour and Bob Ostertag, will focus on one of the key issues of our time. Extremely well-furnished with guest-touring bands, Slovenia is facing a considerable regression of interest and a general trend of music predominantly becoming to serve ambient and entertainment purposes, the trend of inadmissible classifications into various genres and subgenres that have no relation to the music they label, the trend of sharp division into “organic” and “electronic” spheres... Generally, at a time of digitalisation we have been confronting a series of tragicomic absurdities that the roundtable will spotlight as an additional distinct sign of present-day crisis.
In the second part Bob Ostertag will talk about his latest book Creative Life: Music, Politics, People, and Machines (University of Illinois Press, 2009), which has received rave reviews. The Wire magazine has identified it as “The most lucid philosophical work on music, culture and politics since Steve Reich's Writings on Music.”
Composer, performer, historian, instrument builder, journalist, and activist, Bob Ostertag is a professor of technocultural studies and music at the University of California at Davis and the author of People's Movements, People's Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements.
Christine Sehnaoui Abdelnour is currently one of the most complex, subtle and incisive world saxophonists. With deep sensitivity, she develops extended techniques and complex patterns, exploring the microtonal aspects of the alto saxophone or the high-pitched tone. She could be said to “create a personal language on how to make electronic music on an acoustic instrument”. Far from narrative or dramatic music, her sound tries to deal with the relation between listening and the concept of perception, time and space.
The roundtable and book promotion will be moderated by Miha Zadnikar, publicist, cultural activist and concert presenter (Defonija).
