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  • Against Innovation

    From Ben Collver@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 9 14:25:46 2023
    # Against Innovation

    ...

    Which is why, two years ago this month, I disconnected my recording
    studio from the internet entirely. This wasn't an analog rebellion--I
    didn't trash my studio computer and replace it with vintage tape
    machines. On the contrary, I did it to preserve the digital audio
    tools I have come to rely on. I wanted my tools to continue working
    the way I know. That familiarity is part of my skillset in the
    studio--and as a self-taught, DIY audio engineer, I don't have a lot
    of skills to spare.

    What had happened earlier that spring was a routine software update
    to a piece of my digital studio. But the update rendered a different,
    crucial piece incompatible. So I updated that. Which made another
    piece incompatible--an expensive piece. And I couldn't update that.
    (This was at the height of the pandemic. Who could afford to update
    anything?)

    Moreover, I was in the middle of a project--mixing our album A Sky
    Record--and I very much wanted to continue along the lines I had
    started. In the digital era, we are all accustomed to fast moving technology–-but could I really no longer make it through even one
    album from start to finish on the same equipment? And if not, how do
    we ever come to any kind of mastery of our tools?

    The network betraying my studio was also the source of answers to
    such questions, of course; I went online and started asking everyone
    I know in audio engineering how to deal with this situation. To my
    surprise, the advice I got back was nearly unanimous: unplug. Stop
    updating. Revert to the stable system you had before. And take
    everything offline so this doesn't happen again.

    It seemed a clever solution to my small-scale, personal studio
    problem. But I was taken aback when some of the professionals who
    offered this advice said it is what they do, too. Even with their
    very extensive skillsets. Could it be that some of the most
    sophisticated audio technicians I know--mastering engineers in
    particular, those tasked in our industry with maintaining and
    constantly improving audio standards--choose to ignore innovation for
    the sake of stability?

    This counterintuitive approach reminded me of Susan Sontag's early
    essay, "Against Interpretation" (1964), where she urged not only
    critics but artists themselves to ignore the contemporary rage for
    symbolism, for heavy interpretive frameworks. "What is important now
    is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to
    feel more," she wrote, trying to free Kafka and Beckett from the
    endless updates critics were then imposing on these texts. Sontag
    looked at mushrooming interpretations as so much distraction:

    Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of
    art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is
    already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see
    the thing at all.

    From: https://dadadrummer.substack.com/p/against-innovation

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Retrograde@21:1/5 to Ben Collver on Tue Apr 11 03:05:34 2023
    On 2023-04-09, Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote:
    # Against Innovation
    What had happened earlier that spring was a routine software update
    to a piece of my digital studio. But the update rendered a different,
    crucial piece incompatible. So I updated that. Which made another
    piece incompatible--an expensive piece. And I couldn't update that.
    (This was at the height of the pandemic. Who could afford to update anything?)

    I can relate. Can't remember the instigating factor, but somehow my
    ipod needed [?] new firmware, which required an update of itunes, which
    would not install on the version of OSX I had installed, and the newer
    version of OSX would not install on my hardware. So the only solution
    Apple had for whatever I was doing involved buying a new computer to
    replace a perfectly well-cared for, functioning computer. Boy was I
    steamed.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Rich@21:1/5 to Retrograde on Tue Apr 11 03:31:55 2023
    Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:
    On 2023-04-09, Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote:
    # Against Innovation
    What had happened earlier that spring was a routine software update
    to a piece of my digital studio. But the update rendered a different,
    crucial piece incompatible. So I updated that. Which made another
    piece incompatible--an expensive piece. And I couldn't update that.
    (This was at the height of the pandemic. Who could afford to update
    anything?)

    I can relate. Can't remember the instigating factor, but somehow my
    ipod needed [?] new firmware, which required an update of itunes, which
    would not install on the version of OSX I had installed, and the newer version of OSX would not install on my hardware. So the only solution
    Apple had for whatever I was doing involved buying a new computer to
    replace a perfectly well-cared for, functioning computer. Boy was I
    steamed.

    This was purposeful. Can't keep the corporate profits up if everyone
    keeps using their "perfectly well-cared for, functioning computer[s]"
    on and on and on. There are no new computer hardware sales from
    existing purchasers from that path.

    So to keep the treadmill of "new computer sales" moving, they have to
    "expire" your old hardware long before its physical limits are reached.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)