re: visuals

[Guywithatele@aol.com]

Loopers-
A salesman must appeal to all the senses. This is the cardinal rule for 
those guys. You can 
induce a sense of dread with looping dissonance or heavenly hope with 
major thirds, but I 
would argue (politely) that without stimulating the other senses, the 
whole appeal will be 
lost in exactly 15 minutes, and this is not a quantum loss. This is a slow 
descent into 
disinterest, unless the audience is high or stimulated by 
other alternative meditative processes. 

I'm definitely not criticizing. And I've never been to a loop festival. 
And I'm interested, 
but not for only the music. I'm curious about the whole package. I, too, 
would like to
loop live. I haven't seen an act that is entirely interesting unless it 
stimulates a greater 
portion of my gray matter than purely aural regions. And I'm very 
sensitive, as you all are 
too, to sound.

Take Phish, for instance. They are not superstars in the sense
of other over-the-top acts. I've never seen Trey leap 
into the crowd to be surfed from hand to hand. I haven't seen
him spit on them either. He grins a little and bobs his head at the 
bemushroomed crowd. 
But the lights overhead dazzle. 

The lights are half the show. It's an organic unity: the lights, the 
music, the collective 
altered consciousness of the critical mass. In their heyday, they were the 
top grossing act. 
Of course, their counterparts, the Dead, didn't need necessarily to resort 
to such an 
outlandish display (Dead Heads, help me out here). But then again, I think 
the most 
stimulating movie at the time they were touring endlessly was Dog Day 
Afternoon or The 
Godfather. Today we have the most realistic, ultra-, meta-, supra-real 
material ever to 
touch the inner neurons of waking life. It's a different time. VW vans 
just don't have the 
hustle they used to. If a population of under stimulated, artistically 
minded, musically 
learned listeners can be accumulated by virtue of a single loop act, then 
go get 'em, but I 
would say that that artist has his/her work cut out. Unless the experience 
touches and 
reaches out to the far in places of an entire continuum of musical space, 
unless the 
appreciation of the Loop-Gestalt widens to encompass a whole gamut of 
listener 
appreciation, it will always be an esoteric art relegated to the 
occasional, and primarily 
peer supported, scene that I suspect is the case now. Perhaps there are 
acts the caliber of 
King Crimson out there generating a hype, but not to the extent that Neil 
Diamond, Liza 
Minelli, or Pearl Jam can foster. And they ain't loopin'.

Now, that said, I ask myself: what is a looper's greatest 
strength? I answer his/her intelligence and technical prowess. You are all 
a bunch of 
highly advanced humans, and I wouldn't nor do not doubt it. Can this 
intelligence be 
collectively used to generate the necessary tools to engage a larger 
sample of the listening 
audience? Yes. How? Well, you can hash that out if you are interested. And 
if you are 
interested in hearing my idea, then read on. If not, then nothing lost, 
nothing conveyed. 

I suggest that a tool designed to be interactive via audience 
output as they in turn respond to the movements of the music 
be broadcast back to them so that they can experience visual feedback as 
well as the 
ability to determine that visual feedback based on collective behavior be 
developed. What 
a bunch of bamboozle, eh? No, but really, think about it--a system where 
the interested 
audience is outputting, via physical movement received by sensors (and we 
all know how 
zippy they are today), sensors for heat, sensors for frequency, sensors 
for position, 
sensors for I don't know what, all concerted and fed back to them via a 
dazzling light 
show, a light show that they determine based on their 
responses to the music. The music responds to the audience (to 
a certain extent); the audience responds to the music... another loop, a 
greater, collective 
loop--one where the music loops within the other, audience generated loops 
like 
planets...all for $19.95.

Something is needed to push this looping effort over the edge. 
Certainly the loopers can be incorporated in a band, and I believe I've 
read about these 
acts. Any names? These bands probably could rely on the time tested, 
high-energy 
producing conventions that bands have relied on for some time. But for the 
ambient actor, 
the dreadful sound maker, the screeching feedbacker--for him, he's in a 
different 
predicament. He needs other elements. You've read my suggestion. Is this 
just science 
fiction, or can this be created? At what cost? Would it be patented? Could 
Aurisis handle 
this? Can I help with the manual?

Paul