What does it take to improvise? What is a good improvisation rooted in the context of a performance? I found these questions being answered in this week’s reading by Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) and Vijay Iyer.

An interesting motif that both speakers outline in their discussion is that of jazz. Combining orchestrated French cinema, i.e. the example of improvisation in new media, they draw a connection to music.

There’s another new media professional, the father of VR Jaron Lanier, who also talks about jazz and cinema in his work. Namely, he defines VR through jazz:

A twenty-first century art form that will weave together the three great twentieth-century arts: cinema, jazz, and programming (Lanier).

It seems interesting to me how the concepts of programming both in live coding and VR refer to “jazz” — what do they really mean? Is it because of the similar effect of expectancy that comes in? Miller and Iyer discuss it as when “the audience [isn’t] quite sure how to respond” and “navigating an informational landscape”. Connected to what the reading’s authors say, the following quote actually starts to make more sense in the connection of new realities and especially the context of VR:

Improvisation is embedded in reality. It’s embedded in real time, in an actual historical circumstance, and contextualized in a way that is, in some degree, inseparable from reality (Miller and Iyer).

Another observation that I drew from the text is rooting jazz in its original cultural context. Jazz developed from Afro-American music. Much like hip hop, it was born in marginalized communities and became greatly adopted worldwide after. Given the context of improvisation then, it is much more than just creating randomized art; it’s about standing for who you are and your identity.

What I didn’t quite understand in the discussion of cultural context was the following excerpt:

Paul Miller: Yes, there’s an infamous Brian Eno statement in Wired magazine a couple of years ago where he said, “the problem with computers is that there’s not enough Africa in them.” I think it’s the opposite; there’s actually a lot of Africa in them. Everyone’s beginning to exchange and trade freeware. [You can] rip, mix and burn. That’s a different kind of improvisation. What I think Vijay is intimating is that we’re in an unbalanced moment in which so much of the stuff is made by commercial [companies]. My laptop is not my culture. The software that I use—whether it’s Protools, Sonar, or Audiologic—[is not my culture per se]. But, it is part of the culture because it’s a production tool.

What does Miller mean by saying “there’s not enough Africa in them…it’s the opposite; there’s actually a lot of Africa in them”? Does he refer to an argument of remixing to the point where there is no originality left? And then responds that the roots will always be there no matter how many times the original source has been edited? Perhaps someone in the class discussion can elaborate on or explain this part further.

I will end this discussion with the quote that I enjoyed most from the reading:

I was just sort of cautioning against was the idea that “we are our playlists.” I just didn’t want [our discussion] to become like, “because we listen to these things, this is who we are,” especially at a moment when the privileged can listen to anything.

— I agree; we are so many things and we should embrace that through our most important individual improv, the life itself!