UBERMORGEN — BRUTALITY

and how the microtalk makes users love micromusic

by ubermorgen, no© 2004

So very well. there may be lots of so-called community sites out there in the vast swamps of the lonley [coder]hearts club now called the internet. And there may be tons more of way-cool-kewl-super-kewl music web-homes with lottsa very intergrrresting hype-soundz and dude[ette]s. So the question is, why love micromusic? Why do ubermorgen-lizvlx-hans_extrem love micromusic? I found out, the maybe only one reason I really like even enjoy micromusic ist this thing called the "microtalk" and the ability of sophisticated community hacking with elegant insider know how. Chic marketing a la ubermorgen.

Micromusic. This community is like a home taped cassette job in a xeroxed cover, but the material within is far superior to what that usually suggests. ages ago, the only thing our country [switzerland] contributed to the global online music community was rehashed and moshing brutality. Them or us, by their wacky pseudonyms hacking up a phlegmy mess of tech-intestinal structures. You most definitely know what i mean!

PART I — SO WHAT IS THE MICROTALK

Basically, microtalk is a classic "who-is-online"-list located on the left side of the micromusic browser window. The default usage of such a thing is to make you [i.e. music-lover and / or music-producers (formerly called composers)] aware of the fact that you are not the only little soul accessing the server at a given moment. Extra bonus: You can click on whatever user you wanna click and send him / her a message via the browsers pop-up-alert windows. So this is very low tech. I personally prefer this to heavily-loaded java-chat bullshit that just loooves to crash machines, again, i guess you know now what i mean!

Artists working within traditions such as minimalism, pop and trance, and libertarian essayists of the counter-culture era who believed that a transformation of our perceptual horizon would itself be a major emancipatory moment in social history?

PART II — WHAT IS MICROTALK REALLY

Using microtalk in regular user mode can get boring. So you need to use microtalk as a medium, your medium for f***ing with the micromusic community. In order for this to work out, you gotta work with a few different logins / screen names as well as "anonymous" guest logins. And you have to stick to the basic rulez of the micromusic community: use extra-stylish names. Log in at night. Be friendly. Be nasty when logged on as "guest". Live in a trendy or very boring city. Etc. But why would you want to fuck with the community in the first place? Like with any group of people, the micromusic people also have their sweet-n-sour darling and *charismatic* leader. Forget about those pseudo-idealistic base-democracy thoughts. Communities have a Führer. At micromusic this kind and nasty guy behind the machine in charge of the god-like root-account is called — or let us call him — Mr. Carlee.

Through bullying and buy-offs, swiss music has generally lost touch with its roots in conceptualism, critique and technical spirit. Read music and visuals as instruments of vibrant social networking and read the mechanisms of its support system as the ambition that art, through popular communication, can function like a thoughtful and beautiful present for the spectator. Also read my article on +random dynamic on ubermorgen.com. a grain of dust a drop of water.

PART III — THE GAME AND THE RULEZ

First off, don’t play too nasty straight away or Mr. Carlee will kick you off the server. Let us see what kind of actions you can take up without getting too suspicious:

The goal is: You have to hot the weak spot of the community, which is: The Führer decides who wins competitions, which tracks are published or who "leaves" the system. It’s thumbs up or down, the ol‘ roman style.

For successful visual representation of the concept of micromusic in accordance with the theme, 1 through 3 will represent active, passive, and active+passive. 4 will hold various events and visuals to lead members to cultural and synaesthetic catharsis.

PART IV — WHY MAKE MR. CARLEE’S LIFE JUST A LITTLE HARDER

The basic rule of communities — as I see it — is that all communication is positive. Even negative communication like complaints have to be regarded in that way, as they also mean interest and involvement with the subject / community / micromusic. It’s like with this text. I could’ve written some well-meant, maybe a bit cheezy comment on my story with the micromusic site. But I believe that most of the time, only critisism can and will improve the system. From personal experience with projects I have been involved in have gotten "rezensiert", I have to say — I prefer the critical voice over the [golden] handshake. Sure, it is great to have somebody love your work etc. — but you gain nothing from that. You need others to point you to the weak spots of the systems you have created. Otherwise, it’s just a lot harder to evolve further — I find. ID.373 † NEXT † NEXT5 † BACK † BACK5 † RANDOM † INDEX. Thank you for listening to ubermorgen on micromusic through printed matter.