Spinelli-CAP

Gina Lemmon

CAP Presentation

Spinelli, Martin. “Electric Line: The Poetics of Digital Audio Editing.” //New Media Poetics//. Ed. Adalaide Morris and Thomas Swiss. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006. 99-121. Print.

“Electric Line: The Poetics of Digital Audio Editing” by Martin Spinelli


 * Overview **

Martin Spinelli’s main argument focuses generally on the art of digital editing, its’ evolution, and the terms used to define it. In his essay, Spinelli focuses on an arrangement of audio editing development techniques and their role in modern scholarly discussions. Early on, digital editing was more about the ability to add rather than subtract from the audio as described by Spinelli in terms of the first recording done by Thomas Edison in reciting ““Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Had Edison tried to record a grocery list or even a newspaper story, what would have passed as our first “recording” might have been significantly delayed.” (105) The importance is that with the simplicity of the first recording, it was easier to improve and move forward than if Edison had attempted a vaster initial goal. With traditional and new styles of editing, Spinelli then focuses his discussion on the types of editing before continuing with the pros and cons of modern digital audio editing. While Spinelli draws attention to the marriage of art, music, and literature, he also describes the terms as flawed, and consequences in future artistic developments. “While it is not my intention to critique the poetry, I am concerned to describe the troubling, anachronistic way in which it is handled.” (109) Here, he is describing the emergence of slam poetry styled webcasts and expresses other concerns with the creation and execution of them. Spinelli describes the core content of the podcasts along with who the audience is. While reading, I felt that Spinelli had little opinion, or respect, for the webcasts. He writes how they tend to be formatted in the same way and are not aesthetically pleasing or unique to one another. He describes one webcast titled //Book Crazy Radio//, which is podcast functioning as a sale site for “how-to” guides and presenting shows on ““dream poetry”, “your psychic IQ” and other new age topics, [the] poetry is a decoration for a middle-class lifestyle –one stated aspiration is to have your own verse finely-bound and available on your shelf –and little attention is paid to the details of the programming, which consists most often of tentatively introduced poetry recordings.” (109) He then goes on to describe other types of digital audio editing and the works artists like Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, a modern day renaissance man of music, literature, art, history, and philosophy. Spinelli discusses the many types of editing techniques; the //breathless edit//, which literally splices two parts of speech and combines them in a way to sound as if it is a breathless speech, and the //dense fugue//, which layers lines of speech to create an increasing density to merge with music or other sounds. (He describes twelve techniques in total, these were the ones I found most interesting in correlation with the digital pieces of DJ Spooky) In closing Spinelli writes, “Although this formulation captures the ideology of digital audio poetics, however it presents two problems: first, the difficulty of making physical materiality invoke social materiality—not an automatic function by any stretch of the imagination20—and second, the implication or hope that observations promoted through these techniques will lead to a change in social relations.” (116)


 * Commentary **

I felt that Spinelli weaved together many topics on digital audio editing, and while describing art forms like webcasts and techniques used in the editing processing, he is also maintaining a peaked curiosity in the reader without boring them. I found his essay to be helpful and educational and I wanted to learn more about digital editing and its process. I listened to Spinelli’s interview with DJ Spooky on //Radio Radio//, a forty five minute piece that uses editing techniques described in the essay. For instance, in one section the speech between Spinelli and Miller (DJ Spooky), is spliced back and forth so their dialogues almost seem to run together or one is trying to cut the other one off, but not in any argumentative or authoritative way. They are just carrying a conversation that has been manipulated to seem like it is more intense. The interview also interrupts with mixes of DJ Spooky’s musical pieces and then returns to a very encompassing dialogue between Spinelli and Miller. I felt that by using the interview and the essay together, it was easier to see the connections between the techniques of editing and the actual execution of it. Spinelli’s essay made it (somewhat) easy to understand digital audio editing and although the continuing discussion of vocabulary in digital humanities remains to be a topic of constant debate, I felt this essay made a clear argument on modern practices and the changes witnessed within the past century.


 * For Discussion **

Spinelli’s essay looks very closely at DJ Spooky and notes his works of radio and audio collages are defined as “audio sculptures”. Thinking in terms of digital humanities and the ever evolving language used to define it, what can be said of new emerging literature sculptures in relation to how they are read and written upon? Audio and digital literature? Other combinations of digital humanities?

[] // Galactic Funk - // [] // Ibid - // []
 * For Fun **