The HNW-Q No.8: Romain Perrot (Vomir)

 

Anish Kapoor - ‘descent into limbo’ (Kassel, 1992 )

Dear Readers,

I am very proud to present the HNW-Q No.8 featuring Romain Perrot also known as Vomir. I discovered his HNW in 2010 during a lengthy period of research for more recent and more radical forms of free form minimalism than those I have already encountered in the works of Giacinto Scelsi, Luigi Nono, Morton Feldman, Pauline Oliveros, Eliane Radigue, Helmut Lachenmann, James Tenney, John Cage, Walter Marchetti, John Cage and LaMonte Young. My desire for reasearch found further support in my deep interest in ascetic and anti-capitalist forms of thinking that I found at least methodologically embodied in the works of Martin Heidegger, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Meister Eckhart, Lao Tse, Dôgen Kigen and the Desert Fathers (from Ancient Egypt to Edmond Jabès) and also in certain forms of Modern Art represented in the works of Ad Reinhardt, Robert Ryman, Donald Judd and Barnett Newman.

Consequently it was only a question of time for me to discover the works of Romain Perrot (in my case "Renonce" and "Proanomie") that should be read and inscribed in these lines of tradition. Let's say - for the sake of simplicity: his works are post-Cage, post-Noise and post-Duchamp. Sadly, this background of HNW was not seen. The result: the HNW-brand was captured, ruined and nearly destroyed almost over night by brainless nerds with UKW-radios and tape-recorders and equally ill-informed self-proclaimed fanboynerds. Or by the countless others that wanted to pump in more content into HNW. How ridiculous, annoying, pointless and totally pathetic ! Nevertheless Vomir's HNW will remain as an immense and ultra-smart entry in the logbook of essential experimental music and noise (comparable maybe to the inventions of Hijokaidan, Incapacitants or Masami Akita). His HNW is not a petitesse. It is a mature and adult invention: nothing that could have been invented by a teenager. So please keep this in mind, that you have to grow up if you are into negations and negativity, because negations are worthless without (an in depth) knowledge of the negated and affirmations are equally worthless, if they remain unrelated to a well conceived set of negations.(I postpone the writing about Perrot's immense (also still unnoticed) scope of literary allusions that reaches from Hölderlin, Corneille, Céline to Ribemont-Dessaignes and perhaps secretly to Artaud, Bataille, Blanchot and Deleuze).

Yes. Perrot's HNW is radical, but not in the way it was usually perceived. His sounds are radically anti-capitalist, radically anti-communitarian and radically de-capitated. There is no HNW-movement and there will be never one: only disconnected bands of outsiders. His sounds are directed violently against the unconscious mantra of capitalism to dwell, own, consume and destroy. Perrot is consequently enough to fold this mantra repeatedly back against his own invention until there is nothing left to consume or to assume but absolute nothingness. Épater le bourgeois is no longer his point ! He is turning the usual idea of production and consumption upside down. Perrot produces like an anti-productive and anti-expressive factory or demonic force totally cut-off the market desiring to produce a commodity factor of zero and below. He is producing anti-matter (in all senses of this compositum). He is the non-master of anti-matter, of course, but he is very polite and generous as if he is whispering silently in the direction of the sounds: après vous ! The "listeners" are deliberately consumed and virtually destroyed by the sounds. And the sounds remain absolutely indigestible. This makes them look and sound under the capitalist optic at the same time totally useless and absolutely dangerous, because they interrupt und subvert all reasonable ideas of labour and connected ideas of shareholder value and material surplus value and consumption. (Maybe one could relate this to Georges Bataille's idea of an unrestricted economy and expenditure developed in "La notion de depense"(1933) and later in "La part maudite" (1949))

Perrot's HNW is outrageous - it atomizes everything - leaving behind only ashes and scars. His sounds are in a very radical sense non-directional, inaudible, indifferent, self-consuming and inexistent. They annihilate the subject of perception. These sounds are neither related to aesthetics nor to aesthetic judgements or systems. They are rather an excess for, or a collapse for the aesthetical apparatus or the senses themselves. Consequently it is (and should be) equally impossible to be a-part or to be no-part of the HNW-sound (cf. Bataille's idea of the proletariat as a part of no part). If you are still able to discern between sound and self you still have an aesthetic approach to HNW and you are still "listening" ! So even the formulation "I" listen to HNW is a ridiculous contradiction. Experiencing HNW is impossible and has to be a massive counter-experience. Counter-experiences are keeping the asymmetry alive between my conditions for reception and the anhuman or inhuman nothingness or abyssal otherness that appears to me (here !) as "sound".  

Without this radical asymmetry HNW would still be a part of the distractions of the global Kulturindustrie. Any attempt to re-fill HNW with aesthetic contents, intentions, or qualities is not HNW, but popmusic ! Real HNW is anti-aesthetic or better: anti-anti-aesthetic, because it is not related to aesthetical questions at all (e.g. is it loud enough ? is it ugly ? is it nice ? --- these are futile questions asked by idiots !). HNW is virtually in-finite, because it is "beyond" the perceptive horizons and cognitive possibilities of humans. HNW is beyond the programmable duality of expression-impression (cf. the title of his 2012 release Le Mur Bruitiste Est Non Programmable, Il A Une Fonction Heuristique: Il Révèle; Il Ne Représente Pas: Il Présente) This "beyond" could even open new channels for "perception" different to the industrialized programs that aim at a total "proletarianization of the sensibility" (Bernard Stiegler). Something of Perrot's deeply serious anti-anti-aesthetics embodies herself in the black plastic-bag Perrot wears over his head during his anti-performances with his back to the audience or simply lying on the floor. Perrot's "style of performance" as-if-already-dead could be deciphered with the help of Blanchot who once wrote: "Penser comme on meurt: sans but, sans pouvoir, sans unité (...) pensée de chaque côtée, en déséquilibre, en excès de sens et en excès sur le sens - sortie, dehors." And one last remark: only Perrot has the legitimate right to produce serially and almost automatically (maybe like On Kawara's daily paintings). This is his idea - he has invented it - and it will remain his idea.

In a way the photo (of an installation by Anish Kapoor) above visualizes Romain Perrot's initial idea: the desire to re-insert or fold-in a dangerous void in our homes and daily surroundings, that's desperately missing. This void is dangerous, because it is extimate (a neologism coined by Lacan) it is an intimate exteriority, an internal exclusion, or a foreign void at the heart of the familiar. If this void would not be something at the same time intimate and extimate - the void would have no interruptive force. The void has to interrupt "la société de contrôle" (a concept developped by Gilles Deleuze following a syntagma by William Burroughs and Michel Foucault's book "Surveiller et punir"). And in a way, Perrot desperately - but joyfully - seeks for nothing else but an absolute and resolute interruption of our daily, always already corrupted and exploited lifes. In a poem that accompanied his 2010 "master"piece "Renonce" we could or should have read: 

Quand je me retrouve
La solitude
Quand tout sont éloignés
La solitude pénétrante
Je me recroqueville dans le fini
Je me fige
Mon bruit interne me clarifie
Je suis pur

[written by SKG, 
21.2.-27.2.2015]

This is the HNW-Q No.8
brilliantly completed

by Romain Perrot:

The HNW-Q No. 8

[1] I discovered and invented HNW for myself, when I fully let built the sound I had in my head.

[2] The initial radicality of HNW would be preserved, if nothing happens.

[3] HNW is Harsh Noise Wall.

[4] HNW is not to have fun.

[5] I discovered the acronym H.N.W. on the releases from The Rita's label, Militant Walls.

[6] HNW is pure love, hate, magick, sex, witchcraft, giallo, nylon, reclusion.

[7] The sounds of machines are the streets, the futurist's music or from the industrial related culture.

[8] HNW helps the inner self to be revealed.

[9] Monolithic Walls are good experimental music.

[10] The Future of HNW would be no future.

[11] The Death of HNW would be in ecstasy.

[12] HNW should be related to harsh noise to understand it better.

[13] Singularity and Originality in HNW are none.

[14] HNW should be called Static Minimalism, because...

[15] HNW should not be called Static Minimalism, because static does not include necessarily harshness. HNW is no drone.

[16] The permanent repetition of the HNW-Mantra (No ideas, no change, no dynamics, no development etc.) leads to some rules I did put in my first manifesto. But that was not intended to become rules for the genre. I am no guide.

[17] Volume in HNW is of some effect.

[18] Distortion in HNW is a part of it.

[19] My Unconscious is comfortable in HNW.

[20] Narratives, Analogies and Metaphors in HNW are some possibilities.

[21] Time and Space in HNW are some possibilities.

[22] HNW is a possible way to absolute Nothingness.
 
[23] My HNW amplifies my mind.

[24] Minimal Music and Cosmic Drones are other genres of music, and Harsh Noise is the main genre of HNW.

[25] Conceptualism is the bad word of HNW.

[26] The main ingredients of brilliant HNW are static harsh noise.

[27] The purpose and the concept of my HNW are No ideas, no change, no dynamics, no development, in static harsh noise sounds.

[28] The distinction between ANW / HNW is in the harshness of the noise.

[29] The philosophy of HNW can change from one to one.

[30] My first words about HNW were 'static shit'. This is what I called my sounds before I embraced the HNW letters.

[31] My final words about HNW would be not now.

[32] The phrase I would like to add to this questionary is....
 

 Merci beaucoup, Romain !

Visit Romain's blog

HERE

The HNW-Q No. 2: Joseph Gates

Dear Readers,

this is the second HNW-Questionary. I am proud, that Joseph Gates contributes to the HNW-Q, because he is one of the deepest, innovative, passionate, poetic and most versatile artist in the field of HNW and Sound-Art. He works in several different projects like Zionist, Vargrwulf, Peiiste (together with Bast), R.S.P. (together with Bast) or the deeply respected Noise-Art-Collective Black Leather Jesus to name only a few. But he also runs the best Noise-Art-Label on the planet called Human Ignorance (click here) well known for its beautiful designed, carefully chosen and deeply personal, challenging and always touching releases.

Gates was already featured on my blog with his groundbreaking HNW-composition Release (click here to read) in 2011. A review of his latest Zionist release entitled Hagalaz is in the works for 2012, because it is one of the best HNW releases this year. So don't miss this great composition, if you are a true HNW-enthusiast ! And please take a look at Joseph Gates' blog  !

The HNW-Questionary consists of 32 phrases to be completed in a playful, insightful, poetic, prolific and philosophical manner. The featured artist decides, which phrases he wants to accomplish. It is the task for the reader to perceive the voids and to think about the subtle interactions between Being and Nothingness, which are also important ingredients of the HNW-Artform. But, it is always important to see and hear, what someone is saying and what he is not saying.

The idea of the whole feature is to help the few real HNW-Artists to show and establish themselves as leading artists and to give them an encyclopedic space for their aesthetic and artistic convictions, conceptions and beliefs. It is a space to publish serious, original and important thoughts and ideas for the future of HNW as an important artform.

It is first of all exclusively for leading musicians, but in the future painters, writers and philosophers could also be invited to contribute to the seriousness of HNW and to the interrelatedness of HNW with other artforms. Maybe one day I will fill out this Questionary myself. I have several completed versions of it in the upper drawer of my mind. This HNW-Questionary was only conceived for the best. Consequently, my deliberately very elitist motto for this Questionary is: Light for the Best, Darkness over the Rest !

All lines in green ink are written and copyright by Joseph Gates (contact here and here  and here). All lines in italics and normal ink show you the HNW-Questionary written and copyright by me. This is the second HNW-Questionary brilliantly completed by Joseph Gates:

The HNW-Q No. 2:

[1] I discovered and invented HNW for myself, when I needed to create a sound that would provide me with solitude in my room, and push out any unwanted external influences on my personal space.

[2] The initial radicality of HNW would be preserved, if it was limited to a small run publication based out of California.

[3] HNW is a wide ranging and inclusive genre based around textural explorations within the electronic noise field, that has exploded with potential in the past ten years or so.

[4] HNW is not a secret club or fashionable trend.

[5] I embrace the acronym HNW, it is a symbol of personal progress and dedication in the face of an often uncaring world. Because it means different things to different people, it is something that endures beyond initial stereotypes and value judgements to provide an outlet for personalized and individual sonic expression.

[6] HNW is pure dedication to creating one's own personal space through sound.

[7] The sound of machines are heavily influential on the music that I make, as well as the sounds of natural phenomena.

[8] HNW helps the individual world to be revealed.

[9] Monolithic walls are nice to listen to, especially when coming out of an amplifier at full blast in the same room as you.

[10] The future of HNW would be up to the individuals who care enough to ensure that future.

[11] The death of HNW would be if it became a genre where everyone imitated exactly those who came before them.

[12] HNW should be related to the genre of expressionistic painting to understand it better.

[13] Singularity and originality in HNW are key to the creation of something worth listening to (both for yourself and others).

[14] HNW should be called Static Minimalism, because someone feels like it should be called that.

[15] HNW should not be called Static Minimalism, because someone does not feel like it should be called that.

[16] The permanent repetition of the HNW-Mantra (No ideas, no change, no dynamics, no development etc.) leads to nothing.

[17] Volume in HNW is a factor in the creation of HNW.

[18] Distortion in HNW is a factor in the creation of HNW.

[19] My Unconscious is immersed in HNW.

[20] Narratives, Analogies and Metaphors in HNW are a part of the act of creation.

[21] Time and Space in HNW are limiting aspects to the duration and location of a piece of music.

[22] HNW can create a sound that is close to absolute Nothingness.

[23] My HNW amplifies aspects of my own person that cannot be expressed in words.

[24] Minimal Music and Cosmic Drones are enjoyable to listen to.

[25] Conceptualism is the wellspring of influences that creates the most exciting new aspects of HNW.

[26] The main ingredient of brilliant HNW is personal dedication and a certain level of honesty that can be both expressed and obscured (to positive effect) through alias.

[27] The purpose and concept of my HNW is to adequately create through sound an environment that is conductive to the forces and energies that I invite into or enact in my life.

[28] The distinction between ANW/HNW is up to the observer.

[29] The philosophy of HNW can change as often as the seasons, because inherently HNW exists on a plane higher than philosophical conundrums, into the realm of the ecstatic.

[30] My first words about HNW were that I was excited to find others making sounds in the same directions that I had been exploring.

[31] My final words about HNW would be thank you for listening.

[32] The phrase I would like to add to this Questionary is that self-awareness and personal responsibility are significant goals in life to strive for.

Cordial thanks to Joseph for the HNW-Questionary
and for creating his unique soundworlds !

SKG.

(Photos by SKG)

The HNW-Q No.1: A View from Nihil

A View from Nihil

Dear Readers,

I am proud to present the first completed HNW-Questionary. I am glad, that the subtle and unique HNW-Master Andrew McQuaid from A View from Nihil was so kind to complete it. As you probably remember, Andrew McQuaid was already featured on my blog with his important and groundbreaking HNW-masterpiece "The Eternal Present" in February 2012 (click here to read). For me it is absolutely necessary, that he and no one else starts this feature.

The HNW-Questionary consists of 32 phrases to be completed in a playful, insightful, poetic, prolific and philosophical manner. The featured artist decides, which phrases he wants to accomplish. It is the task for the reader to perceive the voids and to think about the subtle interactions between Being and Nothingness, which is also an important ingredient of the HNW-Artform. But, it is always important to see and hear, what someone is saying and what he is not saying.

The idea of the whole feature is to help the few real HNW-Artists to show and establish themselves as leading artists and to give them an encyclopedic space for their aesthetic and artistic convictions, conceptions and beliefs. It is a space to publish serious, original and important thoughts and ideas for the future of HNW as an important artform.

It is first of all exclusively for leading musicians, but in the future painters, writers and philosophers could also be invited to contribute to the seriousness of HNW and to the interrelatedness of HNW with other artforms. Maybe one day I will fill out this Questionary myself (Thanks for your suggestion, Andrew !). I have several completed versions of it in the upper drawer of my mind. This HNW-Questionary was only conceived for the best. Consequently, my deliberately very elitist motto for this Questionary is: Light for the Best, Darkness over the Rest !

All lines in green ink are written and copyright by Andrew McQuaid (contact here  and here ). All lines in italics and normal ink show you the HNW-Questionary written and copyright by me. This is the first HNW-Questionary brilliantly completed by Andrew McQuaid:

The HNW-Q No. 1: 

[1] I discovered and invented HNW for myself, when .................

[2] The initial radicality of HNW would be preserved, if such things were possible.

[3] HNW is order.
  
[4] HNW is not disorder.


[5] I feel a strong sense of allegiance towards the acronym HNW, even if I realise it is no longer an accurate term for what I, or many other HNW artists, do.


[6] HNW is pure .......................................................................

[7] The sound of machines are .............................................

[8] HNW helps ....................................................... to be revealed.


[9] Monolithic walls are ...................................................................


[10] The future of HNW would be support and acknowledgement from the elite of underground experimental music.

[11] The death of HNW would be its acceptance by the great unwashed masses of the underground music world.



[12] HNW should be related to all underground experimental music to understand it better.

[13] Singularity and originality in HNW are as important as conformity and orthodoxy.

[14] HNW should be called Static Minimalism, because Static Minimalism is a broader term that must surely encompass HNW.

[15] HNW should not be called Static Minimalism, because HNW is a more specific term and hence more accurate in certain cases.

[16] The permanent repetition of the HNW-Mantra (No ideas, no change, no dynamics, no development etc.) leads to a ..............................

[17] Volume in HNW is ...............................................................

[18] Distortion in HNW is ..........................................................

[19] My Unconscious is .................................................. in HNW. 

[20] Narratives, Analogies and Metaphors in HNW are .............

[21] Time and Space in HNW are ...............................................

[22] HNW .............................................. absolute Nothingness.

[23] My HNW amplifies ............................................................

[24] Minimal Music and Cosmic Drones are also capable of fulfilling some of the main functions of HNW.

[25] Conceptualism is the ................................................... of HNW.

[26] The main ingredient of brilliant HNW is meticulous composition, above all else.

[27] The purpose and concept of my HNW is continuously evolving, but from late 2010/early 2011 till now I have been primarily concerned with investigating, expressing and glorifying order. I decided to follow this particular direction after becoming dissatisfied with producing what I had come to regard as negative music. That is, music which expresses a negative opinion, which up to that point had been a sort of defeatist nihilism mixed with a strong contempt for modernity. Inspired by personal musical heroes, I resolved only to make positive music; music that glorified and exalted, music that affirmed. The only question was what to take as my subject. But, I thought to myself, whatever I chose, it had to correlate to the sound form of HNW.  And so the right way only became clear through an intense listening to, and deep consideration of, HNW. It became apparent to me that one of the features that I enjoy most in HNW are the different textural patterns that reveal themselves when listening. I love how patterns appear out of the static aether, crystalising into perfect threads that transfix the mind with a clarity of structure that seems eternal, only to succumb to new dominant patterns, and this process leaves me wondering whether those patterns evolved naturally out of the static interactions, whether the composer put them there intentionally, or whether my brain, in its endless attempt to make sense of the world around it, simply constructed that order out of the static void.

I find this emergent order of HNW, and the ambiguities surrounding it, endlessly fascinating. And in many ways, I perceive parallels between this effect and my interpretation of the wider human experience (a case of apophenia, maybe). Furthermore, I have always defined HNW in opposition to what bores me most in experimental music, that is; self-indulgent improvisation, performance theatrics at the expense of composition, and pretentious chancers who produce half-arsed nonsense. In a word: disorder. For me HNW has always been deliberate and structured, and I have always considered it the antithesis of junk noise, free/improv noise, and anything that could be broadly described as fun or entertainment in experimental music. After this realisation then, I knew that order would be my positive purpose. For, as I understand it, order is the source of all wisdom and power, of all beauty, and of all life. Disorder is weakness, ugliness, death. And I have no desire to spend my time expressing these things. For there's enough of that about, and the age of nihilism is well begun, and needs no more proselytising than it has.

Now, bearing that in mind, it remains to be said that, order is surely present in all corners of existence, and so the theme of AVFN need not be limited to abstract order (Order), but can range from ideas of cosmic creation and destruction (Primordial Sea), to human thought and perception (The Eternal Present), and beyond. And indeed, it ought to be pointed out that, there are many different and contrasting, often conflicting orders, so it should be said that I have an interest in, and a bias towards, the philosophy and metaphysics of archaic man and his particular understanding and expression of order. These are the ideas, then, that currently inform the purpose and concept of my HNW.

 

[28] The distinction between ANW/HNW is unnecessary to me: HNW had already become an inaccurate term, but, to me, that doesn't render it unusable. Genre titles are often inaccurate and quite often they say more about the early history of the style than it does about contemporary practice.

  

[29] The philosophy of HNW can change ................................

  

[30] My first words about HNW were .......................................

  

[31] My final words about HNW would be .................................

 

[32] The phrase I would like to add to this Questionary is ..............

(Photo and copyright by Frédéric Brenner)

Cordial thanks to Andrew for filling out

the HNW-Questionary !

SKG.