Songs of The IBM (1931-)

“[Since the year 1900], the gatherings and conventions of our IBM workers have expressed in happy songs the fine spirit of loyal cooperation and good fellowship which has promoted the signal success of our great IBM Corporation in its truly International Service for the betterment of business and benefit to mankind.

In appreciation of the able and inspiring leadership of our beloved President, Mr. Thos. J. Watson, and our unmatchable staff of IBM executives, and in recognition of the noble aims and purposes of our International Service and Products, this edition of IBM songs solicits your vocal approval by hearty cooperation in our song-fests at our conventions and fellowship gatherings.” (from introduction)

Publisher International Business Machines Corporation, New York, 1931
45 pages

music clips
publisher and more information about IBM’s music and bands
commentary (Rob Weir)

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Nicolas Collins (ed.): A Call for Silence (2004)

As in the old Roue’s quip that “a drink before and a cigarette after are three best things in life,” sometimes the most important moments of our lives lie in an unspoken ellipse. The same is true of some of our most beautiful sounds. On this CD 34 artists provide personal views into that sonic ellipse, suggestions for listening to that which might otherwise pass you by: count-offs, groove grit, tape hiss, breaths, rests, CD glitch, guitar hum, audience anticipation, reverb tails, room tones, minutes of silence, the calm before a storm.

Publisher Sonic Art Network, London, 2004
28 pages

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Andrei Smirnov, Liubov Pchelkina: Generation Z: Russian Pioneers of Sound Art and Musical Technology in 1910-1930 (2011) [English/Hungarian]

Variophone, theremin terpsitone, rhythmicon, emiriton, ekvodin, graphical sound – just to mention a few of the amazing innovations of the beginning of the 20th century in Soviet Russia, a country and time turbulent with revolutions, wars and totalitarian dictatorship.

While the history of Russian post-revolutionary avant-garde art and music is fairly well documented, the inventions and discoveries, names and fates of researchers of sound, creators of musical machines and noise orchestras, founders of new musical technologies have been largely forgotten except, perhaps, Leon Theremin, inventor of the first electronic musical instrument, the theremin.

This community of creators, however, was inherently incompatible with the totalitarian state. By the late 1930s it became effectively written out of histories, wiped out from text books.

Many of their ideas and inventions, considered as utopian at that time, were decades later rein¬vented abroad. We still use them today not knowing their origin.

This booklet was produced for the Budapest edition of a traveling exhibition curated by Andrei Smirnov of the Theremin Center and Liubov Pchelkina of the State Tretyakov Gallery.

Publisher OSA Archivum, Budapest, 2011
ISBN 9789638853820
20 pages

exhibition (from the curators)
exhibition (gallery website)

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Dick Higgins: Computers for the Arts (1970)

Includes Fortran program and printout of Hank and Mary, A Love Story, A Chorale by Higgins, realized by Higgins and James Tenney; and program and printout of Proposition No. 2 for Emmett Williams by Alison Knowles, realized by James Tenney.

Publisher Abyss Publications, Somerville/MA, June 1970
ISBN 091185603X, 9780911856033
17 pages

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Metropolis Magazine (1927)

“Film programme booklet produced for the London premiere of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis at the Marble Arch Pavilion on March 21, 1927. Not only a list of cast and crew, it includes eleven short pieces on the making of the movie, commentary from the director and cast, and numerous production photographs and film stills, many attractively arranged as modernist collages. One of the most interesting sections shows in parallel columns how a passage of film scenes was adapted from the novel of the same name by Lang’s wife, Thea von Harbou.” (source)

Published in March 1927
33 pages
via Kabal, via Laura Massey (of Peter Harrington Book Shop)

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Furball 0: On Wikileaks, Bitcoin, Copyleft: Three Critiques of Hacktivism (2013)

“While most expressions of hacktivism lack this revolutionary vigour expressed in one of the later communiques by now infamous hacking collective AntiSec, hacktivism is widely appreciated for its radical potential. Wikileaks and hacking crews are considered by some as anarchist special forces striking blows against the forces of domination. Bitcoin is regarded as a practical approach to break the power of capital. Free software is thought of as a model for future production beyond capitalism. We disagree.

This booklet collects our writings on activism in the digital realm produced over the last few years. In our piece on Wikileaks — which first appeared in Kittens #1 — we critique Wikileaks’ appreciation of the bourgeois-democratic state which persecutes it. The article on Bitcoin — which previously appeared in Mute Magazine Vol. 3, No. 3 — deals with the political economy of the digital currency and critiques the Libertarian ideology driving it. Finally, our piece on free software and other digital commons — which has not previously been published — portrays how ‘copyleft’ software licences are still expressions of appreciation for the social conditions we are forced to live under.

All three pieces critique both the fallacies inherent in the reasoning behind these projects as well as left-wing hopes attached to them. As such, it might strike the reader as arrogant sneering from the sidelines. However, this is not the intent of this work. We hold that the project of transforming the existing social conditions must start from a correct understanding of these conditions to avoid reproducing them. In this spirit, this booklet is an invitation to critique.” (from the Foreword)

Publisher The Wine & Cheese Appreciation Society of Greater London, London, January 2013
46 pages
via Marcell, via Anthony

publisher

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Craig Dworkin: Unheard Music (2010)

American critic Craig Dworkin reviews almost one hundred compositions and performances of silent music — from Cage’s 4’33” to Büchler’s 3’34” — in a comprehensive survey of the best music you’ll never hear.

Published to accompany a film by Simon Morris: Pavel Büchler: Making Nothing Happen.

Publisher information as material, 2010
30 pages

publisher (incl. DVD)

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