forum - week one

There was not a whole lot to the first Music Technology forum, it finished half an hour early, giving me time to eat a turkey, cheese and barbeque sauce sandwich before I went to work. I would post a picture of my favourite homemade sanger for you all but, alas, I ate it many days ago.

Without digressing too much more, forum class was spent in a getting-to-know-you format. Everyone, aside from the new first-years, all already knew each other though. Hence, getting-to-know-you was simple. There are a new slew of first-year degree students, one of whom (Nathan Shea) went to Immanuel like me. We had a chat about the old school days and the degree for a while and I had the chance to catch up for a beer with him Friday night, at Flashpoint’s gig.

First semester forum will mainly contain student-run discussions on such topics as collaboration, gender in music technology and also construction / deconstruction of music. Should be quite interesting, I have had a couple of preliminary inspirations about my area (gender in music technology) thinking of Marilyn Manson’s Omega (genderless) character used in his “mechanical animals” era, see below.



YES! He’s a Looney. Nonetheless, his lyrics from this period talk about technologies impact on things like religion, spirituality and sexuality, as well as all the usual subjects like love and drugs. If you’re at all interested, have a read of “New Model No. 15,” a song which primarily focuses on a robot capable of giving sexual pleasure. Why not?!

Another brainwave I had for ‘gender in music technology’ relates to the violent, male-targeted nature of video games. If the music technology staff are wondering why they have over 90% boys in their classes, well I would hazard a guess that we are all geeks; grown up slaying bowser, pin-pointing head-shots on Halo, doing 900 degree spins with Tony Hawk and using the force to destroy the death star. Do these not sound like a bunch of jobs for da boys? Interestingly, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata intends for his new Wii console change all this by incorporating new people into his video game market, (like housewives and older people, who haven’t played a lot of games before). The wiinds of change?

.sources.

Whittington, Stephen, 1.3.07. "Introduction to Music Technology." In EMU space, 5th Floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide.