The Nudge Effect and Jenkinson’s Collaboration
When you read Jenkinson’s ‘Collaboration with Machines’ a few things become clear. Jenkinson sides with Gehlen in that both believe that technology frees man by creating new possibilities for him. For Jenkinson, this means new ways to make music, fundamentally changing the music created. This freedom strikes a frightening note when the composer finds himself “in a wasteland of desolate freedom” (169). Jenkinson finds anyone who believe he is solely in control (and machines innocent bystanders) to be delusional, and furthermore to be hampering their own creative efforts.
What implications does this have? Going back to the book Dan mentioned in class a while back, Nudge, about how our surrounds impact all our choices, I think this has a huge impact. Not to side with a Nazi, but Heidegger was right about enframing. Living in this technological world does impact the way that we think. Expanding that to a moral context, our technological surroundings impact what we ought to do by changing what we can do. The possiblity of a “curtosy call” or a quick email changes our societal obligations and expectations.
But Nudge has something to say about Jenkinson’s Collaboration that goes beyond the social realm and says something about cognition. The way food in a cafeteria is arranged, for example, impacts the choices we make. If healthier food is in the front and we see it first, we tend to eat healthier (consider that when your first stop in Allen is the desert counter and perhaps veer left to the fruit instead). In that same way, if machines are around, they impact our choices. Having a music-making machine, like in Jenkinson’s article, changes the type of music he made. Jenkinson romanticizes that a little in saying the machine should also get credit for the music produced, but from the Nudge perspective the inspiration for the music was the machine. He goes so far as to say that the person making music on a computer is a “machine user-artist” (170). To me, that’s like saying, “he’s not a pianist, he’s a piano user-player.” It seems wordy and unnecesary to make such statements.
Then Jenkinson makes a jump to the island of conclusions that is nearly impossible to follow. He says that music frees us from “the problem of bodily death” (171). He says that the goal of an artist is to encode himself in his work which becomes an envoy of the self, therefore surviving past the death of the body. As machines’ involvement in the artistic process increases, our work serves as a dual envoy of both creators, we begin to feel both inferior to and jealous of machines. I cannot deny that my word processor changes the writing process, but I cannot agree that producing a novel makes me feel any less afraid of death. I would like to finish a novel by the time I die because it is one of my goals, but it in no way changes the nausea I experience when I consider being dead. As a creative person, I appreciate the romanticized view of leaving part of oneself in art, but even if I agreed with that premise, my fears about death remain.
I have a problem with Jenkinson’s writing. The further you get into the article, the less need he feels to explain any of his premises with examples or explainations. That entire last paragraph needs expanding. I’m not saying I disagree with everything, but frankly the arguement is unwarrented.
6 Responses to 'The Nudge Effect and Jenkinson’s Collaboration'
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I don’t know if I posted this earlier, but here’s a lecture by Richard Thaler where he discusses the main thesis of Nudge and gives some of the primary examples in the book. Its pretty interesting, and I strongly recommend it.
Daniel Estrada
10 Dec 08 at 4:04 pm
Becca, I was going to write a post on this, but you beat me to it so I’ll just comment. Musicians use computers as instruments. They should be viewed the same as the relationship between a guitarist and guitar. The music is coming from the guitarist and the guitar is just an instrument. The guitar alone doesn’t deserve credit for the good or bad music. Computers shouldn’t be credited for music. Computers are simply instruments. They may be extremely convenient and speed up the creative process, but they are just complex instruments.
On a side note, computer aided music is mostly digital and therefore the sound is not going to be as “real” as music made with acoustic or electro acoustic instruments (fender rhodes etc…).
Dan Pierson
10 Dec 08 at 4:27 pm
Someone else wrote a post on it, too! As a musician, I’m sure your take on the article is different from mine! Write something : )
I agree with you about computers being a new type of instrument. I think Jenkinson wants us to recognize how the instrument an artist chooses to use impacts the work he ultimately creates because of its features and connotations (and I agree with this), but I think he goes too far to credit the machine in such a way. Perhaps the cover of the album ought to say “inspired by my laptop,” in the same way an author usually dedicates a novel.
Rebecca Spizzirri
10 Dec 08 at 7:48 pm
Why don’t you like the idea of crediting the machine?
Jenkinson says that his music “reveals as much about the machine as it does about himself”. If you think of this in terms of Heidegger’s sense of ‘revealing’, where the machine is partly responsible for the music (or the music is partly indebted to the machine), how is this objectionable?
Consider also the fact that Jenkinson’s machines aren’t just off-the-shelf instruments, but they are usually highly customized and tweaked. A more familiar example: no one can play guitar like Hendrix, because he would open up the pick-ups on his guitar and hand wind the wires. So his guitars make a very distinct sound that characterizes Hendrix’s music. The eventual sounds being made are as unique to those instruments as Jimmy was a unique instrumentalist. Or think about how much time Jack White (to name just one example) spends looking for classic guitars or unique amps and speaker set ups. If the instruments didn’t matter, why go through the trouble?
The point is that the resulting music is partly an expression of the tools, and not just a spontaneous creation from the mind of the artist. It is never the case that an artist has an idea, and then realizes that idea perfectly. Every attempt at art goes through these instruments, and the resulting artifact is partly shaped by those tools.
In other words, there is no perfect, ideal creator, and no unique creative process. It is ALWAYS a process of collaboration.
Daniel Estrada
10 Dec 08 at 8:05 pm
I feel like we’re back to the Lady Lovelace objection all over again.
If Hendrix didn’t tune his guitar in such a way, it wouldn’t make his characteristic tone. If he didn’t play it in such a way, he wouldn’t be “unique”. Hendrix chose the guitar and made the accommodations to it according to his style. I don’t deny that these things are important to an artist’s style and image, but I don’t see how the guitar is responsible. I agree that a “classic guitar” could inspire such style, but I don’t see how that means the guitar gets credit.
I guess what this debate comes down to is the extent of the credit we’re willing to issue the instrument. I credit it with inspiration for style.
Rebecca Spizzirri
12 Dec 08 at 9:08 am
Also, I’m wondering what you guys think about art as a salvation from death (see paragraph 4 of my post).
Rebecca Spizzirri
12 Dec 08 at 9:10 am