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July 5, 2010 11:34 PM Subscribe
"Living under capitalism, I like learning to feel comfortable with activity that does not result in success ¡ª since non-success is the norm. Trying your best and making it is not the norm ¡ª it¡¯s propaganda. Of course I play with notions of hype, too... The entire Comatonse website is a sarcastic hype-engine, sprawling forever, overwhelming the viewer with nothingness." - Terre Thaemlitz, AKA DJ Sprinkles
Profile: "Terre Thaemlitz is an award winning multi-media producer, writer, public speaker, educator, audio remixer, DJ and owner of the Comatonse Recordings record label. Her work combines a critical look at identity politics - including gender, sexuality, class, linguistics, ethnicity and race - with an ongoing analysis of the socio-economics of commercial media production. He has released over 15 solo albums, as well as numerous 12-inch singles and video works. Her writings on music and culture have been published internationally in a number of books, academic journals and magazines. As a speaker and educator on issues of non-essentialist Transgenderism and Queerness, Thaemlitz has participated in panel discussions throughout Europe and Japan. He currently resides in Kawasaki, Japan."
Some Comatonse.com highlights...
Eyes, Ears + Pups
"'Eyes, Ears & Pups' is a series of drawings focussing on children with eye and ear deformities, and the injured attack dogs who love them. It is based on my memory of losing my first pair of glasses at age two, marking the moment I first sensed that the 'natural' way in which I perceived the world through 'defective' eyes was 'incorrect,' and that proper perception is often a learned and conditioned thing."
Music
Some graphical scores of songs
Discography
Free soundfiles:
"The only way your financial support reaches me in any way is by ordering from this website. If you are unable or uninterested in financially supporting me directly by ordering through this website, I prefer that you share or steal my music rather than pay somebody else. This is not about my anger as an "author" (as many of you know, I am very critical of standard notions of authorship). Personal finances are also not the issue, since my projects are clearly not "hit oriented" and have minimal sales potential. I am more than resigned to my lowly economic standing in this world. This is about my anger at pointless corporate greed, and the ways in which information is controlled and distributed under global capitalism. Meanwhile, please enjoy the free downloads below."
"Rosary Novena for Gender Transitioning" [MP3; from Soullessness, forthcoming]
"Midtown 120 Intro" [MP3; from Midtown 120 Blues, 2009]
"iLenin: iPod-Ready Speeches By Vladimir Lenin" [zip file; apparently a joke; see "iPod is Raping..." essay below]
"The Laurence Rassel Show, starring Laurence Rassel and Terre Thaemlitz" [complete album, with notes; radio show and sound-pastiche]
"Below Code: Comatonse Recordings 10th Anniversary Comp" [full album; apparently includes recordings by family members and friends]
Writings
Miss Take's Dragifesto
"You are an amazon warrior who wears the foundation of the future on your face."
All's In Order:
"Out of Order" Fashion's Inability to Divest of Power
"Is it possible to conceive of clothing and body image as non-market driven forms of cultural resistance? What is fashion's relation to clothing whose links to "illegality" lies not within the industry's own attempts at deviance, but within the violent acts criminals claim fashion inspired and justified, such as rape and gay-bashing? How has couture's co-opting of thrift clothing obscured class consciousness, ridiculed poverty, and diffused the possibilities of "fashion terrorism"?"
On Guattari and Deleuze's concept of "becoming-minor" vs. "becoming minority"
"And think of how Lesbians and Gays now use similar naturalist arguments to justify our deserving "rights," our deserving to share in dominant power, not out of choice or openness around sexuality, but simply because, "We can't help it." As Minority communities, we declare of our own "free will" that we have no choice in the matter. I mean, who would choose to be Gay, right? Would anyone choose to be Transgendered? Can you imagine someone choosing to be black? Are you implying anyone would choose to be a woman? ...Well, at what point, and in relation to which "bodies," do those questions at the root of humanist legislature start to sound ridiculous and insulting to those they claim to protect? ... This is only about deferring bias, not resolving it, and it will have repercussions because it always fails to address the fundamental dynamics of domination we claim we wish to resist. In fact, most people don't wish to resist power, but simply to partake in the act of domination. Once this domination becomes naturalized, and we are accustomed to it, then we cease to consider it as a form of violence."
ENTHUSIASM! On the theme of "Communism"
"Whether it be the First World's negative conflation of communism with fascism, or the Second- and Third World's positive conflation of totalitarianism and emergent capitalism with communism, the term "communism" itself seems to have been coopted beyond any critical usefulness... Everything tainted by fascism, aesthetics and romance."
iPod is Raping the Rapists Who Raped My Village: An economic overview of contemporary audio production
"It's like balancing a day job at Wal-Mart with the night shift at McDonalds."
Viva McGlam? Is Transgenderism a Critique of or Capitulation to Opulence-Driven Glamour Models? [German]
"Glamour is suspect as a critical-minded political forum because it is about social distance, not social integration. The promise of the pop-glam diva is not the promise of social transformation, but individual transformation in which the exploited becomes the exploiter. It is a promise of an individual's class mobility, not social betterment or class critique. It is, by and large, the American Dream."
And more...
See also: an excellent long-form interview with Terre, available in full video and written transcript, at the Red Bull Music Academy in London this year.
[For the astute: yes, we did this five years ago. So this is finally, I believe, the double post that the Rev was so worried about back then. However, a lot's happened since then, almost all of the material linked about has been added in the interim, and also the author happened to release electronic music magazine Resident Advisor's #1 album for 2009, so I figured it was worth a revisit.]
posted by koeselitz at 11:34 PM on July 5, 2010