Sisters with Transistors
rogerebert.com
rogerebert.com
https://metrograph.com/live-screenings/sisters-with-transist...
I can confirm as a Canadian that I'm having a hard time watching it without (presumably) a VPN.
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20210424T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20210424T212400
Looking forward to finding about some of the other artists mentioned here.
But women have played a huge role in all types of tech, since the early days (can you say "Grace Hopper"? I knew you could!). In the old days of "big iron," the people that actually touched the computers tended to be women. The men did their work with pads of paper. I started programming in the waning days of "big iron," and the roles had started changing. I think that a majority of the staff at Bletchley Park were women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZscRHkLMt0
It's funny because here Dave is just learning about synths, and it predates Paul Schaffer joining him with his own wall of synths.
Yeah, so do women of the last few centuries! (and more)
Today it is absolutely necessary to “prefix the thing” and there is still a long road ahead of damage to undo.
After equality has been the norm for several generations (it is still not the norm today), maybe then we’ll be ready to talk about removing the prefix.
Not even those with a massive PR campaign, plus many experimentalists do not want to divert that kind of effort away from technical progress.
So this is expressing a lagging indicator of a lingering statistic.
Well, electronics itself is only about a hundred years old and it started out completely male dominated and decades of development continued from that point.
Mainly development of technology not diversity, and that was truly challenging.
And even though male dominated from the start, it was still out of reach to almost all men too, more so for those few oportunities mostly to undertake experimental efforts.
So statistically at the beginning, electronics was virtually inaccessbile for almost all men & women to a somewhat equal degree.
It was just not one of the things you could certainly do no matter how much you really wanted to, you had to basically get lucky in addition to your ambition.
It's possible that in the long run, people will consider Clara Rockmore, Delia Derbyshire, etc. to rank with Beethoven, Mozart, etc. It doesn't seem likely, though. I don't think Elvis will rank either, or even does now - does anyone consider Elvis a great musician?
To me, it looks like canonization is more to do with our primate desire to find/create status hierarchies. That seems bad enough when we do it with living people, creating the sort of structures that enable oppression of disfavored groups. But it seems both sillier and worse to do it with dead people.
So I suspect the point of a canon as selected by people of social power is to reinforce the social power structure. Something like what the Catholic church does with canonization. They get to gatekeep "goodness" and control the knowledge and resources that let up-and-comers grow. It becomes another stick to beat the young with, a way to make them "pay their dues" to people holding power.
So my hope is that in the future nobody will waste much time doing fantasy mental tournaments for "greatest" artist between different eras.
I also don't see how your egalitarian vision of a 'flat' cultural world is practically possible. There is limited attention and time span available to people to experience culture (read/listen to music/look at paintings, etc.) That time span will have to be allocated to certain works over others, and doing it randomly is obviously a bad system. People will inevitably give each other advice on the best way to invest that time and a canon will emerge.
If it could exist, I think it would be a very unpleasant world, personally, with no common cultural referents. Allusion would disappear from cultural works, because only a tiny fraction of your audience would recognize what you're alluding to.
I'm not interested in a perfectly flat world. I disagree that a unitary canon will emerge on its own. I don't object to individuals saying, "I like X, maybe you will too." What I object to is the use of power to create and maintain status hierarchies.
I also think it's ridiculous to suggest that lack of an imposed canon will end cultural references. When I look at social media, I see a carnival of reference. Things still become widely seen, widely heard.
And if your dark fantasy came true, so what? That would mean that each person has found art that is more meaningful to them than whatever was previously being imposed as important, and found community with that "tiny fraction" of others who found the same things valuable. Should they required to spend time on things they like less?
> Should they required to spend time on things they like less?
This is where I'm not getting you. What are the powerful forces imposing the canon? Who is forcing you to listen to music (or read books, or watch movies, etc.) that you don't like?
What is considered great arises out of organic, decentralized processes. There's no central bureau of music that requires everyone to listen to Mozart because they decided he's the best.
I suppose by the same token, the highly improbable demographics of Fortune 500 CEOs, legislators, and faith leaders are just some statistical quirk?
Please tell me more about this world you live in. I would like to visit sometime.
Nowadays when I watch films or read books from the 50s, 60s, and 70s the depth of casual sexism is quite shocking. So that shows some progress. But still there’s a tremendous amount of inequality to be overcome.
[1] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Up_The_Long_Ladder_(epi...
[2] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Code_of_Honor_(episode)
It's pretty hard to make truly alien aliens, as the more alien they are, the harder they are to understand, identify with etc, making the stories themselves less interesting.
The aliens in The Gods Themselves are pretty alien but still have, from time to time, a human-like mode of thinking which Asimov used to explain their behavior. The Bug Wars is the only book I've read that has no humans at all, though the aliens' mentalities are somewhat human, again to make them comprehensible.
Famously "different" aliens (e.g. Moties, the bugs of Ender's Game & sequels) are actually pretty human in motivation.
And the inscrutable aliens (e.g. Starship Troopers) are clearly inscrutable stand-ins for contemporary political enemies.
The various literature on intelligent machines has the same problem.
Here's more fun recaps:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekTheNext...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekTheNext...
Honorable mentions:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekTheNext...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekTheNext...
Well, they already have Space Knights, Space Gunmen, and Space Witches, so why not.
Often times it seems we are overshooting with attempts to create better societies - or worse shooting off in the wrong direction.
As they say, "When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression". So if you're in a previously favored category, it's only natural that the loss of that boost might seem like overshooting.
The real test, of course, is objective metrics. Looking at who's in Congress or who's running Fortune 500 companies, it seems like we're a fair ways from overshooting. (If you have data otherwise, please do share.)
But if we do overshoot, so what? Overshooting is common in all sorts of systems as they self-correct. The important thing to me seems to be reducing the magnitude of the swings as we converge on a new norm. Given that the previously baseline is a couple millennia of violent gender oppression, seems like we're certain to do better than that.
Thing is those people aren't born in different bell curves with different expectations, considerations, cultural histories, and preferences.
Additionally this isn't just about talents, this is about being talented in a seemingly traditionally male arena, engineering. Women in engineering will always be of note since most women do not choose to be there.
The first para contains references to
>> Beethoven and Mozart, even Elvis and John Lennon
The next para lists the 'sisters' themselves. I hadn't heard of them but then that is the whole point of the film under review
> I'm able to find a couple sentences which actually convey what's going on in the documentary and what the author thinks about it
I think the following para is quite explicit about what is going on.
>> The narrative, which is wonderfully told through a kind of archival collage that, along with the futuristic soundtrack of the profiled composers, makes it feel like an avant-garde art film. It explores its stars chronologically and tells of how they evolved the musical culture in terms of not only language but also technology, which itself opened up an array of new avenues without needing the approval of others, again, mostly men. What's interesting is that many of the women profiled were from classical backgrounds. Oram is a prime example, having turned down a spot at London's prestigious Royal Academy of Music so she could work at the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and eventually building a proto-synthesizer that used a bespoke notation system called "Oramics."
We then have several additional para that goes into more detail.
In this case, it's definitely the latter. This is writing meant to be read linearly from beginning to end. The purpose of the early bits are to create interest and intrigue. To open questions in your mind that will be answered later. To activate concepts and feelings that are important to the mental experience the writer is trying to create.
The short version is that this was written for print, not the web: "Print is linear, author-driven storytelling. The web is nonlinear, reader-driven, ruthless pursuit of actionable content." -- https://www.nngroup.com/articles/writing-style-for-print-vs-...
Eventually, the print-vs-web distinction will die out, but I don't think the print style will die. Instead, we'll rename it something like "long read". Because the info-foraging approach one use on the web has its limits. Sometimes I want to be taken on a journey by the author. As much as I love foraging, there are some experiences and insights that I don't get when I'm dashing around like a ferret who got into the adderall. For me that definitely includes movie reviews. If I want a quick summary, I look at Rotten Tomatoes or Google's infobox. If I want to understand the experience, I'm going to sit still for as many as four minutes and let a professional reviewer give me an experience.
Fine, some people like when their information is presented in the form of literature. I don't mind it myself once in a while, but usually I find myself wishing they'd get to the point, and I feel no wiser for having taken so long when (and if) they do ever get there.
If nothing else, I really wish -- if only for the purpose of accessibility and inclusion!! -- that these longform articles would also include an abstract or summary stating the main points.
What a distasteful opening of an otherwise interesting article.
As if some patriarchal conspiracy was forcing classical composers like Mozart and Beethoven down people’s throats... No, most simply listen to their work being enamored by the virtuosity and talent of these people who lived centuries ago. Framing their work in the context of contemporary American identity politics is very cheap journalism, and distasteful.
And let’s not conflate classical music with postmodern experimental electronic music either. They don’t belong to the same league. I do appreciate both genres, and while we can argue about the subjectivity of art all day long, there’s a reason why the former enjoyed wide acclaim throughout the eras, while the latter remained an obscure academic interest.
No, but patriarchal and racial structures in society have historically suppressed artists who weren't white and male.
Adam Neely has a good video on how the term "music theory" here in the West is essentially just "the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians" [1]. It's worth a watch if you're interested in music.
This is plain false. Those non-white and non-male artists who have reached sophistication and virtuosity comparable to Mozart and Beethoven were and are still acclaimed. Don't try to shove a narrative where there isn't one.
Also, this doesn't add anything to the discussion about why audiences prefer dead (!) white (!!) male (!!!) composers like Mozart and Beethoven over the works of early experimental electronic composers. The answer is simply because most people don't like listening weird noise.
Please do explain what that force was. In detail. With examples. Because that sounds entirely implausible to me.
I am reminded of Maria Anna Mozart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Anna_Mozart
Before she approached "marriageable age" and was forbidden from performing, she was an equal musical talent to her brother, and sometimes received top billing.
None of her compositions have survived.
That reason is in no small part the propagation of taste via culture.
> As if some patriarchal conspiracy was forcing classical composers like Mozart and Beethoven down people’s throats...
An unsubtle description perhaps, but it does get at the idea of how cultures promote certain work at the expense of others. Yes, there's certainly "forcing down the throat" that occurs, via peer pressure, education, public promotion, and so on, but there's also the suppression of contributions that don't fit the society's constraints.
Name some of the great female composers of Beethoven and Mozart's era. I'll wait.
You now either have to take the position that "women just aren't that good at music," or you have to acknowledge that something was going on at that time - something that still happens today. That something is strongly hinted at by the comment someone else posted about Maria Anna Mozart, who was "forbidden from performing once she reached marriageable age."
In that context, your denial of obvious facts starts to seem monstrous.
> Framing their work in the context of contemporary American identity politics is very cheap journalism, and distasteful.
The US didn't invent the patriarchy, it inherited it directly from the European societies that settled the US, and Beethoven and Mozart's society was a big part of that. Beethoven was born 6 years before the Declaration of Independence; Mozart 20 years before; and Germans were one of the biggest groups to settle the US.
Your adulation of those musicians is a direct consequence of your embedding in a cultural context that you seem blissfully unaware of. The reason you like them is because you are directly descended, a mere 10 generations back, from peers of those musicians. You were brought up in a culture that privileged their work, and have absorbed that indoctrination uncritically.
One of the other pieces of indoctrination you've absorbed is apparently that the culture didn't, in fact, systematically and unfairly suppress the voices and capabilities of women, which is why you haven't replied to the comment about Maria Anna - you can't afford to acknowledge it, since you can't refute it, and it eats at the foundation of your indoctrinated beliefs.
Attitudes like yours hold back the development of a more equitable society. You should rethink them.
As someone whose musical taste spans from classical composers to jazz pioneers, from early Chicago house to ceremonial flute music from Indonesia, I can only smirk at your comment.
Mozart's sister's talent may have been suppressed, or she might have been content with her life, we will never know. By judging the actions of 18th century Germans, it is in fact you who seem to be unaware of the modern cultural context that you're embedded into. Modern American morals are neither universal, nor ultimate. Thinking that they are in fact is the colonialist attitude. You should rethink that!
>Attitudes like yours hold back the development of a more equitable society. You should rethink them.
Sweetie, don't try to shove a narrative where there's none, this isn't Twitter. Noone argued against your "equitable" society or whatever. I've just pointed out a fallacy in the distasteful opening of the original article, namely, that early electronic musicians (some of whom happened to be women), weren't sidelined in favor of Mozart, Beethoven or Elvis. Rather, people simply preferred those kinds of music over their experimental bleep bloops.
And don't try to derail the conversation with deconstructionist "arguments", such that people's preference for 19th century classical composers, or rock music over early experimental electronics stems from some internalized colonialist heteronormative bias, because that's bollocks. Sure, art is subjective, and if someone was raised by a pack of wolves then they would likely prefer the sound of howling over Beethoven's 9th symphony, yet I seriously doubt that early electronic musicians (yes, some of whom happened to be women) would have reached wider audiences even if women weren't historically disadvantaged. This is simply not a question of gender.
Oh yes, we have no possible way of knowing whether women's talent was historically suppressed. It's a mystery for the ages indeed.
Your own comments are a perfect demonstration of the phenomenon you're denying.
> By judging the actions of 18th century Germans, it is in fact you who seem to be unaware of the modern cultural context that you're embedded into. Modern American morals are neither universal, nor ultimate.
I'm not an American. And I suppose I should accept that you're embedded in a deeply sexist culture, and have a vested interest in maintaining that. But really, you could at least be a bit self-aware about it.
> Sweetie
Lol. You're quite the master debater.