insecurity of truth

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdrUOapDml_/

In Jurgenson’s discussion about digital manipulation, he says “photographic images, even after digital manipulation, always draw inspiration from both “scribe” and “poet” at once, varying in proportion depending on their subject and audience” (99). I have taken this interplay of poet and scribe and applied it to music. In my post, the scribe is the written music, which I, the “poet” interpret in a way that is both false and true simultaneously. I took the first two melodic lines and played each note as written, but I did so completely without a rhythmic pulse. This arguably falsifies the music, and shows me using my poetic intuition to manipulate it, similar to how a photo can be digitally manipulated to change its meaning. Since I use the same notes that the composer wrote, I challenge, along with Jurgenson, the notion that “scribe designates fact and poet fiction” (99). Is my music any less real just because I played it in a way that wasn’t intended by the composer? Is nature any less real because it has been photographed or manipulated in a way that wasn’t intended by nature? 


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