Holly Herndon “Technology is a part of our lives” – Germany radio

From Raphael Smarzoch

A cube with binary code (imago / Science Photo Library)

Holly Herndon making music with your computer and your voice. After their debut album “Movement”, could be heard on the electronically processed body sounds, now comes with “Platform”, a work in which it raises questions about the influence of digital media on everyday life. The song “Home” is for example an ironic declaration of love to a NSA agent.

Holly Herndon situates their music now. You should sound to the digital zeitgeist of the 21st century. The sounds that can be heard on Platform, echoes the clarity of high-resolution images of smartphones and tablets. They might come from computer games, where futuristic soldiers stride through end time scenarios or be part of the sound design of science fiction films

Holly Herndon:..
“A lot of music is quite retro I do not want based on historical tropics, because I think that with new technology and new human interactions new emotions and worlds arise. “

Sounds of artificial fingernails on Smartphones

This new worlds can be found in Internet. The World Wide Web is not a place for Herndon of alienation: New interpersonal etiquette arise here. With the track “Lonely at the Top” it pays a tribute Internet community, the ASMR scene. An association of people who publish online videos in which certain sounds can be heard, which will exert a calming effect on their viewers. The creators call in a calm voice to their viewers to relax while leaving crackling papers or typing on keyboards. A digital therapy that produces a tingling sensation in the body and supposedly relieves insomnia

Holly Herndon.
“I like the sound very artificial fingernails on Smartphones I like this knocking sound It calms me and.. gives me the creeps. It’s a beautiful thing that strangers connect physically and emotionally through a digital medium. This contradicts the argument that digital life ruining relationships and is not real. All these reactionary things that people on the Internet and digital cultures say. “

The ubiquitous digitization and technological acceleration sees the musician, however, not only as a blessing. The song “Home” is an ironic declaration of love to a NSA agent who she probably knows better than her own husband. The dynamics of monitoring is in the track Chorus even a compositional means. With a special program Holly Herndon hear from their Internet browsers. The sounds that occur when browsing are recorded, analyzed, and processed in the play.

And then there’s her voice. They manipulated electronically, stretched, speeded up, slowed down, cut up and re-assembled. Rarely it is unprocessed to hear. The electronically distorted voice understands the American producer continues to be a part of their body and not as a data beam of zeros and ones. It becomes a symbol of the fusion of man and machine, for a merger with the digital media of everyday life

Holly Herndon.
“I am against the idea that some of us Technology Losgelöstes is. It is so much a part of our lives. The human voice helps us to understand that. But not only the human voice, I try to transport the body to the digital world. We have a fundamental right to our physical self. Our digital body should enjoy the same protection. “

Music is for Holly Herndon not only sound, but also a political tool. You want to stimulate discussion and not compose an escapist soundtrack. An ambitious objective, which however can fail. Because the theoretical concepts open up not only about the music. One has to be familiar with them or have the interest to pursue them. Only then, the album starts to act and is literally can be negotiated to a platform on the issues of the zeitgeist and new approaches emerge -. Ideas for a better future