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56 Stuff is a musical and visual arts project based in St Petersburg. We focused upon the group's activities soon after launching FFM, since this northern organization clearly embodies several advantages of web-based enterprise. On the pages of 56 Stuff you'll find many audio, visual, and textual materials that are initially centered on the local streets of Russia's "northern capital," but soon spread into various collaborations across Europe and beyond.
There is no clear order to the portfolios or events scattered across the 56 Stuff site - yet the project benefits as a result. The overriding air is of pleasant, collaborative productivity; the joy of creativity takes clear precedence over all else.
Continuing this busy outlook is a new - and philosophically related - compilation known as "7x8: 56 Stuff Remixes Itself." It comes with a brief introductory text, which in English might read as follows: "The name '7x8' refers not only to this CD as an end product; it also refers to the way in which our goal was reached. We compiled these tracks according to a process of [increasing] multiplication. The creative forces of several individuals were combined in patterns of mutual interaction... which led in all possible directions!"
The creative forces of several individuals were combined in patterns of mutual interaction... that led in all possible directions!
Unpredictable results led to equally odd dances.
The CD's rationale is further defined: "You could even say that '7x8,' strictly speaking, is not a compilation, but an album of music that has been made collectively. You'll find the original works of various artists combined with several remixes that the participants made for one another."
All of those participants, by good fortune, have been covered on this site before. They are - in no particular order - ABC Galaxy, Cycle Hiccups, Scaly Whale, Idiosync, Math Geek, Denis Davidov (once known as Shtukk), and Yellowhead. A brief acquaintance with our resources here is sufficient to show what makes 56 Stuff so appealing.
The project's love of multiplication is effected both musically and graphically, once again in ways that mirror the artistic spirit of 56 Stuff as a whole. "In its CD version, the new album has been released with a series of six different covers, each of which is unique. The artwork was assembled in [consistently] different patterns, using a number of heterogeneous fragments."
Cut, shuffle, and paste. Over and over.
In a word, we're celebrating change over consistency, difference over stasis. This logic of production used by 56 Stuff begins to sound rather like some of Brian Eno's ideas regarding generative music. That sonic output can be defined as music or songs built with sufficient structural complexity that they're capable of fostering new (and meaningful) structures. Form gives birth to new form(s), over and over, in self-generating patterns. Compositions become catalysts.
Light the touchpaper or plant a seed... and stand back.
Eno has often been quoted on the issue of generative culture. Some of those ideas form a handsome context for "7x8," itself built explicitly on a liberating romance of procreation. More precisely, one of Eno's better-known quotes reads as follows: "Until a hundred years ago, every musical event was unique: music was ephemeral and unrepeatable. Even classical scoring couldn't guarantee precise duplication. Then came the gramophone record, which captured particular performances, and made it possible to hear them identically... over and over again."
We, however, are interested in increasing forms of difference. The point where shapes become shapeless - at least briefly.
In other words, Eno's words thus far deal with mere replication, which is exactly what "7x8" is designed to avoid.
Eno continues. He describes the role of generative music within that culture of replication: "Nowadays, there are three alternatives: live music, recorded music, and generative music. Generative music enjoys some of the benefits of both its ancestors. Like live music, it is always different. Like recorded music, it is free of time-and-place limitations — you can hear it when and where you want. I really think it is possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say: 'You mean you used to listen to exactly the same thing over and over again?'"
I really think it is possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say: 'You mean you used to listen to exactly the same thing over and over again?
A few days ago, he gave a lecture in St Petersburg, from which one statement was (re)employed more than any other in the Russian press. Translated back into English, it reads: "In order to be truly successful, one needs to capture the spirit of the times. That's both risky and difficult. You really need to understand the mechanisms of the present day, the way they work. Not everybody can do that."
Apparently the occasional beer helps.
The people at "56 Stuff" seem to have managed this tricky task with "7x8." This is a compilation that - in contemporary, viral fashion - establishes a certain set of social rules with its original tracks. Those tracks are then remixed by other composers within the same group. Variation flourishes whilst observing certain structural/ social limits, because the originals are reinterpreted within the diminutive community that first made them.
Whilst not generative music in the strict sense, "7x8" epitomizes the blossoming, centrifugal romance thereof. Proud and singular identities are sacrificed to a social process. Given time, what results is a shared activity with no end and increasingly insignificant composers.
The instigators of the process will slowly become invisible.
If we go way back to the genesis of 56 Stuff and the earliest programmatic statements, we - not surprisingly - find an question or two regarding the project's peculiar name. The answer? "The term '56 Stuff' means 'the number 56 and everything associated with it." Everything. That associative process could go on forever.
Below we see Mr. Pavel Doronin (aka Scaly Whale), who is a contributor to "7x8," both as a composer of original material and a remixer. His sign below reads: "Music Dispensed Here." We suspect he'll be in that chair for a very long time if his colleagues at "7x8" remain busy.
Doronin, however, looks happy at the prospect.
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