Richard and Eric discuss the now famous Virtual Choir phenomenon and its varying ramifications on not only the choral community but on greater social society. In their critique, they attempt the impossible by unifying seemingly disparate ideas of thinkers and philosophers such as Debord, Baudrillard, Eco, Kierkegaard, all in too short of a time. Is the virtual choir actually a choir? Does the virtual choir share aspects of previously seen social experiments in the recent past? Are there claims the virtual choir makes that could be seen as problematic or illusory? Trying to look deeply at this very popular social art-form proves to be not only challenging but enlightening.
All tagged umbreto eco
Richard and Eric discuss Umberto Eco's short essay ("On unread books") about Pierre Bayard's book entitled "How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read," which expounds upon the concept of unread literature. We as humans, will obviously not be able to read all that we wish we could, and perhaps in the end, it is good that we don't have time to read (or listen to) everything we would like. Can our common categorizations, understanding of archetypes, and appeals to authority help us understand and speak about artistic material we have never read (or heard)? These concepts have fascinating extrapolations into the world of music, as Richard and Eric speak upon the curious notion of "unheard" music.