Dimitris Kamarotos
Interview by Giorgos Frangiskos
Dimitris Kamarotos is a contemporary music composer and researcher in the field of sound and computers. He has studied music, computing and management in Greece and France and has published several articles in scientific journals.
How using technology in your music? When did your relationship with technology start and how it evolved over the years?
I assume that by using the word technology we mean the modern electronic technology. If so, I have been using it since it first appeared, that is, since the 1980s. "I was there" at the birth of personal computers and MIDI. To be precise, I had been expecting them to exist, I followed and participated in anything related to technology. The reason was that the traditional relationship with music as a study and creation, left me with many gaps.
On the other hand, with tregard to technology, I have always had the tendency to not distinguish between methods, means and eras. So, I could say that since the first time I've been involved with music I tried to experiment and find "how is this done".
When posing such a question, one gives equal importance to classical counterpoint as much as the way a guitar is built or a Hammond or even a computer.
But I always make a distinction between that and music.
Research in technology in order to serve in technical ways some needs of my music and vice versa, the possibilities of technology that generate new ideas or needs for music, these are two things that constantly overlapping in my everyday life.
Technology is no longer a privilege of the few, or specialized computer engineers-How do you avoid uniformity?
With the same ease or difficulty that someone finds the courage or the need to write music for a string quartet or piano. The music and art in general, the way I understand it now, does not result from a claim of originality but is a necessity. If it is absolutely necessary to write music, you will find your way of existence. The "unique" and "original"
The experimental electronic music in Greece is limited, why do you think that happens - While the electronic pop music is a living culture that affects and creates fashion?
This is one of the few things that do not give me the impression that I am on another planet when I'm in Greece. I believe that the differentiation between a more "experimental" or more "academic" music and the so-called Pop is a worldwide phenomenon made to match with the aspirations of the industry and the "electronic" or "electroacoustic" musicians for some 10 years. Now the “landscape” is changing, since the beginning of the century we have new hybrids that show that the separation is now obsolete.
To come back to the Greek reality, in my opinion, the difference in this small part of music is only quantitative. So I do not think that proportionally more, people are interested in "academic" electroacoustic / computer music, in London than in Athens. When referring for example to London, we simply are talking about a much larger group of people.
This certainly applies to electronic music, in Greece in terms of pop music or any other genre, we have lost within 10 to 15 years, in the function of music.
Electroacoustic music is used in other art forms - such as video, or theater. Do you think that the future may be located there? Is this a way to spread?
It is not possible for me to know, and it is of very little concern to me. The morphological ‘recognition’ of musical genres comes either AFTER by music analysts or BEFORE by music theorists. In other words, they have no direct relationship with the biological human need for music. If you place this in such a complex environment like the one we live in, you can understand that not only it is impossible to foresee the future but it is rather unrealistic.
Even the various "mixed" types of art is in my view "external" (compared to the same art) ways of seeing art. To put it more simply I do not believe in any classification and institutionalization of music and mixed media. But I am ready to participate in any grouping (as well as for the same reason as to discuss horoscopes!) Since it helps in communication and therefore the possibility of cooperation.
What you think is the relationship between what is happening in the field of Art in Greece with those in Europe; We are in the forefront or follow the "tail"?
We do not even follow the tail, we follow randomly without justification, like blind animals.
That I do not think it would be a characteristic of art but something which is within the social - economic system and therefore affects, the attitudes, habits and particular needs of individuals for music.
Do you think that technology makes contemporary art ‘cheap’? The fact that it has expanded the number of people who can present something at a festival like this is it to benefit?
In my opinion there is no independent benefit "for contemporary art". There may be something positive or negative for those people who are interested, either as musicians or as recipients of this material. This creates communication and grouping, social events that ultimately create a culture and a kind of social man.
From this perspective nor diminishes or increases the value of any art form, but it is positive that if there is a request ( "I want to hear" or "I want to play my music") it becomes technically easier.
Live electronics: There seems to be tendency in recent years for live improvisation or jamming musicians using either commercial or programs' such as MAX, and C-Sound. Can this be the way - with live-performance to gain greater public in electronic music?
I do not consider gaining larger audiences for any kind of music to be an important goal. The classification based on what justifies music is opposite to the nature of music, at least as I understand it. Rather, something more closely, as musical groups that use software tools such as max-msp, jitter, etc. Even within 5-6 years have changed both the technical things that neither can determine the threshold. But it is a useful contract to be concerts, festivals, meetings in-depth exchanges. The instruments are so many that if a contract (as the title and participants of a festival) cause the treaty to listen more deeply, or to work more marginal with an average, this is valuable.
Live electronics and improvisation have not yet, in my opinion, any progress based on the aesthetic choices of the performers or the audience. There is a large body of the music scene that made it more accessible and but not enough. I expect the media to evolve much more in this direction in the coming years
