Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Crawl 02: Caveman in Future shock

Since the last post, Crawl 01: Crawling From The Wreckage, for me, it's been like a caveman in Future Shock! Just the way, Alvin Toffler had described.in his book!!
All these years I had been using a Nokia N-72 phone for years and years. My earlier phone in 2010 was some newer Nokia phone, which I sold off after just using for few months finding ita limit of 2000 numbers, and took the N 72, a hand me done phone from wifey who had bought in 2006, and had later upgraded to a blackberry. The N 72 could store unlimited numbers, had a few games, calculator, etc. But this week, suddenly, after so many yearsof using a slowly dying phone, I decided to upgrade to an android phone. And the serpentine experience began...

I bought a Samsung Galaxy Star Pro, a most basic and cheap Android phone, one day later which I found was a 2G phone, so internet outside of wi-fi was incredibly slow. And to type on the touch screen pad to type out letters was difficult enough for facebook comments, so I had to JUST FORGET about blogging. Defeating the main reason why I took the damn android phone anyways. Also, the other main reason was to constantly, on the go,  update, on my facebook group Adims astro Zoo for my followers, but, groups seemed to never open on a 2g phone. Endless notifications and updates from other people constantly flooded  my phone, but what I wanted, well never. What a classic flop! Basically, my entire reason of buying the android phone, to connect with the world on the net constantly, had completely crashed!!

From the Saturnine Perspective: As I have written in 3 Headings on top of the blog:  (Saturn Intro/ Deconstruction/ Journey), in the Saturnine journey, initial failure is always a mandatory part of the journey. the legacy of previous failed attempts, is a must. It's never a graphical, linear, smooth progression, like in the diametrical opposite of the Solar order. And, moreover, what the hell, what was i expecting? That, yours truly, a primitive 80's caveman waking up to the android world would find it so easy to adapt, all at once??? The Saturnine journey, the Crawl is always like the great dialogue from the movie Contact stg. Jodie Foster.. " small steps"! So, here i am, stuck with an cyborg android phone. THANKFUL, that i can at least call up!! I realised what architect Mie Van Der Rohe always said... LESS IS MORE! I mean, with all the proliferation of the internet age, has actual social interaction increased/ or ACTUALLY severely dropped between humans. I would vouch for the latter. So, here I am, a caveman, grumpily grumbling about the Android age. When, I should have taken it saturnine slow, and gradually upgraded, over a period of a year, slowly to more advanced phones, before diving into the "lateshtt"Android platform. Like Alvin Toffler says.. "future shock'.

Another experience was even more disorienting, but ultimately, much positive and fulfilling due to involvement of a young cyber friend. Since I gave up music composition, arrangement, since 2005, things had  changed quite a lot. Those days, I used to program design music tracks on my 16 track Korg workstation, keyboard sequencer. Later used to dump it in studios track by track, for mixing. Since the long days of my absence, people had moved on to computers, and music/ sound soft-wares like Logic, Nuendo, Pro Tools, virtual instruments, VST plugins. All programming, designing, and music tracks were completely done  was much more efficiently done on laptops, and PC's. I had fallen behind relevant technology by years and years, and even now always preferred to programme tracks on the keyboard sequencer, Korg Trinity, Triton etc.
Recently after gradually crawling back like a worm, back into music composition, arrangement, at this very old, withering, Saturnine age, I  had to give a rough outlay for a music for a corporate ad film. before the director went for the shoot, he wanted the music, so he could design it according to the feel of his indicated music. my friend was far off, there was No keyboard to programme, no studio access. and the day of deadline had dawned upon me! I hastily called my young musician friend/ colleague Saurabh Babbar, ex guitarist of Vedic Death metal band "Bhairav'. On my insistence, he had now gradually shifted from guitar to explore his fiull potential as an electronic musician with some deadly tracks! saurabh he came down with his Laptop which had Ableton software loaded on it, and we sat down. without even my keyboard as a MIDI trogger device! just the laptop. Like old bollywood style, I chewed some paan, stood standing and began humming notes and melodies, which Saurabh then literally typed down/ programmed / converted into arranged layers and tracks of music, on his Ableton software. All notes, selected from the on screen virtual keyboard!, with NOT even a mouse!! He was Typing it all out,  and on the touch pad of the laptop!! It was far out !! And the result?  The most analogue, Indian, ethnic track that I had ever composed in life. Question: What was happening here??

Ans: The Saturnine journey: As described in the 3 headings above, the Solar/ Sun path is straightforward, and where, Journey= Goal, Process= Product, Objective= Result. What you see is what you get. But, the saturnine journey is completely opposite, it's angular, serpentine, disjointed, tangential, like the name Konastha (angular) of the ten names of Shanidev, suggests. In the Saturine journey, the journey is often diametrically opposite of the Goal. And the the Product is often diametrically opposite of the process!! The saturnine journey is NEVER straightforward. What you SEE is what you NEVER GET!! And what you never foresee is what you get!! A winding, tangential, rhizomatic, serpentine becoming! You never know, what you get.. in the saturnine journey,..

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Well although I wouldn't consider myself an authority on tech I am abreast of what is happening in the world of technology.
Firstly :let me start by saying I absolutely love Android and my phone has almost completely replaced the computer apart from music composition. However I am using a Galaxy Note 2 and that does a lot for the user experience.
The mobile industry has completely immersed itself in perfecting the user interface and experience.. However a cheap handset can mitigate the effects completely and seem frustrating..
I keep telling people that phones are a thing of the past you cannot call today's devices a phone..
It's a Palm top computer.. Which doubles up as a phone.. It can do virtually anything a computer can do and sometimes even better..
For example your blogging problem can easily be solved by a program called SwiftKey which allows you to type and will predict text for you as it learns your lingo, also allows you to slide your fingers across the screen for slide typing, and to top everything it has a dictate function where you just dictate what you want and it will type automatically as you go.. It's amazing how accurate it is and how fast and naturally you can talk..
Also screen size and processing power matters just as it does on a computer.. You cannot expect F1 performance from a Taxi..
The mobile world is exactly where I like it (on the cutting edge).. Good phones are not cheap but then again just think that you are buying a computer to replace your old one and you'll see things straight. 45k for a phone seems ridiculous but for a quad core computer with 4gb ram it's just the right price..
Never buy a cheap Android device they are a joke.. Invest in something worthy and you will have a superb experience.
In fact soon voice over IP will be commonplace.. And there will be no phone connection.. Just Web..
I would suggest that you sell your device buy a cheap 2k phone to put your phone Sim card in and buy an iPad mini for the rest of your Internet & music life.. You can even create serious music on it load synths and record your ideas with no latency.. I've never guided you wrong have I?...
It's time for you to taste the apple flavor..
Android is great too but cannot hack the music side..I use Apple for music and Android for everything else..
hope this helps

Adim X phukan said...

ya, i agree bro, in fact if i had bought a 3G phone, my entire experience would have been different. in fact before realising it was 3G, i was constanly uploading, commenting on 2G. Now i am in the process of replacing, upgrading it. Will post my newer experience!!