I specifically remember two of Steve's experiments; one was a program to compose jazz pieces; the other was a recording of the radio interference generated by the ICL2970 mainframes when you held a receiver too close to the CPU (which incidentally was a common debugging technique used by the night-shift operators back in those days, to keep an ear open for trouble while freeing their eyes and minds for more interesting ways to fill the nights - that's probably what gave him the idea in fact of turning it into a piece of performance art.)
Many of us have only recently discovered that Steve died in 1999. His wife Trudy has been in touch with our project and is very keen that Steve's work be preserved, and we are looking forward to making significant parts of Steve's research, including his PhD thesis, and perhaps his music, available at this site. (The IUMA site used to host excerpts from Steve's two CDs, but unfortunately the links are no longer active)
Steve's article, New Thinking for New Media, is online at Wired.
Steve Holtzman is a guitarist, composer, and author. He has two CDs out on his own label, Shriek! Guitar Travel includes the full versions of the audio journey through the atmosphere of Jupiter, and Digital Mantras is a collection of what we think are pretty amazing machine sounds. Steve's book on technology and creativity, Digital Mantras, was published by MIT press in 1994
This concerns the untimely death of Steve Holtzman and his contribution to the digital world. He "grew up" on the Web and left many friends behind who would wish to know about this. Wired has featured Steve at various times in his career.
Memorial Service
2:00 pm, Thursday, March 11, Congregation Beth Am, 26790 Arastradero Road,
Los Altos Hills.
Thank you for your time and consideration, Sandra (more below)
Background: Steve Holtzman literally grew up in the digital world. In his books, "Digital Mantras" (MIT Press, 1994) and "Digital Mosaics: the aesthetics of cyberspace" (Simon and Schuster, 1997), he foretold what are now current trends in terms of art and content on the Web.
Steve Holtzman founded high-tech companies such as Liquid Audio, Optimal Networks, and Perspecta. He served as a board member or executive for The Motion Factory, Radius, Farallon, and Wyse.
At the age of 24, he received a Ph.D in music and computer science from the University of Edinburgh, and he initiated and directed the first Electronic Music Concert at the world renowned Edinburgh Festival. Composing for acoustic and electronic media, he recorded a 1992 CD, "Guitar Travels."
He is survived by his wife, Trudy Edelson, sisters Diane Feirman of Portola Valley, and Harriet Parcells of Cabin John, Maryland as well as a niece and three nephews.
Sandra Park
A&R Partners
Tel: 650.363.0982 x 3931
Direct line: 650-298-3931
Fax: 650.363.1299
Email: spark@arpartners.com
STEVE HOLTZMAN Steve Holtzman is a composer, musician, and the author of the book Digital Mantras (The MIT Press, 1994). His musical works, digital, analog and instrumental have been performed in Europe and the United States. He has released two CDs on the Shriek! label: Guitar Travel and Digital Mantras (CD).
His book Digital Mantras was published by The MIT Press.
Recordings from Guitar Travel: Io and Jovian Cloud.
On Guitar Travel, all music is from guitars, and all guitars are played by Steve Holtzman. This CD includes unusual jazz combinations, such as Io and amore da fiesole, guitar synthesizers like never before in Europa and Jupiter, and heavy-metal guitar solos such as Jovian Cloud.
Io is for 2 guitars and a bass. Io, a moon of Jupiter, is one of the most active and interesting planetary bodies known. It is shaped by its combination of intense volcanic activity, exotic chemistry and complex interactions. So it the music.
Jovian Cloud is for solo guitar. Beyond the swirl of Jupiter, there is an echo of solitude...
Recording from Digital Mantras (CD): Machine Music ICL 2970.
Machine Music ICL 2970 is completely idiomatic digital sound. Discarding traditional acoustic models for describing sound that preexisted the computer -- Fourier synthesis, frequency modulation synthesis, and concepts such as frequency and harmony -- the question becomes how sound can be described in uniquely digital terms.
At the core of digital technology, there is a binary world, either zero or one. The most basic digital processes are machine operations that manipulate strings of bits of information. Computer operations store, retrieve, add, XOR, and shift a string of bits. At its most fundamental level, a computer executes machine operations that manipulate binary information.
The sounds of a computer executing these machine operations is a completely idiomatic digital sound. Machine Music ICL 2970 is the direct monitoring of every operation executed by an ICL 2970 mainframe computer. It's the sound of the computer's basic operations: store, retrieve, add, XOR, logical shift, and so on. Not sound described in terms of frequency or harmonic analyses or any other acoustic models that preexisted the computer; but machine instructions that were themselves conceived as part of the invention of the computer's architecture. Similar techniques were used to create the digital noises found in my After Artaud or After Schoenberg. The sounds generated cannot be conceived of in any terms that preexisted the computer.
The title of Machine Music ICL 2970, recorded in 1978, is a reference to Lou Reed's double-album Metal Machine Music from 1974. Reed's liner notes are also appropriate for Machine Music ICL 2970:
"No one I know has listened to it all the way through including myself. It is not meant to be. Start any place you like. . . . Most of you won't like this and I don't blame you at all. It's not meant for you. At the very least I made it so I had something to listen to." - Lou Reed, from the liner notes to Metal Machine Music
Digital Mantras : The Languages of Abstract and Virtual Worlds (the book, published by The MIT Press, 1994)
In developing a new philosophy of creativity for the digital age, Steve Holtzman shows that the computer's influence on the way we create will be profound. Digital Mantras anticipates a day when computers will be fully integrated into the creative process.
Digital Mantras is a journey across centuries, hemispheres, and disciplines which seeks to understand our artistic inheritance at the level of structure, and to connect that legacy with exciting developments in music, language, the visual arts, and virtual reality today. At the heart of these developments is what Holtzman defines as the ultimate manipulator of abstract structure: the computer.
Thoughtful and thought-provoking. The New York Times
Holtzman preaches the virtues of structuralist aesthetics and computerized art with the fervor of a prophet; in the end, he provides one of the most insightful considerations of the aesthetics of digital culture to date. Kirkus Reviews
Digital Mantras is must-read material for any aspiring renaissance person in the digital age. Stephen Travis Pope, Editor, Computer Music Journal.