@Horse_ebooks 14 tweets for reed quintet
Gregory C. Brown 2013
Current as of October 20, 2013 Versions before this date are inaccurate
For Mom and Dad.
@Horse_ebooks notes @Horse_ebooks is an account on the social media site Twitter.com. Its posts are humorous, poetic, bizarre, and legendary. Until September 24, 2013, it was thought that @Horse_ebooks was a “spambot,” or an algorithm that posts advertisements automatically. However it was announced on that September day that @Horse_ebooks was a conceptual art installation by Jacob Bakkila. He posted, in secret, fragments of recycled information, frequently incomplete snippets of text taken from published work (and of course sometimes advertising links to a website selling low-quality self-help ebooks).1 It may interest you to know that when the true origins of @Horse_ebooks were revealed, and that it would no longer tweet anymore, it had about 212,000 followers. As of this writing, less than a month later, the account has over 221,000 followers. Each movement of this work is based on a different @Horse_ebooks tweet. Each movement title was chosen by the Atlantic Reed Consort, myself, and friends on my social media outlets. The idea behind this piece is that someone, somewhere, wrote these words. As they were posted by Bakkila/Horse ebooks, those who read them give them a new context, and thus a new meaning, to them as we find the poetry and humor in them within our own individual lives. My piece is a tribute to the internet’s power to bring us new ideas about how to live and think when we are not sitting in front of a connected device. If you would like to read more, please visit twitter.com/horse_ebooks.
@Horse_ebooks was commissioned by the Atlantic Reed Consort. They premiered the second, third, fourtheenth movements, plus a different version of the thirteenth, on March 7, 2013 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center as part of the Intersections Arts Festival. This work is dedicated to my parents for a great multidude of reasons. Among those reasons: they are inspiring and open-minded, and they embrace my weirdness.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 !From “Bravospam/Horse_Ebooks 2” gallery plaque. Fitzroy Gallery (New York, NY), 24 September 2013. (See Appendix 2)!
Movements 1. Everything happens so much Every theme that occurs throughout the piece. Some are applied more blatantly that others. Music is driven by groove and very short canons.
2. Is the dance floor calling? No One 11-beat, compound-meter theme develops in the style of Frederic Rzewski.
3. Don t Let Budget Time Or Talents Keep You From A Pretty Autumn Porch Each Instrument Is A Different String On An Acoustic Guitar On A Pretty Autumn Porch.
4. What accessories you ll need to keep your airplane The Apple computer startup sound followed by a dial-up modem. In this movement, accidentals apply only apply to the notes to which they are attached.
5. Why not explore the possibilities? You are just a few minutes Harmonies from “Autumn Porch� and a few pretty flutters.
6. Naturally Welcome to the number This has a lot of notes, many of which are played in tuplet rhythms.
7. Unfortunately as you probably already know, people If performed correctly and to a good audience, this should get a few laughs.
8.* .I AM THE UNDISPUTED KING OF CASH AND I AM UTTERLY FREE MAIN GROOVE FROM Naturally Welcome DEVELOPED IN A MORE ETHEREAL FASHION; LOTS OF METRIC MODULATION (*Note: an alternative notation of this movement can be found in the appendix. Individual ensemble members may choose which notation to read; measure numbers are consistent between these two styles)
9. Ask your dumbass friends if they know of a reputable artist Bass clarinet solo
10. Their negativity only served to push me deeper into the realms of soapmaking A 3-part chorale followed by swelling, undulating repeated chords.
11. we shall and we will and we will and we shall and we do and we care and we live and we love and we care and we shall and we care and we sweet, singing, and slightly mournful clarinet duet.
12. The development of your faszcinating qualities. Traits that men admire in each other. The capabilities of a real lover. What men and women. Dance Floor theme elongated into a dreamy haze.
13. (using fingers to indicate triangular shape) SMELL SMELL SMELL GOOD NEW NEW NEW slice drink MATCH SPARKLER (thrown in air) STARS STARS STARS A very strange journey involving an overwhelming number of notes and scenes.
14. Everything happens so much A slow progression consisting of only 4 chords spread out over two minutes, beginning and ending in ensemble unison. N.B. Capitlization and punctuation are taken verbatim from the tweet. Since twitter.com only allows for tweets to be 140 characters or less, each movement of this piece is 140 seconds or less. In performance, the tweets should not be read but instead projected onto a screen above or next to the performers.
Instrumentation Oboe / English Horn Clarinet in Bb / Clarinet in E (Eb Clarinet with mouthpiece pulled out)
Soprano Saxophone / Alto Saxophone Bass Clarinet in Bb / Clarinet in Bb Bassoon
Appendix 2 Horse_ebooks Revealed [From the installation plaque, Fitzroy Gallery (195 Christie Street, New York, NY) September 24, 2013]
Bravospam We are influenced by data. On September 14, 2011, Jacob Bakkila began the conceptual art installation Horse_ebooks. He has since performed, in secret, as a spambot on the social network Twitter, posting a piece of spam roughly every two hours for 742 days. Each spam fragment is recycled information: an often-incomplete snippet of text drawn from a previously published work, occasionally including a link to a website selling low-quality self-help ebooks. The installation is available on the internet at twitter.com/horse_ebooks In the back gallery is the performance art piece Horse_ebooks 2. A phone number has been shared online, inviting the world to call and receive spam messages similar to those posted in the Horse_ebooks installation. In the front gallery are the video art pieces Spam Loops 1 – 4. The Loops depict people waiting to be spoken to. They extend the moment of conversation between statement and response. Jacob Bakkila and Thomas Bender 2013 Executive Producer, Seena Jon Software Developer, Jamie Niemasik
[From The New Yorker <http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/09/horse-ebooks-andpronunciation-book-revealed.html> accessed October 20, 2013.] September 24, 2013 “HORSE_EBOOKS IS HUMAN AFTER ALL” By Susan Orlean The Internet is full of mysteries. Two of the more intriguing ones have been a Twitter account, @Horse_ebooks1, and a YouTube channel, Pronunciation Book2, which have been running for the past several years. Both have the hallmarks of automation, chugging along anonymously and churning out disjointed bits of text in a very spam-like fashion. At the same time, their output has seemed strangely knowing and even portentous. Horse_ebooks, in particular, has inspired fan fiction, Tumblr accounts, Tshirts, and tattoos with its weird Zen-like sentence fragments, such as “Who Else Wants To Become A Golf Ball,” or “For The Highest Price Possible, No Matter How Much Time You Have Had To Prepare!,” or “Everything happens so much.” Both accounts have spawned speculation among the hundreds of thousands of people who have viewed them. Were they really spambots? Were they some slowly unfolding promotion for, say, a new phone or movie? Were they machines testing out a new kind of artificial intelligence? Were they Edward Snowden’s side projects? Most of those questions will be answered today, starting at 10 A.M., at the Fitzroy Gallery, on the Lower East Side. There, the creators of the two accounts, Jacob Bakkila and Thomas Bender, will prove that they are indeed human, appearing in a performance that is the final flourish in this suite of conceptual-art pieces, weaving together Horse_ebooks and Pronunciation Book. They will also launch the next installment of the project, a choose-your-own-adventure interactive-video piece called “Bear Stearns Bravo.” Bakkila and Bender have been working on the project for almost four years, keeping their identities secret from just about everyone, including their colleagues at BuzzFeed, where Bakkila is a creative director, and Howcast, where Bender, until about a year ago, was the vice-president of product development. The beginning of “Bear Stearns Bravo” marks the end of both Pronunciation Book and Horse_ebooks. Bender and Bakkila say that they’ll miss maintaining those accounts, but there’s relief at not having to keep the secret anymore. In the past few weeks, plenty of people have noticed some synchronicity between the accounts, and have been scrambling to figure out their provenance. “No one wants to work on a painting forever,” Bakkila said the other day, as he and Bender and a small group of collaborators set up video monitors in the gallery for their daylong appearance. “When it’s done it’s done. We’re ready for the experience of whatever this next piece is.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 !http://twitter.com/horse_ebooks! 2 !http://www.youtube.com/user/pronunciationbook!