Oval's Markus Popp is an interviewer's dream.

Perhaps I should qualify that; Markus Popp is an interviewer's dream, if the interviewer in question doesn't want to do much talking himself. This is by no means a slight. Popp, a youthful-looking German technoboffin who has brought a distinctly artistic technique and process-oriented approach to electronic music (and elevated the CD glitch to a minor art form), follows a modus operandi that would be alien to most electronic musicians. He's eager to de-emphasize his role in the music-making, stepping aside to place his process -- and his OvalProcess software -- in the limelight, the better to facilitate commentary on his methods of creation. And he'll tell you that, over and over, until you understand him.

Splendid had the pleasure of chatting with Popp one sweltering July evening before a performance at Chicago's Empty Bottle. Despite concerns that the humidity would adversely affect his equipment, Popp kindly took forty minutes to stand outside the venue and discuss his work. As you'll soon discover, he's all about the process...

Markus Popp: I think the main benefit of this approach is to have a means of making music and commenting on the production process of electronic music at the same time. So these elements, extracted from other people's CDs, are introducing a more generative method of music-making than they are actually suitable or usable for making music. It's much more like a second order way to factually make music, and to comment on the process. What attracted me to this approach, also, was that it put much more emphasis on the material of the media being used, as opposed to having me in focus as the creative individual behind the production process. It gives much more insight into the production process from an outside perspective than the usual electronic music track, produced in the usual way, would; that method would put the focus on me.

Splendid: And you definitely want to de-emphasize your role in the process.

Markus Popp: Or at least shift the focus of attention to what I see as more problematic factors in electronic music today -- the production process, as opposed to coming up with new ways of coming up with electronic music. All this subscribes more to a way to produce music, or to make a statement on the production process rather than a statement on music itself.

Finally, it was also, very simply put, attractive to me in the sense that the best thing about music today is that it's already there, so I'm not burdened with being responsible for the music in the sense of generating it. I'm less of a composer than I am a navigator, or a person who's working with a certain setup where it's more about coming up with a strategy in this setup, then creating innovative electronic music as part of an aesthetic. My way of emphasizing the procedural element over the musical element was to introduce the generative method of making the sound, and putting the focus on the process as opposed to the creative methodology.

Splendid: So you're looking at music from the perspective of each CD containing X number of minutes of music, each minute of which is 75 (or whatever) frames of audio, each of which is, by your definition, a "paintbrush".

Markus Popp: I guess so. Effectively I'm the person who's responsible for the music on the records, and I always insure that there are musically appealing results; my records have always been innovative electronic music, but not at the price of being another electronic recording artist. I was interested in shifting the focus of attention, but nonetheless creating something that was appealing to the listener. It's not completely abstract or analytical. My music is well received in the capital-M music world, like being sampled on the new Björk record, or being asked for remixes by people who could be called musicians in the generic sense of the word --

Splendid: Like Tortoise.

Markus Popp: Yes. It's proof, in a sense, that my music is received in the Music world, especially by people who don't know anything about what could be said about my music in a conceptual way. Also, my main concern is to provide something that's musically appealing and simple and attractive, and I tried to carry this further with the Ovalprocess software, which is just a simple building-block approach to making music yourself, or providing an environment in which to make music yourself.

Splendid: So the point you're making is that if it's distilled to a series of actions, and detached from any elements of "talent", your process could be followed by just about anyone... The skill, then, comes in the ability to make it listenable. Musical, if you will.

Markus Popp: Just as much as Oval or my musical approach can be subsumised or summarized in one sentence, namely being made with skipping CDs or glitches on CD media, it doesn't say anything about the musical quality, yet. The musical quality is something you wouldn't be able to grasp just by describing the method of use. So many people have attempted or have tried to achieve the same thing, or to use the same approach, but the result was never as convincing -- at least not to my personal taste. So of course, it has something to do with making the music, but I don't want it to be about me having a certain approach, or taste, or stance on music as a cultural container. It's more like applying a certain technique to music -- but that doesn't say anything about the final musical result yet. At least it provides objective criteria for evaluating the musical result, instead of resorting to the fact that I'm the person who's doing the music, and the only person who could be doing it, in my own unique personal way.

I wanted to create more of an access point for people to relate to my music on a level that would be describable as a technique or a generative approach, to generate music...as opposed to saying "It's him, it's his personality, he's the artist and it's his own way of doing the music. It's his signature." Of course, it's not my fault that people try to summarize my approach or define it in technical terms. This will always happen -- it'll always be inherent to music journalism. People think that there's a trick to it, and that as soon as they figure out what kind of software I use to play my shows, they'll have figured out my entire approach.

Splendid: But there's more to it than that.

Markus Popp: Everybody is free to judge for him or herself. I wouldn't claim that there's much more to it, but it's certainly not that simple. By bringing it to this technical/analytical level, I want to create more access points to my music, but at the same time it's not necessary to know anything about the underlying concept in order to enjoy my music. I always try to insure that there are simple, accessible, musically appealing elements there.

Splendid: Getting back to the process...how long does it take you to create a piece? Is the generative process entirely fixed, time-wise?

Markus Popp: It's difficult to say, because I don't work on a track-by-track basis. It's more like a software engine -- it's scalable and flexible. There's a really big pool of sound files that can be edited in many ways, so in the end it comes down to my own efficiency as far as dividing them into separate tracks, defining separate tracks, etc.

Splendid: So there's no quantifiable start-to-finish methodology? I'm not trying to pigeonhole you to a specific approach, I'm just curious.

Markus Popp: Of course there are certain elements that are more likely to be used in a track, certain points playing a different role in a different track, but in the end it has always been very unpredictable. Something that began life as a small "sketch" of a track wound up -- for me -- being the most interesting thing on the record, while something I might have worked on quite extensively over weeks would get dropped altogether from the final version of the record. So there's no general rule to the way I do my music, I guess.

Splendid: Are there things you end up dropping, and then return to later? Is there a huge backlog of material?

Markus Popp: Yeah, that's kind of the nature of having these files graphically represented as part of a desktop or file storage folder/metaphor. You're more likely to return to those files.

Splendid: Has your work become easier over the last few years as a result of the steady drop in the price of hard drives and other storage media? Is it easier to indulge yourself creatively?

Markus Popp: Not at all. I think my work has always been more about limitations than creative possibilities. I've always tried to maintain a level where what I "express" with my music, the expression of the musical result, was always -- at least to the most possible extent at the time -- independent from the available means. Obviously the availability and affordability of the musical equipment and hardware and software used for the process has increased, and there's a wider range of possibilities overall, but the actual design guideline of my records has always been about limitations. It's always been more important to identify the limitations than to identify the creative possibilities and then exploit them. I was more interested in finding the limits, and trying to come up with something that could be kind of autonomous, relative to the affordable creative means at the time.

Splendid: Back when you were actually physically "preparing", or marring, CDs, was there anything in particular you looked for in a CD? Did you ever bother to listen to them beforehand?

Markus Popp: Sample source CDs? I don't do it anymore. It's just to maintain this kind of appeal and make my work kind of understandable. The main appeal of the first sample on Commers is that it's still identifiable as coming from the same kind of approach, though the means used for producing the record are substantially different from the means I used for the first record. The main achievement is to make them appear as if they're building upon each other, although the means used to create the music are fundamentally different; they're always changing, and have improved over the way I created previous records. I was always much more focused on observing my creative process than exploiting it; as I said, it was more about limitations than creativity, and I've always tried to make the work autonomous, independent from the means of production. This is the hardest part of creating my music, because it's supposed to be independent -- timeless -- not belonging to or pointing to a certain technology. It's probably really rare that an electronic record from, say, 1995, like Systemich, will hold up against the latest record -- six years later, done with completely different means, technology and strategy. That's why my effort is always to come up with a result that's timeless and independent from the methodology that created it.

Splendid: Given that approach, which makes you more of an artist in the traditional sense than a musician, is it difficult when you perform live, and are placed in a role that's traditionally dependent on having a frontman -- a personality who creates the music and does all the things that go against what you've told me?

Markus Popp: Yes, but this is only one way to present my music -- in the "local" circumstances of the United States. There are other contexts, other situations worldwide that require a different strategy for presenting the music, or having it reviewed. It's more a matter of my adjusting to the way the music needs to be presented here in the US.

Splendid: Last year, you toured with the Skotodesk.

Markus Popp: Yes, this is another way of presenting my music -- as part of a sound installation, or interactive application.

Splendid: Do you have any preference at all as far as how you reach people? Is the Skotodesk better than a more traditional musical approach, like a stage performance?

Markus Popp: I don't know. It's just a matter of adjusting to different circumstances and using different strategies to present my music in a particular context. For example, having created the OvalProcess software, which is by definition interactive and dynamically updatable, that's a completely different process than creating audio CDs -- but as soon as OvalProcess existed and the Skotodesk or other OvalProcess installation objects were presented to the public, the audio CD, which before OvalProcess seemed to suffer from a lot of limitations, became much more of a challenge, and an interesting project, because it followed its own criteria and was another format to consider. It was a challenge; an audio CD is linear, and unchangeable, and as soon as it leaves my studio it won't be able to be changed for the next five or ten years.

Splendid: Yeah, it's static.

Markus Popp: Right. Having said that, after OvalProcess an audio CD seemed not really appealing, but it was a legitimate format again. It's a huge responsibility to come up with music that uses the CD format in a way that's interesting from beginning to end. It's interesting to be responsible for content that will be static for a number of years. As I said, though, as soon as a the OvalProcess existed, the CD became interesting.

Splendid: Given the amount of space available on a CD and all the things you can do today, you probably have the means to include tools on the disc to make the contents completely malleable...and for that matter, to return other people's recombined Oval materials to you, if that interested you.

Markus Popp: That's the difficult thing about the theoretical potential of software-based applications, and software in general. The definition of OvalProcess, as software, is not diversified enough. With every Powerbook sold today, there's potentially a new electronic recording artist, and there are maybe five different names he or she could record under, and also a new label that could be run completely from this Powerbook. With every new recording artist and every new label, there's the potential for a new style or flavor of electronic music, as the criteria for electronic music is just that it's 44.1 KHz, and it's on a CD, and it has a certain price, or it's an MP3 file on the internet as opposed to a Word document or an image file. So I think the definition of electronic music, or audio in the electronic field, is very diverse and specific, whereas the definition of software is not as far along. OvalProcess, being software, doesn't say automatically that it could be open source. This is one of the most popular questions for me regarding OvalProcess -- why is it not open source?

Splendid: Yup, I was going to ask that a few questions down the line. We might as well address it now.

Markus Popp: Yeah, why can't I do my own kind of sound in the OvalProcess application? And it's just because the definition of software itself seems so limited in that matter. Consider, say, a screensaver, being completely noninteractive or with a very limited interactive capacity, that could also play music or audio, and would obviously be a piece of software. Or a video game -- you'd never expect a video game to be open source, so you could use it as a production kit to build your own game (Bundled level editors notwithstanding - Ed.), or your own image file or character or sounds, even though there are games like that. These are more like construction kits, and they've been around for almost twenty years now.

The definition of software has to be more diversified, more like the definition of music. As I said, with every different Powerbook or IBook sold there could be many different styles of music created, and software doesn't seem to be that far along just yet. That's one way to answer your question. It's also a way to answer the question of whether I'm interested in creating this "music generator" that would enable people to recycle their results back to me, or provide me with what they come up with. Essentially, I think it's just a matter of the definition of software not being diverse enough. For me, the actual achievement of OvalProcess at the moment is that it's not a retail product; it's much more like a statement or a study than a work of audio art or interactive art or installation art, or salable or downloadable from an internet server. It's a statement, and in its installed form as an engine for a sound installation, it claims some kind of space in the real world. It creates a communicative situation between people in the real world as opposed to being downloadable from the internet. All these situations come into play when it comes to defining what purposes OvalProcess should serve, or which concepts it follows. People make these assumptions -- like if you could put your own sounds into OvalProcess, or if it could be something that people could work with and send results back to me...

There was one instance in Japan where I was being interviewed, and the Skotodesk was installed in Tokyo in a multipurpose sort of hall in the middle of a business area, and there were several thousand people each day looking at the object or working with the software. These two students worked with the software, and while I was doing the interview, which went on for half an hour or longer, I saw them working with the software. Then, when the interview was finished, they came over and were very eager to get my opinion of their results, what they'd come up with using OvalProcess. And I had to say that I wasn't interested -- it was none of my concern. So many possible ideas and outcomes are put into the software, and as soon as it's installed as part of the installation, it leaves my responsibility...

Splendid: Your work is done.

Markus Popp: Exactly, my work is done. That's the basic agreement -- as soon as there's installed software running as the engine of an audio installation object, it's not my concern to be present at all. If I'm present, it's not my obligation to judge the work. This is why I don't see the point in opening a channel for people who want my opinion of what they've created with the software. It's more about the definition of software being very limited these days. This will change, though. By definition, OvalProcess can't compete with commercially available professional audio applications; it's obviously not run on the same resources, and is by no means comparable to a fully featured professional audio application. It's more focused on providing an interesting statement, a very modest suggestion for one modest way to come up with an environment in which the user could create a certain sound over time. It's a way to occupy the user's time in an interesting way while still providing an accessible, intuitive way to do so. The most important point to convey with OvalProcess is that by them using it, I have a way of evaluating the process, instead of my hiding behind the more anonymous face of the retail product, the CD. I'm a person who suggests, in a very modest way, one way to spend your time in this audio environment and structure sound over time. Therefore, I think one of the main points of doing this is that people ideally, when using OvalProcess, are coming up with their own criteria toward electronic music. That's the aspect that's lacking the most in electronic music today -- there should be more criteria to talk about the music beyond it being a retail product or an MP3 file or whatever.

Splendid: Let's go back to the different between software and music. Another aspect of that relationship -- which is called into question, to some degree, by MP3s -- is that software inspires no nostalgia. No fondness.

Markus Popp: That's a very complicated question. I'm still struggling with it. (Popp pauses as a woman walks past, yelling into her cell phone. He gives her a dirty look.) What changes or transitions are introduced by the fact that software is art, or a part of art? Software, being by definition functional, and user-centric, and dynamically updatable, corresponds to so many aspects from the world of design, and interface design -- look and feel and ease of use. Software, by definition, has to be functional, but also snappy and intuitive and so on. All that means it's not exactly the criteria for a work of art... What is new when software is art? That's already a lot to think about, and I'm still exploring this field. OvalProcess is my first attempt to introduce a certain sound aesthetic as a way to describe my own approach; the whole process, the entire dialogue it involves, with the graphic designer, or the company that builds the objects, Skotopart, which is based in Berlin, this architecture company; this entire process is not more or less than a document describing my own approach to music, to an extent that it's ambitious to hand over the interface and declare my own approach to music, with OvalProcess as a container, a model, representing my own approach. Handing this over to the user, I declare my own approach public domain.

This is the basic question for OvalProcess. It's the most precise way possible at this time to document my own approach to the music, and then handing it over to the user. Rather than having a consumer on the other end, I have an active user. Hence the achievement of OvalProcess not being a retail product. It's not salable, or marketable as a certain kind of format or career move; it's more about being a statement, declaring my own way public domain rather than focusing on a new way to do art. That's not a primary concern. There will be other ways, certainly, with the technology evolving so rapidly; there will be other ways to achieve this level of modeling. Whatever artifact will result after this criteria, being a way of describing my own approach and to create some hopefully usable way of doing so that will do justice to the actual approach I take.

I'm doing work with a videogame company, and that's the next level -- trying to come up with another way of describing my own approach to music. Hopefully -- I just sent it off two days ago so I haven't heard any reply from the company, but I'm 99% sure that it will end up being used as the sound of the game. This will be something like OvalProcess, but more engaging; Every interface... You mentioned software being immune to nostalgia or retro trends --

Splendid: Which isn't entirely true; games are the obvious exception.

Markus Popp: Yeah, there's a lot of retro software, and emulated software, emulating eighties visuals and so forth. There are so many other possibilities. This project is just at the very early stages of being able to diversify artistic or aesthetic statements, in the sense that it's possible today to diversify musical statements. The definition of electronic music is very open; software will soon reach the electronic domain in the sense that it'll be more and more commonplace to work with software and use very specific aesthetics, or target very specific layers of understanding, and the cultural diversification of the definition of the software container, of the category of software, is about to diversify along these lines, but it's not there yet...and I certainly don't demand or expect people to recognize that I'm expanding the definition of software itself. That's by no means intended; it's just a very modest means of trying to describe how I work.

Splendid: Perhaps software's perceived value is lessened because it lacks the ability to readily cease to exist. It's hard to "destroy" software because of its ubiquity, because it can be copied. Because it's not as impermanent as a painting, as a song, or whatever, it must therefore have less value.

Markus Popp: Ahhhh. Now I know what you mean. Along the lines of the definition of software as art. That's a very interesting question, and I'm sorry -- I haven't really thought about it before. I'm running everything on small resources. All I can do -- though I do it with great determination -- is lay open the underlying process, to hand it over, as opposed to creating some stand-alone sound installation that's potentially interesting, but is ultimately just another work of art. I hope that makes sense.