Showing papers in "Organised Sound in 2021"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the possible proximity between the philosophical tradition of pragmatism and the present-day practice of free improvisation, a musical activity that enjoys its ambiguous nature of not being clearly defined, that is of value to examine as a practice in its own rights.
Abstract: This article presents the possible proximity between the philosophical tradition of pragmatism and the present-day practice of free improvisation, a musical activity that enjoys its ambiguous nature of not being clearly defined, that is, however, of value to examine as a practice in its own rights. It is used in educational and compositional contexts as a tool, as well as being an established independent performance practice, albeit for a relatively small body of audience. The discussion is led through three concepts that are utilised by pragmatists, but which resonate with the concerns of free improvisers: experience, expressive object and gesture. Outlining these key ideas, the article sheds light on John Dewey’s and Giovanni Maddalena’s thoughts on aesthetics, which provide a perspective for examining these inherent issues of free improvisation. Through a philosophical examination, the article seeks to enlighten the performance processes of the musical phenomenon of free improvisation.
4 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the development of a performance practice with a new electroacoustic instrument (feedback-actuated augmented bass) based on a background in improvisation, and discuss how the feedback-induced behaviour of the instrument sets it apart from an acoustic bass and how the implementation of operationally closed digital signal processing algorithms facilitates greater systemic autonomy.
Abstract: In this article I describe the development of a performance practice with a new electroacoustic instrument – the FAAB (feedback-actuated augmented bass). Drawing on a background in improvisation, I discuss how the feedback-induced behaviour of the instrument sets it apart from an acoustic bass and how the implementation of operationally closed digital signal processing algorithms facilitates greater systemic autonomy. In identifying resistance as a key feature of improvisation, I propose the term ‘diachronic mastery’ as a way of addressing the equilibration of sensorimotor schemes in the context of developing a performance practice with a complex hybrid system such as the FAAB. Through a discussion of the term ‘agency’ as it appears in recent literature, I develop a preliminary framework for addressing both the immediate experience of agency emerging in performance ecosystems and the biologically informed definition of the term that may be useful in the design of increasingly autonomous instruments and performance systems.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss how micro-watt radio pioneer Mbanna Kantako, electronic music artist Muqata’a and audio activist Christopher DeLaurenti work with field recordings to produce subversive counter-narratives against news media and state discourses.
Abstract: This article examines creative sound practitioners who audibly convey social justice commentary through their use of environmental soundscapes as source material. I discuss how micro-watt radio pioneer Mbanna Kantako, electronic music artist Muqata’a and audio activist Christopher DeLaurenti work with field recordings to produce subversive counter-narratives against news media and state discourses. I outline three specific sound projects as case studies: Kantako’s aural counter-surveillance of police encounters within the predominantly poor and Black neighbourhood of Springfield, Illinois; Muqata’a’s album Inkanakuntu (2018) composed using field recordings of Ramallah, West Bank; and DeLaurenti’s radio piece Fit the Description (2015) that incorporates field recordings of the protests following the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. I argue that composing with soundscapes of contested urban spaces can function as sonic activism that confronts the oppressive soundscapes of systemic racism. The case studies are examined through the following common themes: 1) the use of what I term aural counterpublics to amplify marginalised voices and soundscapes of resistance, and 2) the radical re-appropriation of microphones and oppressive police and military audio technologies as a means of ‘speaking back’ to systems of power. Finally, I suggest how these case studies convey the need for intersectional and decolonised approaches to soundscape studies.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors formalise the concept of socially engaged distributed participatory design, an approach that classifies PwB's current research activities in the area of accessible music technology design and improvised musicking.
Abstract: The global COVID-19 pandemic has been an extraordinary situation. Social distancing has impacted the vast majority of people, reorganising society, physically separating us from friends, family and colleagues. Collectively we found ourselves in a distributed state, reliant upon digital technologies to maintain social and professional connections. Some activities can translate unabated to a digital medium, with benefits, such as the convenience inherent in many online shopping and banking services. Other activities, particularly those which are socially engaged, including inclusive music-making or design, may need to be re-framed and re-thought due to the absence of in-person contact.
In Northern Ireland, the Performance Without Barriers (PwB) research group works with disabled artists from the Drake Music Project Northern Ireland (DMNI) to identify ways in which technology can remove access barriers to music-making. Since disabled people are experts in their unique lived experience of disability, they must be involved in the design process, an approach known as participatory design. At the end of 2020, many of us are still adjusting to the new normal, only beginning to understand the impact of distributed digital living. In this article, we examine how the socially engaged work of PwB has been affected, changed and adapted during the pandemic throughout 2019 to 2020, expanding ideas of distributed creativity to the notion of distributed design. The authors formalise the concept of socially engaged distributed participatory design, an approach that classifies PwB’s current research activities in the area of accessible music technology design and improvised musicking. Consideration is given to the impact the notion of ‘distribution’ has on degrees of participation.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the background and motivations behind the electroacoustic game-pieces Pathfinder (2016) and ICARUS (2019), designed specifically for his performance practice with an augmented drum kit.
Abstract: This paper describes the background and motivations behind the author’s electroacoustic game-pieces Pathfinder (2016) and ICARUS (2019), designed specifically for his performance practice with an augmented drum kit. The use of game structures in music is outlined, while musical expression in the context of commercial musical games using conventional game controllers is discussed. Notions such as agility, agency and authorship in music composition and improvisation are in parallel with game design and play, where players are asked to develop skills through affordances within a digital game-space. It is argued that the recent democratisation of game engines opens a wide range of expressive opportunities for real-time game-based improvisation and performance. Some of the design decisions and performance strategies for the two instrument-controlled games are presented to illustrate the discussion; this is done in terms of game design, physical control through the augmented instrument, live electronics and overall artistic goals of the pieces. Finally, future directions for instrument-controlled electroacoustic game-pieces are suggested.
2 citations
TL;DR: Ambiguous Devices as discussed by the authors is a distributed musical instrument, inspired by our mutual desire to explore disruptive forms of networked musical interactions in an attempt to challenge and extend our practices as improvisers and instrument makers.
Abstract: This article documents the processes behind our distributed musical instrument, Ambiguous Devices. The project is motivated by our mutual desire to explore disruptive forms of networked musical interactions in an attempt to challenge and extend our practices as improvisers and instrument makers. We begin by describing the early design stage of our performance ecosystem, followed by a technical description of how the system functions with examples from our public performances and installations. We then situate our work within a genealogy of human–machine improvisation, while highlighting specific values that continue to motivate our artistic approach. These practical accounts inform our discussion of tactility, proximity, effort, friction and other attributes that have shaped our strategies for designing musical interactions. The positive role of ambiguity is elaborated in relation to distributed agency. Finally, we employ the concept of ‘feedthrough’ as a way of understanding the co-constitutive behaviour of communication networks, assemblages and performers.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the ethics of working with vulnerable groups in such a way and towards developing practices through which the auditory experiences, particularly of an auraldiverse participants, may be documented, represented and understood in a reciprocal and egalitarian manner through "dialogic situations of companion listening, discussion and mutual learning".
Abstract: [...]active criticality by the author–artist pursues a conceptual move beyond the routine notion of participation and collaboration understood as positive forces in and of themselves – towards more inherently (self-)critical sound practices and studies of such works. [...]while the articles are evidently interlinked in addressing this broader theme of social engagement through sound, the collection is decidedly diverse: in interpretations of ‘sociality’;and in addressing distinct areas and eras of sound practices – the contemporary, canonical and hereto less-heard. Considering this issue as a single entity, the authors thus become united in their aim to diversify the conversation, in decentralising theoretical approaches to the subject matter and in the positive inclusion of a wider variety of voices, experiences, sounding bodies and attitudes to listening. The author reflects on the ethics of working with vulnerable groups in such a way and towards developing practices through which the auditory experiences, particularly of an auraldiverse participants, may be documented, represented and understood in a reciprocal and egalitarian manner through ‘dialogic situations of companion listening, discussion and mutual learning’.
1 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an augmented violin developed and performed by the author in improvised performance as an example of how personal digital musical instruments evolve and how they can be used in musical improvisation.
Abstract: This article reflects on how personal digital musical instruments evolve and presents an augmented violin developed and performed by the author in improvised performance as an example. Informed by the materialism of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, an image of ‘flows of inhomogeneous matter’ provokes reflection on a mode of production common to artisanal craftmanship and digital lutherie alike, namely the pre-reflective skilfulness negotiating the singularities of inhomogeneous matter with the demands of the production – a process which itself may be thought of as im-pro-visation (‘un-fore-seen’). According to Gilbert Simondon, all technical objects develop in this way: functional interdependency emerges when abstractly ideated elements begin to enter into unanticipated synergistic relationships, suggesting a material logic dependent on unforeseen potentialities. The historical development of the acoustic violin exemplifies such an evolution, with, like all technical objects, additional latent potential. Digital artists can work like artisanal craftsmen in tinkering with technical elements, teasing out their synergies through abductive, trial-and-error experimentation. In the context of developing digital musical instruments, model-free design of real-time digital signal processing symmetrising action and perception yields highly refined results. Like musical improvisation – constrained by time – improvised development of these instruments turns the material obstacles into their very means of realisation.
1 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the development of an improvisatory electroacoustic instrument for pianist Maria Donohue was described as a collaborative process for music-making, and the end result of this process is a meaningful augmentation of the piano in accordance with Maria's creative practice, differing significantly from other improvising electroACoustic instruments she has previously experimented with.
Abstract: Electronic systems designed to improvise with a live instrumental performer are a constant mediation of musical language and artificial decision-making. Often these systems are designed to elicit a reaction in a very broad way, relying on segmenting and playing back audio material according to a fixed or mobile set of rules or analysis. As a result, such systems can produce an outcome that sounds generic across different improvisers, or restrict meaningful electroacoustic improvisation to those performers with a matching capacity for designing improvisatory electroacoustic processing. This article documents the development of an improvisatory electroacoustic instrument for pianist Maria Donohue as a collaborative process for music-making. The Donohue+ program is a bespoke electroacoustic improvisatory system designed to augment the performance capabilities of Maria, enabling her to achieve new possibilities in live performance. Through the process of development, Maria’s performative style, within the broader context of free improvisation, was analysed and used to design an interactive electronic system. The end result of this process is a meaningful augmentation of the piano in accordance with Maria’s creative practice, differing significantly from other improvising electroacoustic instruments she has previously experimented with. Through the process of development, Donohue+ identifies a practice for instrument design that engages not only with a performer’s musical materials but also with a broader free improvisation aesthetic.
1 citations
1 citations
TL;DR: In the UK, between March and May 2020, an estimated 37 million people across the United Kingdom took part in the ‘Clap for Carers' initiative against the backdrop of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Abstract: Between March and May 2020, an estimated 37 million people across the United Kingdom took part in the ‘Clap for Carers’ initiative against the backdrop of the global coronavirus pandemic. Participants stood on their doorsteps or balconies, or at their windows to clap, cheer and make other sounds, officially in praise of public health workers. The initiative was unique in British history, comparable in mass engagement only to certain instances of the ‘minute’s silence’, yet diametrically opposed in the sonic agency it appeared to permit. Drawing on interviews with participants, as well as published documentation and media reports, I ask how this sonic agency was made use of and managed, and to what ends. Charged with the emotional and political weight of the pandemic, Clap for Carers was an increasingly ambivalent phenomenon. While it might not present itself as an artistic practice, participants’ evident attention to sonic materiality justifies approaching it as such. Moreover, exploratory uses of sound and a proliferation of interpretive positions suggested it held some space for the autonomous experiences art entails. While the initiative’s narrowly defined consensus mirrored the pitfalls of some participatory art, these autonomous experiences gestured towards what Voegelin (2019) describes as an ‘echography of the inaudible’, through which a plurality of voices, actualities and political possibilities are heard. In this sense, such experiences of Clap for Carers point to sound’s distinctive capacity for (per)forming agonistic kinds of participatory practice.
TL;DR: Paynter as mentioned in this paper is a tablet-based app intended as a digital graphic interface for group collaborative composition and its experimental use in a primary school in Salford, UK, alongside musicians from the BBC Philharmonic orchestra.
Abstract: Music composition is traditionally regarded as an act of individual creation and expression, but can be approached, through the aid of digital platforms, as an activity that encourages learning through social participation. This article describes the development of a tablet-based app, Paynter, intended as a digital graphic interface for group collaborative composition and its experimental use in a primary school in Salford, UK, alongside musicians from the BBC Philharmonic orchestra. The app created a framework for a negotiated language of symbols used by two groups of students at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 to tell stories through sound and music. Its functionality enabled compositional thinking to emerge collectively from groups with relatively little exposure to the idea of composing and little knowledge of traditional notational or digital sequencing technologies. The research is grounded in a theoretical context of constructivist approaches to education.
TL;DR: In this paper, a cross-species choir was formed by the artist Catherine Clover, in which participants tried to sing like, with and to birds in a London woodland, inspired by theoretical models drawn both from sound studies and from environmental humanities, as well as a humorous sensitivity towards the limitations and absurdities of artistic practice.
Abstract: This article transposes questions about socially engaged sound practices into a more-than-human register, turning an ear to the sounds of interspecies encounters It takes its impetus from a workshop aimed at forming a ‘cross-species choir’ by the artist Catherine Clover, in which participants tried to sing like, with and to birds in a London woodland I describe how Clover’s speculative choir was informed by theoretical models drawn both from sound studies and from environmental humanities, as well as a down-to-earth, humorous sensitivity towards the limitations and absurdities of artistic practice Where much theory associated with sound art and experimental music sees sound as what Ochoa Gautier has critiqued as an ontological suture for repairing the fractured relationship between humans and nature, Clover’s practice offers a more ambivalent and, I argue, therefore more generative means of conceptualising the role of sound within more-than-human social worlds In particular, it uses sound to draw attention to the apprehension of humans by other creatures and to various dynamics of evasion, non-encounter and undecidability in our relationships with the more-than-human world By amplifying this alternative way of understanding sound and listening, this article seeks to recast projects of social engagement through sound in more speculative and expansive terms
TL;DR: O'Dwyer and Lambkin's 2018 album Green Ways as mentioned in this paper explores the cartographic aspects of their project, and how these are conveyed in an album format, using the concept of cartophony as a way to consider different relationships between sound and mapping practices.
Abstract: In this article I discuss how Aine O’Dwyer and Graham Lambkin’s 2018 album Green Ways connects with recent criticisms of sound mapping practices. Following an interpretation put forward by the artists themselves, I investigate the cartographic aspects of their project, and how these are conveyed in an album format. The concept of cartophony, suggested elsewhere by Samuel Thulin, is employed as a way to consider different relationships between sound and mapping practices that extrapolate common assumptions of what sound maps are and how they operate. First, I listen to how the artists create sonic performances in which they interact with different elements of the places they are performing in, making sounds not only in the place but also with the place. Then, I consider the different ways in which specificities of place are mapped through the incorporation of speech and singing. Finally, I show how the album’s underlying narratives directly address the problematic distinction between performance situations and everyday life. Considering the project’s unusual emphasis on the artists’ presence, as well as its incorporation of speech, singing and artistic performances, I suggest that Green Ways invites us to broaden our understanding of what field recordings and sound maps can be.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore silence as a potential, shared and communal space; an immediate composition that invites both listener and non-listener into its congress, and draw on these works and their documentation.
Abstract: Steven Connor’s book Giving Way begins with a list of unappreciated qualities, the first of which is a capitalised: ‘SILENCE’. Shyness, reserve, withdrawal and holding back accompany silence in a long sentence of qualities, which ‘tend to be marked with disapproval, sympathy or revulsion’, and some of which are, as Connor notes, ‘characterized as a mental disorder, in the form of social anxiety or social phobia’ (Connor 2019: 1). Silence is often seen as a lack of agency, an anti-social and suspect unwillingness to participate. But as a sound artist working with field-recording, I am aware that silence, withdrawal and holding back can also be a form or method of practice and participation. Since 2004, my creative practice has included a series of physical and imagined silent releases. This article draws on these works and their documentation to explore silence as a potential, shared and communal space; an immediate composition that invites both listener and non-listener into its congress. Listening in on the conversation of telephone pauses and the closed paragraphs of library shelves, silence can be heard undoing purposeful agency, shyly engaging us in the anti-social practice of inaction, so that we might not participate together.
TL;DR: In this article, the affordance of headphone listening as a sensory experience within a responsive, interactive and improvisational site-specific audiowalk is discussed, and a phenomenological application of improvisational listening and walking in this form of somatic art, and particularly how this can impact the immersive experience for the participant/performer.
Abstract: This article discusses the affordance of headphone listening as a sensory experience within a responsive, interactive and improvisational site-specific audiowalk. The intention here is to elucidate how correlational and dialectic tensions between improvisation and listening have informed an approach to creating the geolocative project: Audiowalk – St Enda’s Park. Initially using the concept of soundwalking, as both a touchstone and a springboard, I explore some of the theoretical and dialogic underpinnings that have grounded this process-orientated work. The discussion is then extended into a phenomenological application of improvisational listening and walking in this form of somatic art, and particularly how this can impact the immersive experience for the participant/performer. The theoretical grounding and telos are explored in terms of the improvisational ‘flow’ state and how this accentuates and engenders an awareness of a soundscape through contextual and ethnographic aural histories. Critical reflection and analysis will be discussed throughout in attaining greater epistemological efficacy dealing with concepts of place and memory within this site-specific work.
TL;DR: In this paper, a sound mapping workshop in Lisbon with a multidisciplinary participant group provided the opportunity to re-prototype sound maps at the scale of a local neighbourhood using multimodal means of representation; the results highlighted questions of form, scale, representation, authorship and purpose in sound mapping and demonstrated its continuing potential as a participatory practice.
Abstract: Sound maps, particularly the web-based examples that have proliferated since the early 2000s, have proven compelling and valuable as means of conveying diverse perspectives of urban, rural and wilderness sound environments, while opening the creative process of mapping through field recording to non-expert user groups. As such, sound maps hold the promise of broad public engagement with everyday sonic experience and spatial typologies. Yet this straightforward participatory aim is prone to complication in terms of participatory frameworks and scale of analysis. Drawing on a catalogue of sound maps by the author, this article problematises the participatory norms of sound mapping and, in tandem, calls for a more nuanced approach to scale than typically seen to date in sound maps based on geospatial mapping APIs. A sound mapping workshop in Lisbon with a multidisciplinary participant group provided the opportunity to ‘re-prototype’ sound maps at the scale of a local neighbourhood using multimodal means of representation; the results highlighted questions of form, scale, representation, authorship and purpose in sound mapping and demonstrated its continuing potential as a participatory practice.
TL;DR: Trevurr as discussed by the authors describes the rationale and creative process behind a collaborative sound composition undertaken as part of research into the acoustic ecologies of people in the early stages of a dementia.
Abstract: This article details the rationale and creative process behind a collaborative – or more accurately in this case, dialogic – sound composition undertaken as part of research into the acoustic ecologies of people in the early stages of a dementia. Changes in abilities around hearing and listening are among the first symptoms of many types of dementia, making such auditory phenotypes an increasingly common part of lived experiences of sound. Following acoustic ecology practice in doing and presenting research in sound, and more specifically Steven Feld in doing so in dialogic or polyvocal ways, co-composition can be a way of exploring the particularities of others’ hearing, listening and sound practices, which is less reliant on the discursive frames of interlocutors and researchers. The process of making sound art together draws attention to particular sounds and experiences, creating dialogic situations of companion listening, discussion and mutual learning. It also provides a framework for engaging interlocutors in soundscape and ethnographic fieldwork methods. The composition discussed here, Trevurr, documents my time working with Trevor, a keen amateur musician in Cornwall who has mild cognitive impairment, and gradually comes to simulate his experience of hyperacusis in a piece of dialogic, auraldiversity-oriented composition.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on critically provincialising some of the ethico-political challenges inherent to much of the acoustic ecology vocabulary and conceptual framework and offer an alternative view on how collaborative works that deal with the sonic can take place within communities.
Abstract: This article focuses on critically provincialising some of the ethico-political challenges inherent to much of the acoustic ecology vocabulary and conceptual framework. As we will demonstrate, much of the underlying limitations stem from an adherence to a particular self-transformation praxis (from the ‘New Age’ movement) alongside an overtly optimist and culturally selective outlook on how a well-informed acoustic designer would guide individuals and communities to a better sonic world. This epistemological and aesthetic outlook is presented in order to offer an alternative view on how collaborative works that deal with the sonic can take place within communities. One, where rigid hierarchies and orthodoxies are substituted by an intersubjective listening that changes all actors involved in the process. This is the framework from which we present Cildo Meireles’s Sal Sem Carne LP (1975) and Lilian Nakahodo’s sonic cartography Mapa sonoro CWB: Uma cartografia afetiva de Curitiba (2015–).
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how the theoretical and pedagogical intersections of sonic art and creative oral history may work together to enhance the public response of socially engaged, interdisciplinary artwork, and suggest that the application of these techniques by electroacoustic composers, sonic artists, oral historians and interdisciplinary artists will create informed, passionate and empathetic listening spaces that live beyond the insular, creative experience itself.
Abstract: This article aims to explore how the theoretical and pedagogical intersections of sonic art and creative oral history may work together to enhance the public response of socially engaged, interdisciplinary artwork. The main topics of discussion will include Panos Amelides’s paper ‘Acousmatic Storytelling’, the socio theoretical approach suggested by Salome Voegelin in her paper ‘Sonic Memory Material as “Pathetic Trigger”’, the behavioral study from the oral history sound installation by Dr Luis Sotelo Castro called Not Being Able to Speak is Torture, and the Deep Listening and Sonic Meditation practices and teachings of Pauline Oliveros, as well as compositions by Yves Daoust, Hildegard Westerkamp and Trevor Wishart. One consistent theme revealed through these investigations was that socially engaged, aurally focused artwork informed and woven by familiar and documented ‘life’ sounds or nostalgic sound events increases emotional triggers for the audience, creating a deeper engagement with the art piece or performance. Furthermore, an informed and host-led directive encouraging participatory and attentive listening through either meditation or discussion increases audience reception and takeaway, thus inspiring and unifying mass group empathy. This article suggests that the application of these techniques by electroacoustic composers, sonic artists, oral historians and interdisciplinary artists will create informed, passionate and empathetic listening spaces that live beyond the insular, creative experience itself.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the ways in which sound walking and field recording entangle the listener in a sociopolitical relationship with place and argue for a greater reflexivity in regard to the motives that inform our listening, relationship with places and awareness of the widest spectrum of cultural, historic and sociopolitical contexts.
Abstract: This article considers the ways in which soundwalking and field recording entangle the listener in a sociopolitical relationship with place. The place is a physical site in which the listener encounters complex sonic sociopolitical factors, shaped not just by the interactions of people but also by involving living and material objects that voice themselves through sound and vibrations. Sets of expectations and personal identities inform listening experiences, in addition to the material-orientated tendencies in the field, deriving from soundscape composition and acousmatic music. Specific sociopolitical examples that inform sonic experiences in diverse listening situations across different geographic regions are used to uncover bias, and some of the preconceptions of listeners. The article argues for a greater reflexivity in regard to the motives that inform our listening, relationship with places and awareness of the widest spectrum of cultural, historic and sociopolitical contexts.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that when pushed to the point of failure, playback media begin to function as an improviser, exhibiting musical agency over the performance that mirrors that of human improvisers.
Abstract: The adoption of playback media – such as vinyl and the compact disc – by performers as a means of sound creation and manipulation sees our perception of these media ‘elevated’ to the status of an instrument. As this practice develops, improvisers push these devices further in pursuit of new sounds, including actively exploring the sonic potential of failure and destruction. This article argues that when pushed to the point of failure, playback media begin to function as an improviser, exhibiting musical agency over the performance that mirrors that of human improvisers. This article will identify how failing playback functions within a performance, and explore the ways in which it can be understood to improvise, discussing how failing playback media can engage in a dialogical back and forth with human improvisers as well as the ways it can directly influence and determine the structure and musical content of a performance.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the intersubjective dimension of improvisation in electronic music praxis, focusing on how the electronic medium can be used to foster mediation between musicians.
Abstract: Shared music improvisation constitutes a formidable vector for intersubjective connection. Improvisation is a space of non-semantic communication that allows for putting oneself at risk and requires mutual trust and listening, as well as dialogical qualities. This article investigates the intersubjective dimension of improvisation in electronic music praxis, focusing on how the electronic medium can be used to foster mediation between musicians. The article builds on a practice-based enquiry in duo format, conducted in three successive technological settings, with a methodological entanglement of aesthetic and design aims. Systematic video documentation and participant observation provide an analytical counterpoint to an immersion in the improvisatory praxis. A set of design strategies for fostering intersubjective connection in shared musicianship emerges from the research. The findings provide the basis for a dialectical consideration between musical and intersubjective aesthetics. The discussion points to the diversity of social functions of music and their respective aesthetics. Electronic instruments’ inherent plasticity allows for reconfiguring the social space of music-making, and thus opens perspectives for devising synergetic music systems that emphasise an ethos of shared agency over the production of musical objects or performances.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe a way to improvise with space using a computer-based tool implemented in SuperCollider, which can act both on rhythm and space and enable among others the spatio-temporal articulation of the performance.
Abstract: This article describes my own way to improvise with space using a computer-based tool implemented in SuperCollider. The objective of this spatial performance tool is to have an ergonomic spatio-temporal and spectral control over numerous sound objects in real time, in order to alternate between spatialised polyrhythms and textures. After a brief review of spatial audio context, the spatial performance tool is summarised and detailed here by focusing on one of the core parameters: the playback speeds, which can act both on rhythm and space and enable among others the spatio-temporal articulation of the performance. As well as discussing the word ‘comprovisation’ and my conception of human–computer improvisation, the possibilities and approach of the tool in terms of improvisation and controllerism are illustrated through the use and combination of different controllers (computer keyboard, tactile interfaces, force touch sensors). Whereas some controllers are more dedicated to the selection and triggering of streams of spatialised sound events, others have their own mappings and ways of acting on some parameters (depending on the temporality of the sounds: playing or future events).
TL;DR: In this paper, Mâche describes how his music may be described as "sacred" music, however devoid of any religious aspects, and what this implies for us as listeners and/or as artists.
Abstract: Drawing on Francois-Bernard Mâche’s writings as well as interviews and analyses by musicologists, this paper tries to describe how his music may be described as ‘sacred’ music, however devoid of any religious aspects, and what this implies for us as listeners and/or as artists. To Mâche, the sacred is the consideration of a specific relationship to the world as the object and as the subject, as the ‘why’ and as the ‘how’ of music. Musical examples from his mixed music and acousmatic music illustrate how Mâche goes from his theories to more practical aspects of his compositional technique and listening behaviours.
TL;DR: In this article, a sound installation that interrogates the relationship between sonic materiality and digital audio processing and how acts of erasure and time-stretching might influence the layering of disparate sound materials is presented.
Abstract: This article invites reflection on the ambiguity of sonic temporalities as the lines between physicality and immediacy become increasingly blurred. Through the notion that digital technologies are haunted by analogic process, I foreground the concept of Palimpsestic Listening to explore the musical qualities and critical resonances of sonic acts and objects in hybrid physical/digital systems that evoke layered temporalities that are ‘historically distinct nonetheless linked’. I also seek to illustrate the significance of engaging practically with this concept by discussing the methods behind my composition D/ta Ro} – A Dialectical Trash Heap, a sound installation that interrogates the relationship between sonic materiality and digital audio processing and how acts of erasure and time-stretching might influence the layering of disparate sound materials.
TL;DR: In this paper, two computer music works are discussed to demonstrate a model of music-making that merges composition and improvisation, based on the concepts of cognitive assemblages and intra-action, following the writings of N. Katherine Hayles and Karen Barad, respectively.
Abstract: Contemporary thought is moving away from the notion that the human is a clear-cut concept. In particular, non-anthropocentric views are proliferating within the interdisciplinary area of critical post-humanism, with emphasis on non-dualistic views on relations between human and technology. This article shows how such a view can inform electroacoustic and computer music practice, and sees improvisation linked with composition as a fruitful avenue in this. Following a philosophical preparation and a discussion of relevant music discourse, two computer music works created by the author are discussed to demonstrate a model of music-making that merges composition and improvisation, based on the concepts of cognitive assemblages and intra-action, following the writings of N. Katherine Hayles and Karen Barad, respectively. The works employ techniques related to artificial intelligence and cybernetics, such as machine learning algorithms, agent-based organisation and feedback systems. It is argued that acousmatic sound is an important aspect of this practice. The research is thus situated not only in the frames of improvisation practice and music technology but also within spatial acousmatic composition and performance.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the performers' perspective through reflection on and discussion of the author's working methods in improvising duo contexts, and suggest "estrangement" as a term to describe and understand aspects of the performer's experience of live transformation and discuss how this estrangement might influence the relationship between musicians and the resulting musical interaction in improvisation.
Abstract: The use of live electronic processing to extend, modify or transform an acoustic musical instrument has its roots in the recording and broadcast technologies that were developed in the first few decades of the twentieth century. In the second half of the century these tools were adopted by composers and musicians in many musical genres and have become commonplace and in some musics, ubiquitous. The perceived musical relationship between instrument and its electronic ‘other’ has been discussed largely from the point of view of listener and composer. This paper focuses on the performers’ perspective through reflection on and discussion of the author’s working methods in improvising duo contexts. The author suggests ‘estrangement’ as a term to describe and understand aspects of the performer’s experience of live transformation and discusses how this estrangement might influence the relationship between musicians and the resulting musical interaction in improvisation, and finally offers ‘co-estrangement’ as a description of his shared experience in such improvising duos.
TL;DR: In this paper, a qualitative inquiry into contemporary experiences of human migration, focusing on Anglo olim (English-speaking Jewish diaspora immigrants to Israel) uses interdisciplinary soundscape composition as its primary method.
Abstract: This qualitative inquiry into contemporary experiences of human migration, focusing on Anglo olim (English-speaking Jewish diaspora immigrants to Israel) uses interdisciplinary soundscape composition as its primary method. This project is opportune, given the lack of scholarship utilising sound to explore diaspora and Jewish identity. The compositional process was led by the experiences of the interviewees, blending sounds from places familiar to them, melodies and sonic symbolism that mark the seasons of the Jewish year and their own voices telling the story of their journeys. The composition is multilayered, allowing for a rich insight into the in between that diaspora communities inhabit, both in the place they live and in the place they left behind. This article discusses methodological decisions throughout the different stages of the project, with the aim to encourage readers to develop their own work utilising sound to investigate diaspora communities. This investigation sits at the crossroads between the aesthetic concerns connected to the ‘art’ of soundscape composition and the ethical considerations of the ‘science’ of social inquiry. The article concludes that sound studies, and soundscapes in particular, is an especially apt and rich avenue for study of diaspora identities and the oral traditions that underpin them.