Sound and Wearables

This chapter introduces crossovers between fashion, performance, music and sound art, investigating analog and digital techniques used for the construction of “sounding” costumes which play a significant part in the overall scenographic and choreographic organization of real-time interactive art and performance. Addressing the multifaceted, dynamic and relational aspects of garments/accessories, technologies and performing bodies, the authors refer to some historical examples of sound instruments, body instruments and physiological instrumentation (encompassing sculptural wearables, body-worn technologies with wired or wireless sensors and other capture modalities, as well as amplificatory wearables). Integrated methods are highlighted for creating such kinaesonic choreographies for the contemporary intermedial theater and the expanding sector of media arts and mobile arts

Ethics as Harmony and Improvisation in Responsive Equilibrium: the Core Psychophysical Process as a bio-logical foundation for ethical engagement

In this thesis I address the ethics of corporeal being at a foundational level. Rather than starting the discussion of ethics at an abstract level founded in propositions and logical arguments about principles, I offer an holistic view of human engagement that recognises sensori-motor processes and our embodied engagements with the world as foundational to and integral with cognition and higher functions and social skills. I propose that the capacity of human beings to act in an ethically responsible way is built into our biological, psychosocial natures, and that ethical interaction is informed and enhanced by intentionally cultivating a particular psychophysical process. The Core Psychophysical Process (the CPP) that I have identified naturally underlies our interactions in the world as vertebrate creatures, grounds our primary and ongoing developmental and learning processes, and is integral with the process of developing our ethical ‘second nature.’ The CPP is expressed at a fundamental level in a reflexive neuro-musculo-skeletal expansive and contractive process that is integral with an experiential sequence of perception, reaction, and reflection leading to choice of action. There is a constant ebb and flow of contraction and expansion throughout the body which resonates with, in and through all of our experiences. It is integrated into processes of reasoning, interpretation, intentionality, emotion, valuing and habit, all of which, along with the abilities to inhibit, deliberate, and choose, are foundational to ethical action. Elements of the CPP are active at every level of corporeal being, from the fluent maintenance of equilibrium at neuronal level through to the dynamics of ethical deliberations and negotiations between people in society. In this thesis the Alexander Technique and processes in the Arts provide exemplars wherein the foundational intrinsic aspects and expressions of the CPP can be understood. In order to fully explore the impact of the CPP in human experience, I examine both theoretical and practical experimental experience with the CPP in relation to: historical and contemporary readings from different cultures in bioethics, ethics, philosophy, feminist philosophy, and the philosophy of mind; empirical investigations in cognitive science, physiology, and neuroscience; and Susan Hurley’s Shared Circuits Model. This is a phenomenological study, from a feminist and arts-based perspective. Arts Phenomenology starts with the question: ‘What is the experience of being with, acting with, with the intention to?’ That perspective leaves behind subject/object, mind/body dualities to understand human experience as extended and grounded in the embodied interactions of social being. I offer alternate conceptions of embodiment, and explore Bodily ‘I’dentity that reflects multi-sensory meaning-making grounded in experience

Noticing Musical Becomings: Deleuzian and Guattarian Approaches to Ethnographic Studies of Musicking

In this article, we expand conceptually upon approaches in cultural musicology and ethnomusicology that conceive of music in terms of shifting textual signs and performances of cultural meaning. Our aim is to propose some new ways of considering music in terms of relational events, doing, and becoming. We ask: what if music does more than symbolically mediate and represent worlds? What if music constantly comes into being and does things as part of intrinsically messy realities that consist of relations between a variety of processes and things: vibrations, sounds, sensations and feelings, human bodies and minds, non–human entities, words and meanings, spaces, movements and materialities, (re)arrangements of social organization and power, and more? How might our conceptions of music, on the one hand, and our methodological stances, on the other, reconfigure if we harness this kind of relational and inherently heterogeneous occurring as a starting point? Our questions are inspired by the process thinking of French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and by the work of latter–day theorists who develop this thinking, such as Rosi Braidotti, Claire Colebrook, Rebecca Coleman, Elizabeth Grosz, and Brian Massumi. Deleuze and Guattari’s work can be regarded as an effort to contest transcendent ways of thinking. Deleuze and Guattari pursue this aim by aspiring to an ontology that is not grounded upon being but upon the processuality or primary dynamism of reality. In his early sole–authored work Difference and Repetition, Deleuze equates being with becoming by stating that identities only emerge from repetition as difference: “Returning is thus the only identity . . . ; the identity of difference, the identical which belongs to the different, or turns around the different” (1994, 41). This to say that things—whether human subjects, philosophical ideas, or musical formations—are not founded on an essence. Their being, or identity, consists in their processual, and thereby inevitably varying, situationally actualizing, open–ended existence. Being is the effect of (the return of) difference rather than difference being the effect of being (see, for e.g., Deleuze 1994, 41, 55). The order between being and becoming gets overturned. Better put, the category of being loses explanatory power and dissolves into becoming. It is, indeed, becoming that will figure and be elaborated as the guiding concept of our theoretical reflections in this article, illuminated by examples drawn from our recent ethnographic work

Moving experience: an investigation of embodied knowledge and technology for reading flow in improvisation

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyThe thesis is concerned with the exploration of the notion of ‘flow’ from both a psychological and dance analysis perspective in order to extend the meaning of flow and move beyond a partiality of understanding. The main aim of the thesis recognises the need to understand, identify and interpret an analysis of the moments of flow perceivable in a dancer’s body during improvisatory practice, through technologically innovative means. The research is undertaken via both philosophical and practical enquiry. It addresses phenomenology in order to resolve the mind/body debate and is applied to research in flow in psychology by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, and flow in movement analysis by Rudolf Laban and Warren Lamb. The significance of this endeavour can be seen in the reconsideration of the relation between mind and body, and art and science which informs the methodology for the research (Part One). The three main outcomes of the research are related to each of the three subsequent parts. The first research outcome is the articulation of a transdisciplinary approach to understanding flow and was developed by expanding on the current definitions of flow through an innovative transdisciplinary methodology (Part Two). Research outcome two addresses the intersubjective nature of flow, which was identified within improvisation. From this two methods were constructed for the collection and interpretation of the experience of the dancer. Firstly, through reflective practice as defined by Donald Schön. And secondly, an argument was provided for the use of motion capture as an embodied tool which extends the dancers embodied cognitive capabilities in the moment of improvisation (Part Three). The final research outcome was thus theorised that such embodied empathic intersubjectivity does not require a direct identification of the other’s body but could be achieved through technologically mediated objects in the world (Part Four). Subsequently, the findings from the research could support further research within a number of fields including dance education, dance practice and dance therapy, psychology, neuroscience, gaming and interactive arts

Portfolio of Original Compositions: Music of Possibility

The first half of this thesis begins from what for me are the four most significant innovations of twentieth century music: systematic composition methods, electronic and digital technology, free improvisation, and awareness of the historical, geographical and social dimensions of music. Possibilities for radicalising these areas are discussed, in the course of which several concepts central to my musical thinking, such as “radically idiomatic instrumentalism” and “seeded improvisation” are introduced. The second half focuses on the works submitted in the composition portfolio, both as practical explorations of the ideas discussed in the first half and as the environment in which those ideas originate and continue to evolve. These are world-line for electric lap steel guitar with trumpet, percussion and electronics, close-up for electroacoustic sextet, urlicht for percussion trio, eiszeiten for brass trio and electronics, and wake for three instrumental trios and electronics, all of which address from different directions the central issues of this research: the application to notated composition of concepts emerging from free improvisation, including highly systematic approaches, and an attempt to fuse the aforementioned innovations into a unified and coherent creative practice, in order to widen the way to future possibilities, and perhaps not only musical ones

MUSICAL COMPOSITION FOCUSING ON THE QUALITY OF PRESENCE IN PERFORMANCE

This practice-based research into the quality of presence in performance explores a compositional approach that originates from the question of what might lead a person to seek musical or sounding utterance. It aims at opening the awareness-space towards a listening not only to the musical-acoustic event, but to the performer as a whole. Consequently different forms of notation and processes of rehearsing that address the psycho-physical constitution of a performer are investigated; a strong focus lies on the sensorimotor aspect of playing an instrument. The portfolio comprises fourteen pieces (for soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestra) as well as four collaborative projects with performance artists. Most of the pieces have been performed live: documentation on CD and DVD is included. The written part of the thesis provides a commentary on the process of bringing these pieces into being. In particular, issues of notation and rehearsal are addressed here, which are of special concern as to the transmission of conceptions regarding presence, embodiment and kinaesthetic sensitivities. I explain how the body of compositions deals with various notions of listening: receptive listening and - in the chapter on the orchestral piece spun yam - listening as a sense of touch as well as listening in wonder. Illustrated by several performance projects I outline the concept of the audience as witness rather than as observer. Additionally, I describe how I use imagery to inscribe possible stimuli for musical or sounding utterance into my compositions. To demonstrate how this research contributes to new knowledge in the field of musical composition, I compare it with similar yet different positions exemplified by Mauricio Kagel's "instrumental theatre" as well as Helmut Lachenmann's "musique concrete instrumentale" and place it against more recent trends and developments. These evaluations will show that there is no other approach to the quality of presence within musical composition coinciding exactly with mine

Exciting Instrumental Data: Toward an Expanded Action-Oriented Ontology for Digital Music Performance

Musical performance using digital musical instruments has obfuscated the relationship between observable musical gestures and the resultant sound. This is due to the sound producing mechanisms of digital musical instruments being hidden within the digital music making system. The difficulty in observing embodied artistic expression is especially true for musical instruments that are comprised of digital components only. Despite this characteristic of digital music performance practice, this thesis argues that it is possible to bring digital musical performance further within our action-oriented ontology by understanding the digital musician through the lens of Lévi-Strauss’ notion of the bricoleur. Furthermore, by examining musical gestures with these instruments through a multi-tiered analytical framework that accounts for the physical computing elements necessarily present in all digital music making systems, we can further understand and appreciate the intricacies of digital music performance practice and culture

Live electronics in live performance : a performance practice emerging from the piano+ used in free improvisation

This thesis explores a performance practice within free improvisation. This is not a theory based improvisation – performances do not require specific preparation and the music refrains from repetition of musical structures. It engages in investigative and experimental approaches emerging from holistic considerations of acoustics, interaction and instrument, and also philosophy, psychology, sociopolitics and technology. The performance practice explores modes and approaches to working with the given potentiality of an electronically augmented acoustic instrument and involves the development of a suitably flexible computerised performance system, the piano+, combining extended techniques and real-time electroacoustic processes, which has the acoustic piano at its core. Contingencies of acoustic events and performance gestures – captured by audio analysis and sensors and combined to control the parameter space of computer processes – manipulate the fundamental properties of sound, timbre and time. Spherical abstractions, developed under consideration of Agamben’s potentiality and Sloterdijk’s philosophical theory of spheres, allow a shared metaphor for technical, instrumental, personal, and interpersonal concerns. This facilitates a theoretical approach for heuristic and investigative improvisation where performance is considered ‘Ereignis’ (an event) for sociopolitically aware activities that draw on the situational potentiality and present themselves in fragile and context dependent forms. Ever new relationships can be found and developed, but can equally be lost. Sloterdijk supplied the concept of knowledge resulting from equipping our ‘inner space’, an image suiting non-linearity of thought that transpires from Kuhl’s psychological PSI-theory to explain human motivation and behaviour. The role of technology – diversion and subversion of sound and activity – creates a space between performer and instrument that retains a fundamental pianism but defies expectation and anticipation. Responsibility for one’s actions is required to deal with the unexpected without resorting to preliminary strategies restricting potential discourses, particularly within ensemble situations. This type of performance embraces the ‘Ereignis’.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo