Audiovisual coherence and physical presence: I am there, therefore I am [?]

The following is an attempt at both documentation and discussion of my personal audiovisual practice to date; in particular my attempts over the past four years to bring a complex, largely algorithmic, fixed-media method into a live, improvisatory performance context

Exploring the mediality of live and studio composition: The case of computer music, and its implications in “Ambivalence of Density”

This dissertation attempts to apply the communications theory concept of “mediality,” as described by Jonathan Sterne, to the context of music composition for different mediums, namely the media of the live performance and the studio work (the recording, the concrete work). Mediality denotes the complex “web of practice and reference” between different media—how we interact with and perceive media, and how this affects the content of the medium. The mediality of live and studio composition is posited as cross-referential, non-hierarchical and non-dichotomous—a relationship of “dependence and imbrication” rather than antagonistic binaries. I investigate the mediality of live and studio composition in three ways: historically, through the discourses surrounding gramophony in the early twentieth century and rock aesthetic in the late twentieth century; technologically, by describing how the computer evokes mediatic cultures and practices through software, and how this is informed by sociocultural discourse; and creatively, through my own suite of live and studio compositions entitled “Ambivalence of Density,” with discussions about the processes involved and how I’ve attempted to underscore mediatic discourse in the works. I conclude by suggesting that a broader understanding of the mediality of music (and sound in general) could make the dialogue surrounding new musical media (especially Internetbased media) more articulate and relevant

Absent Performers, Absent Tools, and Their Role in Musical Composition: Exploring Integrated Competencies in the Extended Musical Mind.

The tools and performers which surround the composer are not simply a means to communicate musical ideas, they take part in the formation and development of those ideas. Essentially, musical composition does not only take place in the head. This is the compelling perspective provided by the application of ‘4E’ theories of cognition, and related ideas from phenomenology and cognitive science, to musical creativity, where the cognitive processes of musical composition can be seen as varyingly embodied, embedded, enacted, extended, distributed, and materially engaged. This thesis attempts to break new conceptual ground through applying these ideas to musical composition with a focus on absent tools and performers. The insights gained from compositional practice, both inherent and explicitly analysed, function alongside the other methodological approaches. A portfolio of compositions and recordings therefore forms a core part of the thesis. The process of recording the compositions is often as important to the research as the process of their composition – the recordings are not simply there to allow the pieces to be heard. The analysis of his portfolio forms an essential part of the written portion of the thesis. The thesis therefore undertakes its enquiry in two ways, through theory and through practice. The written portion of the thesis is also divided into two parts. The first part lays out the relevant, existing theories, and any existing applications thereof to music, and then applies these ideas to musical composition. This provides an understanding of the role of present tools and performers in the cognitive processes of composition. The second part builds on this understanding, through asking how we should understand processes of composition which take place while the tools, environments, and collaborators are absent (i.e., imagined, remembered, or virtual). This requires the development of a conceptual framework, ‘Integrated Tool Competency’, which is first applied to tools, and then to performers. In this way, the thesis develops a new way of understanding musical composition. It also has the potential to contribute substantially to the theories through which that understanding was reached

"Knowing is Seeing:" The Digital Audio Workstation and the Visualization of Sound

The computers visual representation of sound has revolutionized the creation of music through the interface of the Digital Audio Workstation software (DAW). With the rise of DAW-based composition in popular music styles, many artists sole experience of musical creation is through the computer screen. I assert that the particular sonic visualizations of the DAW propagate certain assumptions about music, influencing aesthetics and adding new visually-based parameters to the creative process. I believe many of these new parameters are greatly indebted to the visual structures, interactional dictates and standardizations (such as the office metaphor depicted by operating systems such as Apples OS and Microsofts Windows) of the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Whether manipulating text, video or audio, a users interaction with the GUI is usually structured in the same mannerclicking on windows, icons and menus with a mouse-driven cursor. Focussing on the dialogs from the Reddit communities of Making hip-hop and EDM production, DAW user manuals, as well as interface design guidebooks, this dissertation will address the ways these visualizations and methods of working affect the workflow, composition style and musical conceptions of DAW-based producers

Live Electronic Ensemble Practice : Developing Tools and Strategies for Performance and Composition

This research is an auto-ethnographic study of a portfolio of compositions and performances in ensembles that took place across the UK and Europe between September 2008 and February 2014. This commentary analyses the work with a view to discerning useful strategies and approaches towards group work in the field of experimental electronic music. The study contains an account of the author’s own physical interface and its development over a period of ten years, including a wider analysis of some considerations for design and the development of a personal instrumental practice. Ensembles formed by the author are discussed with a focus on social psychology and self-organisation through the creation of unique roles and shifting group hierarchies, afforded by the possibilities and dislocations of technology. The commentary continues with an in-depth study of the development and performance of The Stream, a generative composition system that applies some of the interdependent behaviours and processes of self-organisation discovered through musical experimentation, to an agent-based societal model for real time score generation. The analysis shows that interdependent agents and social behaviours can be modelled in order to generate relationships which are comparable to those created through traditional methods of composition and improvisation. The study concludes that the possibilities afforded by technology to extend beyond the physical and social domain are most successfully implemented when they support, rather than inhibit the natural relationships and human physicality of those taking part. Therefore, when designing a generative composition system, the simulation of human relationships and their narratives may open up a new area of research in the generation of musical composition

Risk and expression: Physical and material risk states in computational music practices

This research investigates qualities of physical and material risk within musical performance practices and the value that such properties may hold for less physical engagements afforded by computational instruments. The two studies designed for this research draw upon the experiences of practitioners directly, allowing them to speak about their creative processes, values, and priorities, and how risk and expressivity might factor into their practice. Through comparative studies, artifact design, in-depth discussions, and the application of Thematic Analysis I am able to share the perceptions and experiences of practitioners as they themselves describe. By identifying the value that physical and material risk, uncertainty, and the potential for failure play in the creative process we can potentially provide a compelling argument for the importance of such qualities in practices which do not naturally engage with them. Designing for risk and assessing the experiences of practitioners within the field of experimental media performance will contribute to a better understanding of the value of physical and corporeal materials within digital practices and present potential guidelines for the creation and use of new instruments for creative musical expression.Ph.D