549 research outputs found
The ethnography of a computer music research institute : modernism, post modernism, and new technology in contemporary music culture
The thesis is a socio-cultural study of IRCAM, a large, state-funded
computer music research institute in Paris directed by the avant garde
composer Pierre Boulez. The approach is primarily ethnographic,
supported by broader historical analysis. The aim is to provide a
critical portrait of musical modernism and post modernism as expressed
by IRCAM and its milieu; and to place this in historical perspective by
combining anthropology with cultural history. Theoretically, the thesis
examines the contradictory position of the contemporary musical avant
garde: established in official cultural spheres, yet lacking wider
public appeal and cultural influence. In this context, the central
problem is how IRCAM continues to legitimise itself.
The thesis opens with a discussion of literature on the critical sociocultural
study of music, on the sociology of culture (especially the
work of Bourdieu and Williams), and on the avant garde and modernism.
Chapters 2 to 4 provide the basic account of the institution, including
status distinctions, stratification, and power structures. Three local
historical influences on IRCAM are outlined: the American computer music
network, the French national context, and Boulez's history and ideas.
Chapters 5 to 8 analyse IRCAM's musical, scientific and technological
work, examining the gaps between aims and actuality, ideology and
practice. The character of IRCAM's dominant, 'dissident' and 'vanguard'
projects are explored. The classification systems that structure the
institute's internal conflicts and ideological differences are drawn out
(Ch. 6). Chapters 7 and 8 focus in on computer music production, and
describe the mediations and phenomenology of this and related software
research. One composer's visit is detailed, and the social and
technological problems inherent in this work are analysed.
Chapter 9 provides an analysis of the main historical aesthetic
traditions which inform IRCAM culture - modernism and post modernism -
and develops an hypothesis of their discursive character and
interrelation. This is related back to IRCAM culture, and throws light
on the inter- and intra-subjective differentiation of IRCAM
intellectuals, which in turn allows an analysis of mechanisms in the
social construction of aesthetics and technology at IRCAM. The preceding
analyses generate insight into the representation of modernism and post
modernism within IRCAM.
The Conclusions describe major developments at IRCAM after fieldwork.
The legitimation of IRCAM is linked to its institutional and ideological
forms: particularly its processes of self-legitimation, resting on the
discursive authority of its own internal vanguard, and the universalising
character of advanced computer music discourse. Finally, there is
consideration of IRCAM's place in long term cultural processes, and of the implications for theorising cultural reproduction and change
The aesthetics of Pierre Boulez
To enable the reader to find references as quickly and easily as possible, I have grouped all references together in the bibliography in alphabetical order. Texts by the same author are distinguished first by year and second, if there are several texts from the same year, by letter. Interviews and writing collaborations (including published correspondence) involving Boulez are also ordered alphabetically. The year given at the beginning of each bibliographical entry is, in the majority of cases, the year in which the text was first published (not necessarily the year of the edition cited). For all writings written by Boulez, I have provided the original title under which the text in question was first published (usually in French). Many articles have subsequently been translated into English and therefore I have decided to provide page references for both versions. For all texts by writers other than Boulez, I have cited the version of the text I have used. Wherever possible, I have cited the existing English translations of texts originally written in French. However, on many occasions I have considered it necessary to make alterations to the published translations. This is particularly applicable to Boulez on Music Today (1971) and Orientations (1986), both of which display an often heavy-handed and rather inaccurate approach to the task of translating specific concepts employed by Boulez. In contrast. Stocktakings of an Apprenticeship (1991) has required only occasional minor amendments. All changes to the published English translations are acknowledged in the corresponding footnote. None of the material m this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree in this or any other University. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without prior written consent and information from it should be acknowledged. I have received permission to exceed the word limit from the Graduate School Committee at the University of Durham
An investigation into the spectral music idiom and its association with visual imagery, particularly that of film and video
The exploration of timbre became increasingly significant throughout the 20th century, with some composers making it the essence of their music. This artistic development occurred in conjunction with a technological advancement that together would contribute to the birth of what is now called `spectral music\u27 . Using computers, composers have been able to discover the spectra of frequencies that exist at different strengths for various sounds. The information realised then became the spectral musician\u27 s primary ingredients for composing some extraordinary works. Despite its innovative quality, spectral music is yet to gain widespread interest amongst ensembles, orchestras and ultimately the public. The first two chapters of this thesis are dedicated to the emergence of this largely unknown compositional discipline, its principal composers and the direction spectral music has taken since its inception
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Feeling Machines: Immersion, Expression, and Technological Embodiment in Electroacoustic Music of the French Spectral School
This dissertation considers the music and technical practice of composers affiliated with French spectralism, including Hugues Dufourt, GĂ©rard Grisey, Tristan Murail, Jean-Claude Risset, and Kaija Saariaho. They regularly described their work, which was attuned to the transformative experiences that technologies of electronic sound production and reproduction could inspire in listeners, using metaphoric appeals to construction: to designing new sounds or exploring new illusory aural phenomena. To navigate a nascent but fast-expanding world of electronic and computer music, the spectralists appealed to physical musical attributes including gesture, space, and source-cause identification. Fascinated by gradual timbral transformations, they structured some of their pieces to invite speculative causal listening even while seeking to push it to expressive extremes.
I hypothesize that, much as the immersive technology of the cinema can create the illusory feeling of flight in viewers, electronic music can inspire listeners to have experiences in excess of their physical capabilities. Those feelings are possible because listening can be understood as empathetic and embodied, drawing on a listener’s embodied and ecological sensorimotor knowledge and musical imagery alongside referential, semiotic, and cultural aspects of music. One way that listeners can engage with sounds is by imagining how they would create them: what objects would be used, what kind of gestures would they perform, how much exertion would be required, what space would they inhabit. I cite recent research in psychoacoustics to argue that timbre indexes material, gesture, and affect in music listening. Technologies of sound production and reproduction allow for the manipulation of these tendencies by enabling composers to craft timbres that mimic, stretch, or subvert the timbres of real objects. Those electronic technologies also suggest manipulations to composers, by virtue of their design affordances, and perform an epistemological broadening by providing insight into the malleability of human perceptual modes. I illustrate these claims with analytic examples from Murail’s Ethers (1978), Saariaho’s Verblendungen (1984), and Grisey’s Les Chants de l’Amour (1984), relating an embodied and corporeal account of my hearing and linking it to compositional and technological features of spectral music
Sensitivity analysis in a scoping review on police accountability : assessing the feasibility of reporting criteria in mixed studies reviews
In this paper, we report on the findings of a sensitivity analysis that was carried out within a previously conducted scoping review, hoping to contribute to the ongoing debate about how to assess the quality of research in mixed methods reviews. Previous sensitivity analyses mainly concluded that the exclusion of inadequately reported or lower quality studies did not have a significant effect on the results of the synthesis. In this study, we conducted a sensitivity analysis on the basis of reporting criteria with the aims of analysing its impact on the synthesis results and assessing its feasibility. Contrary to some previous studies, our analysis showed that the exclusion of inadequately reported studies had an impact on the results of the thematic synthesis. Initially, we also sought to propose a refinement of reporting criteria based on the literature and our own experiences. In this way, we aimed to facilitate the assessment of reporting criteria and enhance its consistency. However, based on the results of our sensitivity analysis, we opted not to make such a refinement since many publications included in this analysis did not sufficiently report on the methodology. As such, a refinement would not be useful considering that researchers would be unable to assess these (sub-)criteria
Shifting Interfaces: art research at the intersections of live performance and technology
Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/809 on 08.20.2017 by CS (TIS)This collection of published works is an outcome of my practice-led inter-disciplinary
collaborative artistic research into deepening understanding of creative process in
the field of contemporary dance. It comprises thirty written works published from
1999 to 2007 in various formats and platforms. This collection is framed by a
methodological discussion that provides insight into how this research has
intersected over time with diverse fields of practice including contemporary dance,
digital and new media arts and non-art domains such as cognitive and social
science. Fields are understood in the context of this research to be largely
constituted out of the expert practices of individual collaborators.
This research starts from an interest in the Impact of new media technologies on
dance making/ choreography. The collection of works show evidence, established in
the first two publications, of an evolving engagement with two concepts related to
this interest: (1) the 'algorithm' as a process-level connection or bridge between
dance composition and computation; (2) the empirical study of movement
embedded as a 'knowledge base' in the practices of both computer animation and
dance and thus forming a special correspondence between them.
This collection provides evidence of this research through a period of community-building
amongst artists using new media technologies in performance, and
culminates in the identification of an emerging 'community of practice' coming
together around the formation of a unique body of knowledge pertaining to dance.
The late 1990s New Media Art movement provided a supportive context for
Important peer-to-peer encounters with creators and users of software tools and
platforms in the context of inter-disciplinary art-making. A growing interest in
software programming as a creative practice opened up fresh perspectives on
possible connections with dance making. It became clear that software's utility
alone, including artistic uses of software, was a limited conception.
This was the background thinking that informed the first major shift in the research
towards the design of software that might augment the creative process of expert
choreographers and dancers. This shift from software use to its design, framed by a
focus on the development of tools to support dance creation, also provided strong
rationale to deepen the research into dance making processes. In the second major
phase of the research presented here, scientific study is brought collaboratively to
bear on questions related to choreographic practice. This lead to a better
understanding of ways in which dancers and choreographers, as 'thinking bodies',
interact with their design tools and each other in the context of creation work.
In addition to this collection, outcomes of this research are traceable to other
published papers and art works it has given rise to. Less easily measureable, but
just as valuable, are the sustained relations between individuals and groups behind
the 'community of practice' now recognised for its development of unique formats for
bringing choreographic ideas and processes into contact, now and in the future, with
both general audiences and other specialist practices
Recherche, ingénierie, création artistique : processus, prototypes, productions
International audienceDans cet article, nous abordons la question de la démarche recherche et création dans les collaborations artistes-chercheurs-ingénieurs. La perspective est double, reposant sur l'histoire (sont évoquées les collaborations protéiformes entre artistes, chercheurs et ingénieurs depuis 1950) et sur une étude de cas (le partenariat entre la compagnie de spectacle ALIS et l'Université de Technologie de Compiègne). Nous nous intéressons plus spécifiquement aux « techno-sciences », même si d'autres champs scientifiques sont concernés par ce type de collaborations. Il ressort que ces collaborations invitent à réordonner les ordres de priorité, en valorisant le processus plutôt que le résultat, mais aussi en mettant en lumière le rôle du prototype comme objet commun aux artistes, aux chercheurs et aux ingénieurs. Apparaît également comme crucial le rôle du traducteur ou intermédiaire entre les différents mondes. Nous proposons une première modélisation à valeur heuristique du cadre et des enjeux de ces collaborations afin de mieux appréhender celles-ci
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