Indeterminate notation and sound in the space of architecture

Abstract

Exploring the potential of musical indeterminacy is an area of interest in architectural research yet to be examined in great detail.1 One possible explanation for this is that design strategies in architecture attempt to define and/or enclose space in particular visual ways, whereas sound itself asserts new and specific vibrations that are non-visual, only aurally decoded. However, the disciplines of architecture and music both conventionally communicate their ideas through notational systems made up of temporal and spatial symbols. These symbols are extensions of their authors' ideas or instructions, generally manifested through the drawing or score, which are visual modes of defining arrangements of activity waiting to be interpreted by the viewer. It is through notational systems that I began my PhD in Architecture by Project with a focus on techniques that advance strategies of indeterminacy developed in music since the 1950s, initially through a musical score of the American composer John Cage.2 For the purposes of this paper, I will limit the discussion on Cage to this score, and demonstrate how an understanding is being established that his work has consequences for other creative disciplines. I will then briefly discuss a series of architectural drawings by the architect Daniel Libeskind, and how the two interrelate.3 In the second part of this paper I will extend the understanding of Cage's and Libeskind's respective temporal imagery and notation, and illustrate how these are contributing to two projects addressing ideas of space, sound and notation as part of my architectural doctorate. Underpinning the heuristic method of all my doctoral project work are ideas of indeterminacy as originally presented by Cage in the discipline of music. When taken up within the discipline of architecture, these ideas provoke difficult questions requiring answers yet to be fully resolved and as such, my two projects in this paper may appear aesthetically complete, however, they are not conclusive in content. Although it will be shown in this paper how inconclusive investigations are a necessary problem within my research, contributing to an understanding of these questions is the distinctive in(ter)vention of interdisciplinary media, how they inform, contest and support the research. To address this, and in summary, I will position my research's design-based approach within two contexts; first, within an Australian context of the PhD in Architecture by Project, and secondly, within ‘The Unthinkable Doctorate’ conference's thematic subcategory of ‘media’.