The corporeosonic composer : corporeality, feedback and movement in electronic music.

Abstract

This artistic inquiry contributes to the field of performed and acousmatic electronic music by nuancing the relationship between musician and instrument as going beyond control into intimacy, immersion and shifting identities. The main streams of inquiry have been to explore conceptualisations of corporeality in electronic music and how such music can be created in relatedness with the gestural body. I have contextualised the inquiry with corporeality as movement (Sheets-Johnstone) and with the feedback works of Eliane Radigue. I have created a gestural feedback instrument, which has allowed me to explore the movements of the body and of electronic music in performance and composition and to explore the relatedness between musician and instrument. This instrument is explored practically and conceptually with the goal of reaching beyond technological descriptions and the concept control. Through my practice I have explored concepts such as touch (Peters and Parviainen), living individuals (Rodgers), behaviour (Smalley and Keep) and contemporary animism (Bird-David and Viveiros de Castro) in composed and performed music. The music and the performances have been analysed and the findings fed back into the research process. The inquiry is documented in video recordings, technical documentation and process notes. Symbolised by the concept the corporeosonic composer, I have outlined a nuanced form of relatedness between musician and instrument based on intimacy (Bennett) rather than control, and with an attitude in which movement is primary and sounds are seen as living, perhaps spiritual, agencies. Sounds thus leave the ontological status of objects to instead become subjects and dividual persons (Strathern). The relatedness between these sounding subjects and the musician has been conceptualised as corporeosonic states of relatedness, as different forms of literal and apparent touch (Peters), and as shifting identities within a context of contemporary animism (Willerslev and Hedeager).