Output details

interiorities vi (October 2012), musical composition (21’ 16”)

interiorities was commissioned by SEAMS (Society for Electroacoustic Music in Sweden).

The Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre at DMU encompasses a wide range of electroacoustic genres and categories. One research programme theme examines interaction and hybridization between such different practices. The primary significance of this submission is its attempt to develop an aesthetic approach to hybrid discourse (also providing a specific example of an approach to technical compositional realisation), thus offering a potential model to others who wish to explore, or even challenge, traditional genre divides, an issue that has attracted increasing interest since 2008.

Part six of a cycle of digital compositions that explore (within the acousmatic studio), and consist entirely of, a repertoire of analogue feedback sounds, interiorities vi engages with recent interest and activity in analogue sound-making, and trends in digital minimalism, lowercase and “quietist” aesthetics. The work builds upon previous research (e.g. exploring musical temporality and spatiality through composition, multi-loudspeaker presentation, strategies for “moving beyond” the hand and body in creating musical shape and motion). It also represents a radical personal departure into new musical territory. The music is concerned with simplicity and expression. Central is the relationship between the specific aleatory nature of the initial sound-making and subsequent compositional control. A technical challenge is the double function that the music should work equally well in intimate, domestic and public, social listening.

Two archetypes of feedback are explored: sustained, fluctuating, pitched material and what is, ultimately, an eccentric form of granular synthesis. The resulting distinctive musical temporality aspires to lead the listener towards deep listening, immersion; the transcendental even. Such sound that emanates from electronic circuits (rather than recorded vibration) displays distinctive spatial facets that are privileged. The organisation of internal beating phenomena is significant, as is the particular sense of existential/emotional “interiority” or tabula rasa, as it might be interpreted within this movement.