Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T02:35:35.294Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Emergence of an Ecstatic-materialist Perspective as a Cross-genre Tendency in Experimental Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2017

Riccardo Wanke*
Affiliation:
Centre for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music – CESEM, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Av. de Berna, 26 C, 1069-061 Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract

This article proposes a perspective on certain practices within experimental music based on a particular understanding of sonic materialism. By tracing correlations and marking divergences between post-spectralism, minimalism, electroacoustic music, glitch and IDM’s offshoots, this article reflects on sound-in-itself, the conception of space and time in music, poietics, perceptual and cultural factors, and suggests that there is a particular understanding of sonic materialism – which I term ecstatic-materialism – that is rooted in a synthesis of perception, theory and embodied actions.

This perspective explores a new expressivity of sound in which the sound itself is the point of convergence for creative impulses and perceptual motives, sound being the common territory between composer and listener. By developing the idea of an ecstatic-sonic-materialism, various works across different genres can be brought together according to this mutual convergence on sound that embodies acoustic properties, intimate traces, external and corporeal experiences.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bayle, F. 1989. Image-of-Sound, or I-Sound: Metaphor/metaform. Contemporary Music Review 4(2): 165170.Google Scholar
Bergson, H. 1922. Durée Et Simultanéité a Propos de La Théorie D’Einstein. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998.Google Scholar
Bériachvili, G. 2008. La Poétique Du Son Dans L’oeuvre de Giacinto Scelsi (À Propos Del Quattro Pezzi per Orchestra et Au-Delà). In P. A. Castanet (ed.) Giacinto Scelsi Aujourd’hui. Paris: Publication Cdmc.Google Scholar
Bériachvili, G. 2010. L’espace Musical: Concept et Phénomène à Travers L’avant-Garde Des Années 1950–60 (Stockhausen, Xenakis, Ligeti...). Rouen: Université de Rouen.Google Scholar
Bonnet, F. J. 2012. Les Mots et Les Sons. Un Archipel Sonore. Paris: Éditions de l’éclat.Google Scholar
Chouvel, J.-M. and Solomos, M. 1998. L’espace, Musique/philosophie. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Corbett, J. 2000. Experimental Oriental: New Music and Other Others. In G. Born and D. Hesmondhalgh (eds.) Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cox, C. 2011. Beyond Representation and Signification: Toward a Sonic Materialism. Journal of Visual Culture 10(2): 145161.Google Scholar
Demers, J. 2010. Listening Through Noise: The Aesthetics of Experimental Electronic Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Döbereiner, L. 2014. How to Think Sound in Itself? Towards a Materialist Dialectic of Sound. Proceedings of the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network Conference. Berlin, Germany, EMS14.Google Scholar
Emmerson, S. 1986. The Language of Electroacoustic Music. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ferguson, S. 2007. Review of Models and Artifice: The Collected Writings of Tristan Murail. Circuit: Musiques Contemporaines 17(1): 115120.Google Scholar
Grisey, G. 2008. Écrits: Ou L’invention de La Musique Spectrale, ed. Guy Lelong. Paris: MF Éditions.Google Scholar
Haworth, C. 2010. Xenakian Sound Synthesis: Its Aesthetic and Influence on ‘Extreme’ Computer Music. In M. Goddard, B. Halligan and N. Spelman (eds.) Resonances. Noise and Contemporary Music. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Hervé, J.-L. 2004. Formes et Temporalité Dans Les Dernières Oeuvres de Gérard Grisey. In D. Cohen-Levinas (ed.) Le Temps de l’Écoute. Gérard Grisey Ou La Beauté Des Ombres Sonores. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Johnson, M. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kim-Cohen, S. 2009. In the Blink of and Ear. Towards a Non-Cochlear Sonic Art. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Kramer, J. D. 1988. The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies. Munich: Schirmer/Mosel Verlag GmbH.Google Scholar
Kurth, E. 2006. Ernst Kurth: Selected Writings , ed. L. A. Rothfarb, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Landy, L. 2007. Understanding the Art of Sound Organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Manfrin, L. and Piras, M. 2003. Spettromorfologia, Durata E Differenza: La Presenza Di Bergson Nel Pensiero Musicale Di Gérard Grisey. Rivista Italiana Di Musicologia 38(1): 75117.Google Scholar
Menesson, C. 2008. Scelsi, Le Temps Ou La Respiration Du Son. In P. A. Castanet (ed.) Giacinto Scelsi Aujourd’hui. Paris: Publication Cdmc.Google Scholar
Moles, A. 1968. Information Theory and Esthetic Perception. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
O’Callaghan, C. 2010. Sounds: A Philosophical Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Romitelli, F. 2001. Il Compositore Come Virus. Milano Musica . In Percorsi di musica d’oggi – Il pensiero e l’espressione. Aspetti del secondo Novecento musicale in Italia. Milan: Teatro alla Scala, www.milanomusica.org/it/sezione-festival/presentazione/approfondimenti/10-non-categorizzato/festival/109-scritti.html (accessed 14 September 2017).Google Scholar
Romitelli, F. 2005a. Pour Une Pratique Visionnaire: Entretien Avec Danielle Cohen-Levinas. In A. Arbo (ed.) Le Corps Électrique. Voyage Dans Le Son de Fausto Romitelli. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Romitelli, F. 2005b. Résonances. In A. Arbo (ed.) Le Corps Électrique. Voyage Dans Le Son de Fausto Romitelli. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Romitelli, F. and Denut, E. 2005. Produire Un écart. Entretien Avec Eric Denut. In A. Arbo (ed.) Le Corps Électrique. Voyage Dans Le Son de Fausto Romitelli. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Scelsi, G. 2006. Les Anges Sont Ailleurs... Textes et Inédits Recueillis et Commentés Par Sharon Kanach. Arles: Actes Sud.Google Scholar
Smalley, D. 1997. Spectromorphology: Explaining Sound-shapes. Organised Sound 2: 107126.Google Scholar
Solomos, M. 1998. L’Espace Composable. Essais Sur La Musique et La Pensée Musical d’Horacio Vaggione. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Solomos, M. 2003. Pour Une Filiation Xenakis-Grisey ? In M. Solomos (ed.) Iannis Xenakis, Gérard Grisey. La Métaphore Lumineuse. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Solomos, M. 2012. Deux visions de la ‘vie intérieure du son’: Scelsi et Xenakis. In M. Solomos and C. Pellegrini (eds.) Scelsi Incombustible. Filigrane. Musique, esthétique, sciences, société . http://revues.mshparisnord.org/filigrane/index.php?id=504 (accessed 14 September 2017).Google Scholar
Solomos, M. 2013. De La Musique Au Son. L’émergence Du Son Dans La Musique Des XXe-XXIe Siècles. Rennes: Presse Universitaires de Rennes.Google Scholar
Vaggione, H. 1998. L’Espace Composable. Sur Quelques Catégories Opératoires Dans La Musique Électroacoustique. In M. Solomos and J-M. Chouvel (eds.) L’espace. Musique/Philosophie. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Verrando, G. 2012. La Nuova Liuteria. Orchestrazione, Grammatica, Estetica. Milan: Suvini Zerboni.Google Scholar
Voegelin, S. 2010. Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards A Philosophy of Sound Art: Toward a Philosophy of Sound Art. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Wanke, R. 2015. A Cross-Genre Study of the (Ec)Static Perspective of Today’s Music. Organised Sound 20: 331339.Google Scholar
Wanke, R. 2016. Program notes to Alvin Lucier – Two Circles, performed by AlterEgo. CD. Mode Records.Google Scholar