Toward an Anthropology of Computer-Mediated, Algorithmic Forms of Sociality (original) (raw)
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Music Theory Online, 2020
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American Anthropologist, 2012
In this article, I seek to complicate the distinction between imitation and creativity, which has played a dominant role in the modern imaginary and anthropological theory. I focus on a U.S. collegiate jazz music program, in which jazz educators use advanced sound technologies to reestablish immersive interaction with the sounds of past jazz masters against the backdrop of the disappearance of performance venues for jazz. I analyze a key pedagogical practice in the course of which students produce precise replications of the recorded improvisations of past jazz masters and then play them in synchrony with the recordings. Through such synchronous iconization, students inhabit and reenact the creativity epitomized by these recordings. I argue that such a practice, which I call a “ritual of creativity,” suggests a coconstitutive relationship between imitation and creativity, which has intensified under modernity because of the availability of new technologies of digital reproduction. [modernity, creativity, imitation, media technologies, intertextuality]
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This paper considers the issue of musical improvisational interactions in the digital era by pursuing the following three steps. 1) I will raise the question of the meaning and value of liveness, and in particular of live musical improvisation, in the age of the internet and discuss some effects of the socalled digital revolution on improvisation practices. 2) Then I will suggest that the interactions made possible by the web can be understood as kinds of live improvisational practices and I will briefly outline how such practices also involve musical improvisation. 3) Finally, I will focus on some aesthetic and philosophical aspects of new kinds of live improvisation made possible by recent progress in artificial intelligence research.
Technology, Creativity, and the Social in Algorithmic Music
Oxford University Press eBooks, 2018
It is probably an understatement to say that algorithmic music does not normally conjure an image of music as a social practice. Although endowed with a vast body of literature relative to its scale as a genre, the social ecologies that sustain it-the audiences or publics that listen to and discuss algorithmic music; the industries that provide for its production and dissemination; the social practices that are central to how algorithmic music is learned, practised, and circulated; the cultures and politics of the algorithms and computers as technologies-are rarely discussed. Iannis Xenakis's Formalized Music (1992), possibly the canonical book on the subject, is characteristic in its disciplinary sweep: music theory, mathematics, computer science, and philosophy form the core framework, while the social and historical determinants of algorithmic music are evaded. This constellation of uneven forces reflects a certain self-understanding of algorithmic music that goes beyond discourse, participating in the aesthetics of the genre itself. When, in the late 1990s, algorithmic composition made its way into popular electronic music, it was a machinic aestheticism that prevailed: in sound, accompanying artwork, interviews, and promotional literature, nonrepresentational imagery was favoured over pictures of the musicians, with artists favouring cryptic cyborgian monikers over their real names. Ben Watson's admonishment of 'laptop cool' for sublating 'the contribution of human labour' into a Romantic aesthetics of the sublime therefore captured some of the underlying rationality of laptop and algorithmic music; 1 however, the critique is not new. Algorithmic music inherits an ethics and aesthetics that finds its fullest expression in 'absolute music' and the idea that art and aesthetics might exist AQ: Can we change 'machinic' to 'machinist' in the sentence "When, in the late 1990s, algorithmic composition. .. "?
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Aesthetic Systems Theory: Doing Hip Hop Kulture Research Together at Cipher5
Aesthetic Systems is an original theory to explain how aesthetic resources are made, shared and used in the formation of art works and of collective and individual subjectivities. Aesthetic systems theory has ontological, epistemological and methodological implications for the study of aesthetics, aesthetics education and the cultural studies of music, and argues for community-engaged aesthetics research. The most striking implication of aesthetic systems is the methodological requirement to undertake community-engaged critical dialogical research informed by critical pedagogy, ethnomusicology and the cultural studies traditions. This article is both the story of the intellectual partnership that built Cipher5, an Edmonton-based hip hop research/study group and an argument for the necessity of community-engaged cartographies of mediation to shed light on the relationship between the formation of subjectivities and aesthetic education. If aesthetic systems form subjectivities, how might music education programs use this knowledge to inquire after the formation of student subjectivities? Résumé : L'étude culturelle de l'esthétique, ou esthétique culturelle, est issue de la théorie de « l'esthétique du bas », qu'ont élaborée les recherches empiriques relevant de la pratique ethnographique. En pratiquant ensemble l'esthétique culturelle, les chercheurs, les étudiants, les spécialistes de la culture et les jeunes ont l'opportunité de relier de façon productive des communautés discursives séparées. Cet article raconte l'histoire du partenariat intellectuel qui a édifié une esthétique culturelle, avec ce groupe d'étude du hip hop appelé Cipher5, en même temps qu'il célèbre l'importance des contributions issues d'une production du savoir engagée dans la communauté.
Thesis, 2021
This project investigates the process of creating new works for two jazz trio ensembles, with a particular emphasis on improvisation with acoustic instruments and technology. Utilising a practice-based research model the project documents and outlines the conceptual basis for the work, reflects on a series of public performances and examines studio recording sessions. By analysing the musical content, use of technology, and the musician’s reflections on their decision making, the overall goal is to articulate the musical potential of improvising with technology in a jazz context. Exploring technology and developing extended techniques towards a hybrid acoustic- electronic “group sound” that is distinct but still recognisable as jazz, is a core focus of this research. Specific software, hardware controllers, and audio effects are identified, and an analysis of the ways in which technologies are engaged by each musician is presented. Artistic reference points identify current and historical practice within this area and a range of case studies give context for how the music created here is relevant to contemporary jazz in Australia. The resulting musical output is documented in audio and video formats and includes multiple performer analyses, enabling detailed examination by the reader of how each musician merges improvisation using acoustic instruments and improvisation with technology. Ultimately this research has allowed two professional jazz ensembles to forge new musical pathways, creating expanded practical skills for the author and the musicians involved. This research will be of interest to jazz musicians seeking to broaden their practice through improvisation with technology. Additionally, the project is relevant to any reader/musician engaged with improvisation in contemporary music more broadly.