Is it possible to conceive of a form of musical criticism that reflects the very subject(s) it attempts to mobilise? To embrace the fluid ontologies of music while limiting the ossifying nature of linguistic criticism?
An Erotics of Art was a project I ran in 2016 to try and create such an art form. Myself and a select few artists, writers and musicians were asked to create "responses" to musical works of their choice. These responses had to be created in real-time, as they listened. These are my submissions.
Because of my grounding, the majority of each response is text based (I am loathe to say linguistic...) but occasionally text fails me. I stretch it to what I saw as its intelligible limit at the time, and used images and free-drawing.
The resulting pieces are a searing autoethnographic matrix of my situation at the time, as provoked by these musics. The inspiration came from both Susan Sontag, from whom I clearly ape the name of the series, and an old Downbeat Magazine section called "Blindfold Test". Examples are easily found. They may seem discursive but rest assured: I am talking about the music itself and nothing else.
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