But this is also the place for some final reflections: On the first page of this exposition we asked ourselves the question how we could add to existing knowledge of music, without have ourselves profound technical understanding thereof. We suggested that our STS background offers us a way of looking at cultural practices – and, more specifically, the role of objects within these practices – that helps us to explain many phenomena in musical cultures.
Whichever path through our exposition brought you to this page: it should have offered you some insights into the relationships between objects and cultural practices in the broadest sense. While this combination of music and materiality forms the core of all individual papers and our own conclusions therein, it is very possible that you – having assembled various bits and pieces in novel ways, stepping from one case to another – might draw alternative conclusions. However, bear with us for a moment longer and let us close this exposition with some overall remarks from our side:
To use concepts, ideas and methodological principles from STS in the study of music helped us to understand some of the cultural practices that take place within musical cultures. Indeed, we have seen how in many artistic practices knowledge and technology are deeply embedded components. This is not to say that artists do exactly the same things as scientists and technological innovators. But to take STS to the study of arts allowed us to point at the differences and similarities between the roles that knowledge and technology play in the cultures of arts, science and technology. This supports the very assumption that our master program takes as starting point: cultures of arts can be studied in similar ways as cultures of science and technology and conversely, the study of the cultures of arts may hand us tools and concepts profitable for understanding the cultures of science and technology.
The Research Catalogue
We are no artistic researchers ourselves. But as a platform, the research catalogue has allowed us to present our work very differently from how we are used to. Normally we write papers. Structured into “introduction – main text – conclusion”, those papers challenge us to make complex academic arguments by conventional means. When done well they allow us to re-describe complex ideas into understandable and comprehensible pieces of knowledge that can easily be distributed. But these papers often force a particular narrative onto the reader that privileges some aspects over others.
By using the research catalogue we were enabled to experiment with new ways of presentation. Our primary aim was to present our findings in such a way that you as the reader can find your own individual way through all the material, with the invitation to create your own narrative – and thus also to come to your own conclusions. The concluding remarks that we offer here are therefore primarily focused on the whole scope of the project and these conclusions may or may not suit your personal findings.
Of course, the way we have presented the material here is not entirely neutral either. The links we have created between the different snippets of information already suggest paths that can be taken while rendering others invisible. Nevertheless, combining the possibility for the visitor to find their own narrative with the presentation of multimedia material has made the research catalogue an interesting platform for us.
We hope that your journey was both an intellectually stimulating experience as well as an enjoyable one!
Reinventing the Piano for the 21st Century: A Case Study of the Una Corda Piano, by Arjen van der Heide
From Art to Question-Generating Machine: The Halberstadt Performance of John Cage's Organ2/ASLSP as Experimental System, by Veerle Spronck
Big Stories in Small Spaces: A History of the Orchestra Pit in the Light of Affordances, by Denise Petzold
It is Not Really a Revival: Creating a Theatre Organ Culture in the Twenty-First Century, by Sjoerd Bollebakker
"Johann Sebastian Superstar" - How Media Create and Consolidate the Image of the Musical Genius, by Helen Piel
An STS Approach to Musical Cultures: The Home Organ as Techno-Artistic Artifact, by Maximilian Graf von Matuschka
Questions? Feel free to contact us:
a.rufasripol@student.maastrichtuniversity.nl
a.vanderheide@student.maastrichtuniversity.nl
v.spronck@student.maastrichtuniversity.nl
d.petzold@student.maastrichtuniversity.nl
s.bollebakker@student.maastrichtuniversity.nl
h.piel@student.maastrichtuniversity.nl
m.grafvonmatuschka@student.maastrichtuniversity.nl