Premises & Definitions
In the following, I will provide short working definitions to Artistic Research, chaos, sensitivity, attractors, duration, instruments, technology, play, influence, mapping, composition, listening, and wondering. This will guide the reading of the following chapters where the themes will be further unpacked.
The language and terminologies used in this Reflection Component require further elaboration. Chaos and unpredictability affect all aspects of my practice, leading to reconsiderations of what it means to play, to compose, or to wonder. In general, much of the language that surrounds chaos contains negative connotations, as chaos in everyday life is something to be avoided. Stability and security are most often favored as the exploration of instabilities is fraught with risks. However, within my artistic practice, this sense of risk-taking and edge-finding is channeled through the medium of sound and music, opening up for possibilities of emergent sonic qualities to be discovered. The chaos that is explored within this research can be seen as a mechanism for an encounter with the new, rather than a risk to be avoided. Whenever terms such as unpredictable, collapse, or fragility, are used, it should be clear that my interest is geared towards celebrating the artistic potential of these qualities. Unpredictability leads to wonder; collapse makes room for novel sonic expressions to emerge; and fragility feeds into the care and attention needed to uncover these qualities.
Artistic Research (AR)
This artistic research project is a form of research in practice. Instead of taking an observational point of view, this form of research is actively engaged with artistic practice: Research, in the midst of the practice itself. The processes of making, tinkering, developing, creating, writing, composing, improvising, discussing, reading, and performing, cross-pollinate and diffract with analysis, reflection, documentation, and discourse. All of these activities mingle and merge together, making it, at times, hard to distinguish development from documentation, reflection from composition, or performance from discourse. It can be proposed that exactly in these moments, as practice and research are meshing and entangling, that new insights will be discovered.
This present exposition in Research Catalogue (RC) is the Reflection Component that accompanies my artistic work, which takes the form of a concert featuring the instruments, compositions, and performances that have been developed as part of the research. It should be noted that this concert takes place a month after the reflection component is handed in, and therefore, this present text will not contain any reflections relating to the concert itself. Instead, the aim here is to grant an insight into my practice, situating its artistic processes within the fields of live electronics and chaotic music. Turning points and professional developments are discussed and contextualized, while theoretical frameworks are used to ground the work within larger discourses.
Chaos
As mentioned above, chaotic processes are the main focus of the artistic works that are developed throughout this research. Chaos is found nearly everywhere in nature, on scales as small as quantum physics, and as large as astrophysics. Turbulence, or the chaotic motion of fluids, is found everywhere, ranging from the microscopic disturbances in blood vessels to the formation of nebulae on a cosmic scale. As such, chaos spans across many disciplines, each discussing the topic through a slightly different lens. Both order and disorder can emerge from the same process, the same system put under varying amounts of stress. Given enough force, every system eventually reaches a tipping point, cascading into regions of instability, and thus, resulting in situations where knowledge about current or past events no longer grants an insight into the future.
The first thing to note is the difference between indeterminate randomness and deterministic chaos. Indeterminate randomness can be seen in the roll of a dice, the flip of a coin, or in other forms of indeterminacy where the current state is independent of any prior or future state. Deterministic chaos is at play when the present state determines future states, as is the case with all the chaotic processes that are developed as part of this research: they are contingent on their present state. This difference matters greatly when these processes are used to produce sonic behaviors. While randomness and chaos share the property of being unforeseeable, within chaotic processes, there is always some form of logic at play in the background. Through this chaotic logic, patterns emerge that defy prediction but can still be recognized in perception and admired in hindsight.
Consider the movements of the lower arm on a double pendulum. If the pendulum is only given a modest push, the arms will swing back and forth in a manner that is easily predictable. Only when the initial push injects enough force into the pendulum, will the lower arm cross a tipping point to behave in an unpredictable, chaotic manner. An acoustic musical example would be the airflow in the pipe of a wind instrument. With a medium amount of airflow, the instrument sounds stable, but once the performer overblows or underblows the instrument, the sounds become wild and unpredictable. In this example, the chaotic regions of the instrument are found outside of the normative ways in which the instrument has been designed to be played, and chaos is achieved by applying too much, or too little effort into the instrument. The electronic instruments that are developed throughout the research are centered around chaotic tipping points, which means that the sonic behaviors are always fragile and never fully predictable. Such chaotic instruments display wide ranges of sonic behaviors, some of which come across as quasi-stable while others are wild and volatile.
There is a large vocabulary of words and phrases that are used to describe chaotic phenomena. Chaotic processes, turbulence, nonlinear feedback, far-from-equilibrium states, complexity, and dynamical systems are just some of the terms that are in use. For the purposes of this research, the definition of deterministic chaos given by the mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz, is leading: "When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determines the future."
The artistic works developed throughout the research are not so much a representation of chaos, as they are chaotic, in and of themselves. The resulting concerts are, therefore, best described as chaos in progress. All of the unpredictabilities, uncertainties, and instabilities of chaos are inherent to these concerts. It is never known in advance how the music will end up sounding, instead, the emergent music is attentively explored, in a process that could be described as curating serendipity.
Summing up, what follows is a list of delimitations that must be kept in mind whenever chaos is discussed throughout my research:
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- For the purposes of this research, only deterministic chaos is used as eloquently defined by Edward Lorenz as follows: “Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.”
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- Chaos differs from randomness. Randomness is indeterministic (the present having no influence on the future), while chaos is deterministic (the present determining the future).
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- Chaos is contingent. The present determines the future. However strange and unstable chaotic processes might become, they are processes that display such a level of complexity that it becomes impossible to foresee their future development.
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- Chaotic processes are sensitive to initial conditions.Within this research the term, initial, is omitted as the conditions are precisely the variables that are made available for play. The sensitivity to conditions is commonly referred to as the butterfly effect. A minor cause becomes magnified and ends up having a massive effect: “The Butterfly Effect acquired a technical name: sensitive dependence on initial conditions.” J. Gleick (1987, 23)
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- Chaos is always in motion, moving toward the unknown regions of the future, always becoming different, evading capture, stillness, and stasis: “Nature is change, the continual elaboration of the new, a totality being created in an essentially open process of development without any pre-established model.” I. Prigogine, I. Stengers (1984, 77)
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- The behaviors of chaotic processes orbit around strange attractors. Although these orbits may appear to involve loops, in reality they never quite repeat. These quasi-stable behaviors are musically valuable as they can instill a sense of a fragile normative, yet, one that may become disrupted at any point.
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- Chaos is unpredictable. Even though the underlying process is fully deterministic, this still does not lead to an insight into the future, as it is impossible to be aware of every last detail of the present condition. There is just too much intertwined complexity to comprehend.
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- Chaos harbors complex relationships to the notions of order and disorder. Entropy points to a descent toward disorder, while evolutionary processes point to the emergence of ever more complex forms of order. Chaotic processes are volatile, but simultaneously form the fertile ground for the emergence of novel patterns and occurrences: “In many cases, it is difficult to disentangle the meaning of words such as 'order' and 'chaos.'” I. Prigogine, I. Stengers (1984, 169)
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- Many instruments, acoustic or electronic, can be pushed into chaotic behaviors. This often requires either an influx or starvation of force, compared to normative uses. The instruments created as part of this research are centered around their chaotic behaviors, and will always display instabilities.
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- The chaotic processes implemented in my instruments revolve around various forms of nonlinear feedback. Setting up processes in which multiple signals, whether they be audio streams or control voltages, loop through a system in such a way that their outputs affect their inputs and vice versa.
The following section goes into further detail regarding the language used to describe chaotic processes and how they apply to the research. Since much of my work involves designing chaotic processes, this language provides a useful lens to not only discuss chaos, but also how sonic expressions emerge out of these processes.
Sensitivity
In the language of chaos theory, one of the hallmarks of a chaotic process is a "sensitivity to initial conditions." Within this field, it is often assumed that there is a chaotic process with a number of fixed conditions. Once these conditions are set, they are left alone, and the chaotic behaviors that emerge can be studied. If any of these conditions are altered, even if this alteration is arbitrarily small, the outcome of the process will start to deviate and eventually become completely different. This form of sensitivity is metaphorically described as the butterfly effect, where the mere flap of a butterfly’s wing has an impact on a tornado many miles away. Within the context of the research, many of the conditions that are in place are not so much initial, but rather make up the parameter space that is used to influence ongoing chaotic processes. This is the reason that the term, initial, is omitted when discussing the sensitivities of the instruments developed in this research process.
There are two examples from my practice that can place this notion of sensitivity into perspective. The electrical components that are used in the circuitry of the instruments have a very slight noise level. Although this noise is well below the threshold of human hearing, it already provides enough of a disturbance to set off a chain reaction within a positive feedback loop. Plugging the output of the instrument back into an input should in theory result in silence, but in practice it results in a piercing tone. While playing with chaotic instruments, even the slightest movement can cause a huge difference in sound. When certain parameters are at their most sensitive, just touching one of the knobs can be enough to disrupt and reconfigure the sonic behaviors.
Strange Attractors
Within the field of dynamical systems, the term, attractor, is used to describe the sets of states toward which systems tend to evolve. In order to get to grips with how such a system evolves, these sets of states can be seen as the phase space of the system. In simple systems, the evolution toward a single point in phase space is governed by a fixed point attractor. However, in the case of chaotic systems, something different happens as these evolutions in phase space never settle down and the state of the system continually changes. The behavior of such a chaotic system is defined by unstable orbits around strange attractors. Although these orbits may at times seem to form quasi-repetitions, they never quite loop around in the same way exactly.
The sonic behaviors of my instruments are best described as orbits around strange attractors. When the instruments are left alone they often play semi-looping phrases, that sound like arpeggios, rhythms, melodies, or drones. These phrases stumble and self-balance again, resulting in variations and differences. When the parameters of the instruments are altered, for instance through the turn of a knob, a new or modified set of strange attractors come to the fore and the orbit has to establish a new trajectory. This explains why performative gestures do not seamlessly translate into corresponding changes in the sonic behavior. Instead of enacting a change within a fixed system, it is the system itself that is rearranged, and the sonic output readjusts to a new meshwork of strange attractors.
Time & Duration
Because the definition of deterministic chaos is so closely related to the present and the future, and on top of that, the fact that music is a quintessential temporal artform, notions of time and duration play an important role in my reflections. The philosopher Henri Bergson has made several important distinctions that inform contemporary perceptions of musical time. One of these distinctions addresses the difference between successive time as counted by clocks and the perception of time as duration. It is this duration that the research is focused on, acknowledging that duration always consists of a multiplicity. Within perception, past and future blur into one another, expanding and contracting what we think of as the present. Another important reference is the text "Tempus ex Machina" by the composer Gérard Grisey, discussing the skeleton of time, the flesh of time and the skin of time. These reflections prove useful in discussing the perception of patterns and structures within chaotic music:
“[...] we must finally relate another aspect of time, infinitely more complex: that of the person who perceives. It is in fact the listener who selects, who creates the changing angle of perception which will endlessly remodel, perfect, sometimes destroy musical form as the composer dreamed it.”
Within my practice, it would be disingenuous to speak of a "composer who dreams up a musical form" in advance. Instead, to compose means setting chaotic processes in motion which are then encountered by listeners, composers, performers, and audiences alike. Each listener is then encouraged to engage in actively remodeling, perfecting, or destroying the evocations they perceive. The only way to find out how chaos will play out is by allowing the process to run its course, as it can never be predicted in advance. In this sense, my music is indistinguishable from the chaos that produces the music. The sonic behaviors only attain meaning through attentive listening, as concerts play out in time. Time is an elusive feature of our universe, yet a defining facet of sonic practice. Within the context of this research, the following premises are taken into consideration:
- - Time is related to events. One never observes time in itself, only how it affects events around us and how it affects ourselves. Clocks are dependable events.
- - As time progresses, entropy increases and order succumbs to disorder. This tendency can only be sidestepped through an influx of external energy.
- - Over time, forms of order emerge out of chaos through evolution. The tension between entropy and evolution highlights the complex relationship between order and disorder.
- - The future is unknown, and although there is a contingent relation to what has occurred in the past, the future will always open up to difference.
- - Time is personal, everyone experiences personal sensations of now. Each of us accesses private remembrances that inform anticipations and expectations of the future.
- - Our perception of the present is in flux, much like a vortex, expanding and contracting as we speculate to make sense of our senses.
- - Our temporal experience as duration always consists of multiplicities. There are always countless events happening simultaneously, evolving, progressing, and changing as time moves on.
Cybernetics
The word cybernetics is derived from the Greek "κυβερνητική" which roughly translates to the art of steering. It is also the word from which governance is derived. The first wave of cybernetics was very much focused on the concept of homeostasis, the notion of feedback, or circular causality, as a method for establishing self-regulating systems. These cybernetic systems combine sensors and actuators wired up in such a manner that the system is able to monitor itself and adjust behaviors in order to achieve a goal that is set in advance. The system is then able to govern itself by continually mediating between this desired goal and the measurements regarding the current situation.
Homeostatic systems are able to adapt to changes in the environment. When a knob on one of the instruments is changed, the instrument self-balances and produces a new behavior. In the second wave of cybernetics, the notion of feedback is extended, encompassing the observing environment within this loop. As the chaotic processes that are implemented within the instruments are based on nonlinear feedback loops, it should not be forgotten that the performer is implicated within these loops. The act of play alters the configuration of the instrument which, in turn, affects the player through listening. Taking inspiration from second-order cybernetics, the performer receives input information (listening), processes this information (wondering), and influences the instrument through performative gestures (playing). This closes the loop as the playing alters the sonic behaviors that are listened to. This turn, where the creator of a system becomes part of the system that is created, is also known as reflexivity, as defined by N. Katherine Hayles:
“Reflexivity is the movement whereby that which has been used to generate a system is made, through a changed perspective, to become part of the system it generates.”
All of the instruments that are developed as part of this research are based on feedback principles, and as such, they all draw inspiration from cybernetics. Cybernetics, and its sonic counterpart cybersonics are further discussed in chapter II.
Instrumental Eco-systems
Within the context of this research, the word instrument rarely refers to a single piece of equipment. Instead, it refers to selections of devices, connected in such a way to form larger setups. This includes circuitry (digital or analog) that is responsible for producing: the chaotic processes; any means of influencing these; any means of making the processes audible (through speakers or transducers); and possible visualizations. In a way, the instruments are metaphorical eco-systems of parts working together to establish a playable, performable, musical experience. This notion of an eco-system also implies that all of the parts are interconnected, affecting one another through modes of feedback. However, it should be noted that within the research, these instruments function as closed systems to their environment.
“Closed systems do not exchange energy/information with the environment, whereas open ones are coupled in an external feedback loop with the environment.”
D. Sanfilippo and A. Valle (2013, 21)
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Practically, this means that the instruments respond to changes that are made to their parameter space through play, but there are no built-in microphones or other sensors that would make the instruments aware of their environments. Introducing such sensors would make the instruments more complex to begin with, which would conflict with my interest in the emergence of complexity from simplicity.
The boundaries that separate the development of closed instrumental eco-systems, and the notion of developing compositional strategies are overlapping and often impossible to untangle.
Technology
Technology plays a vital role in the process of building the instruments and developing the compositional and performative concepts. In my practice, there is always a dialog between the technological affordances and constraints, and artistic interests. Often there are frictions between these two aspects, leading to renegotiations affecting both. This means that the use of technology works as a lens through which the qualities of the instruments gradually come into focus. Choosing to use one form of technology over another greatly impacts the course of development, affecting sonic behaviors as well as compositional considerations and performance practices. These choices are made on both pragmatic and artistic grounds. On the pragmatic side, preference is given towards technologies that fall either within my own skill set or pose no significant obstacle to becoming part of my skill set. Due to the sensitive nature of chaos, there is an awareness that even minor changes in technological considerations can turn out to have a massive impact on the eventual artistic outcomes. This is why it is important for me to have a hands-on relationship, or at least a clear understanding of the technologies that are used. More often than not, bridges are formed that allow different types of technologies to become part of one bigger whole. These bridges facilitate an approach to instrument design in which individual sections implement technologies that are best suited to tackle the specific challenges that are encountered. For ideological reasons, preference is given to technologies that are open-source.
Digital technologies include the SuperCollider audio programming language which is used for synthesis, manipulation, analysis, and algorithmic composition. SuperCollider is an important software that has informed my practice for more than a decade. The KiCad suite of applications is used for the development of electronic schematics and printed circuit boards (PCB). Working with KiCad is a new development within my practice and has opened up exciting possibilities to expand upon my engagements with analog electronics. Vuo is a graphical programming environment for interactive visualizations. And, analog technologies, including the OMSynth, developed by Peter Edwards, are used as a platform for the development of prototypes for electronic circuits. Within my work, there is a strong link between the OMSynth and the KiCad software, where parts of circuits can first be tested on the OMSynth before being notated in schematics and turned into a PCB. One of the instruments features a specific acoustic aspect in which the sounds of the instrument are amplified through transducers that are connected to gongs.
Play
“Play isn’t doing what we want, but doing what we can with the materials we find along the way.”
I. Bogost (2016, 3-4)
In his book Play Anything, game designer and philosopher Ian Bogost develops a framework on how to rethink the concept of play. Bogost proposes that to really play, points to the existence or emergence of playgrounds. This notion of playgrounds is not necessarily a physical space but rather reveals the existence of specific rules or constraints that need to be taken seriously in order for a meaningful sense of play to emerge. In a sense, my practice consists of the construction of playgrounds, through instrument building and the development of a performance practice around these instruments. The constraints that are inherent to these playgrounds reflect all of the complexities of the chaotic nature of my practice. For this reason, the act of play becomes deeply connected to the development of the possibility space of the instrument, which in turn translates to an exploration of the constraints that are currently in place.
“An outcome known in advance, with no possibility of error or surprise, clearly leading to an inescapable result, is incompatible with the nature of play.”
R. Caillois (1961, 7)
Playing enacts changes within the conditions of the chaotic processes, and as a consequence, new sonic behaviors are revealed. These sonic behaviors respond in ever new and unforeseen ways to play, as the playground expands or contracts in some significant manner. The playing continuously re-establishes the boundaries of the playground. The sonic vocabulary of the instruments arise from networks of feedback loops, creating an ocean of sounds in continuous flux. The instruments are in many ways already at play, even before they are encountered in performance. It is, therefore, upon the performer and the audience to join in and follow along, exploring the promise of the sonic behaviors through engagement, while wondering what might lie ahead.
The word play encapsulates two very different modes of engagement. On the one hand there is the explorative, curious playfulness that happens at playgrounds or other places that facilitate wonder and excitement. On the other hand, there are situations in which someone or something has been played. In the latter, there is a more nefarious undertone of luring or tricking. In some languages, this difference becomes articulated through changes in spelling. In my native tongue, the Dutch language, we find the term spelen (to play, playfulness), and bespelen (to manipulate, to lure or trick). Curiously, for the act of playing a musical instrument, both spellings can be used, but the meaning changes due to a shift in focus. To play (speel) the instrument places the emphasis on the discovery or evocation of the resulting music, the wonder of listening to curiosity-driven playfulness. However, to play (bespeel) the instrument focuses on the act of playing itself, the manual treatment of the instrument, or how to manipulate the instrument into the production of specific sounds. Here, technical proficiency is the main priority, aiming for a reliable sonic response, to play with clear intention.
“[...] in some languages the manipulation of musical instruments is called 'playing', to wit [...].”
J. Huizinga (1949, 158)
Between these forms of play there is an important difference in the attitude of the player. The form of play that is used within the context of my practice is based on curiosity and wonder (implying a concept of future that is open and unforeseeable). Curiosity and wonder point to an emergent aesthetics, discovered through the open and attentive engagement with sonic events as they unfold. Listening attentively comes first and once there is a more considered grasp of the processes at play (gathering of meaning or becoming meaningful), the question of playing enters the stage (taking action, always including the continuation of listening). To be engaged in play, means to join in with the processes that are already ongoing and attending to their sonic behaviors.
“[...] it is not just the feedback system that is being shaped and transformed through play, but the system is also continually changing the performer, whose ideas and behaviour will adapt to the performance of the system.”
T. Magnussen et al. (2022, 5)
As chaotic instruments are played, each movement wipes out sonic qualities, never to reemerge and vibrate in quite the same manner ever again. From this perspective, the responsibilities and risks of play are very real, requiring care, but also courage, because if nothing ever changes, the sonic expressions grow stale and eventually lose their promise entirely. As a result, play encompasses risk-taking; exploring the thresholds of the instrument; a nourishing of curiosities toward change and difference; and seeking out the beauty within ongoing motions and active processes.
Influence, Confluence and the Lack of Control
Within the field of live electronics, the encounter between performer and instruments is commonly discussed in terms of control: the performer exerts control over the instruments by changing parameters in order to achieve an intended sonic result. Within the context of my research, this language is in conflict with what actually happens. Control requires intention, which is a troubled concept due to the unpredictability of ongoing chaotic processes. As a performer, intentions are continually revised as there is a need to improvise around the sonic qualities that emerge. In these situations, attention provides a more useful lens to discuss the relationship between performer and instrument. As the philosopher and researcher Davide Sparti writes:
“Improvisation requires not so much intention (originality cannot be deliberately triggered; moreover, if we try too explicitly to attain a state of autotelic flux, we obstruct it) as attention, the ability to expose oneself to music in such a way as to respond creatively to the musical situation as it unfolds, reacting to the changes introduced in the course of a performance.”
D. Sparti (2016, 192-193)
This practice, to respond creatively to the musical situation as it unfolds, requires a language that acknowledges the concept of control as a spectrum. This spectrum spans from in control to out of control. It also encompasses the notions of controlling and being controlled. In this sense, the term influence seems more appropriate to describe the act of playing with instruments.
“As a performer, one can choose to put oneself into situations where a performance system will surprise not only the audience, but also oneself. In other words, we argue that in concert situations it may be preferable to lose control if this loss can be made meaningful by gaining influence.”
A. DeCampo (2014, 218)
Yet, it needs to be acknowledged that the instruments are influencing the performer through musical qualities, as much as the performer influences the instruments through affecting their operation. Perhaps this mutual nature would be better captured using a term like confluence, as a coming together, a space where performer and instrument meet one another in play.
Throughout my work there is one intention that is always present, which is the desire to be confronted with sounds that exceed expectations. Sounds that allow me to expand the horizons of what I consider to be sonically expressive. This is the exploration that is shared with audiences. Performing with chaotic instruments means teasing out and discovering these expressions:
“Feedback musicianship is not about exercising control but rather about giving it away: about playing 'with an instrument' and not 'playing on an instrument.'”
T. Magnussen, et al. (2022, 6)
Mapping (Strange Attractors as Ergodynamics)
Conventional strategies for the development of live electronic instruments are commonly discussed through the concepts of affordances and constraints. It could be said that the instruments afford the performer to explore the sonic behaviors through play with the knobs and faders. But this fails to address that altering those knobs does not only change the sound but also reformulates the underlying logic of the chaotic process itself. This connection, in which the exploration of the sound irreversibly changes the mode of its production, could rather be seen as a constraint instead. Each time a single knob is moved, the relationships or mappings of all of the knobs are affected and changed. The act of playing the instrument changes the instrument.
"By acting in the systems’ feedback topology, we can change the whole causal structure and, consequently, affect the macroform. In other words, it is a sort of indirect control at micro-level that influences the system to reorganize itself and, therefore, to change the qualities of emergent structures."
Instead of viewing "mapping" as the translation between an "interface" and a "sound engine," the interface and the instrument merge into one and the same thing, which is constantly remapped through play. In a sense, the knobs on the instruments have more in common with tuning pegs. While re-tuning a guitar string, there are two things happening at once: the sound changes, becoming lower or higher in frequency; and more importantly, the new tuning opens up the possibility for an exploration of the changed relationships between the strings. Chords that would otherwise have been impossible to fret, suddenly become possible to play, changing the very nature of the guitar itself. This is what it is like to play a chaotic instrument, each performative action results in a new sonic environment, upon which the knobs have a different influence. Sometimes these environments are only subtly different, but at other times, the instrument becomes nearly unrecognizable and needs to be approached as if it were encountered for the very first time.
"Ergodynamics are not always designed: they are also what we discover and define as of value, and this differs amongst players and musical cultures. Anyone who plays a musical instrument will be familiar with the special moment when a new instrument is picked up and its ergodynamics studied through play. This experience of ergodynamics recognises that an instrument is an object that never rests, or enters a period of stasis: that every time we pick it up there are new things to discover, new patterns our fingers know, because we have changed, the instrument has changed, and so has the world itself – the general performance context."
While it is possible to list design constraints, the resulting sonic behaviors are not so much bounded within a given space of possibilities as they emerge through orbiting around sets of strange attractors.
“Discussions of interactions with feedback often make more sense in the language of dynamical systems: attractors, trajectories, metastable states, oscillations, phase transitions, chaos, and so on”
Compositional Strategies (Comprovisation Structured Improvisation)
The notion of compositional strategies requires some elaboration within my practice. It is important to acknowledge the resistance of chaotic instruments to follow instructions. They do not comply with commands but are rather restructured through disturbances and restabilizations. This means that all of my concerts involve substantial levels of improvisation to accommodate the emerging sonic behaviors. However, there are several places where compositional considerations are required. The term, composition, is interpreted in a broad sense, encompassing a multitude of activities that either have an impact on musical form, or on the processes themselves, resulting in the formation of music.
First, there is the entanglement between compositional concerns and the development of instruments. Designing and building instruments consists of a long series of considerations and choices, all of which have an impact on the eventual sonic behaviors and formal aspects of the music. The overlap between instrument design and composition has been recognized by several composers and researchers, especially within live electronic music, but also composers like Helmut Lachenmann:
“Composing means: Building an instrument.”
H. Lachenmann (1986, 56)
“With electronic and digital media as key elements in musical instrument design, the boundaries between composition, instrument design and performance are blurring.”
M. A. J Baalman (2017, 225)
On the surface it would seem that swapping a resistor value in a circuit is purely concerned with instrument building. Yet, this circuit will now exhibit a different behavior, changing the possibilities for play, and simultaneously changing the sonic vocabulary of the instrument. These kinds of choices ultimately influence the character of the resulting music and are essentially compositional in nature.
Secondly, the instruments themselves are continually engaged in chaotic processes of formation. To explain this notion, it should be noted that there is no difference between the chaotic processes that are implemented within the instruments and the sounds that are emitted. The sounds are directly mirroring the chaos, making the chaos accessible through a transformation from voltage to vibration. All of the hallmarks and behaviors that are inherent to chaos are equally present in the behaviors of the sound. Chaotic processes never quite repeat themselves, which means that the sounds are never quite the same as well. They form and reform sonic patterns, and building on that logic, it could be said that the instruments are compositional machines, in and of themselves.
Thirdly, if composition and improvisation could be represented as poles on a spectrum of musical activities, my own practice would land somewhere in the middle. Instrument building might be a compositional activity, but throughout that process of development there are many openings for improvised solutions that come about through tinkering rather than adhering to a strict plan. The instruments themselves might be engaged in composition, but through the listening and playing of the performer, elements of improvisation are always present. Certain works are informed by performance strategies, drawing up the contours of a playground with certain rules, constraints, or suggestions. However, these instructions leave space for the performer to respond and attend to the sonic reality that is encountered in concert. When the sonic behaviors exceed expectations, the rules and instructions must be pliable enough to facilitate a continuation of playfulness.
Listening (Attention to detail)
“Maybe live performance is akin to setting up an experiment in a laboratory. You set out to explore one thing and on the way, because you are looking and listening, you find other things that are brought into focus by the attention itself.”
J. Ryan (2014)
Listening is the backbone of my artistic practice. Searching for new timbres, textures, behaviors, and “other things that are brought into focus,” is the driving factor for my exploration of music centered around chaotic processes. As such, listening infiltrates all aspects of my practice, not just live performance. Activities such as reading, writing, soldering, and designing, are accompanied by the sonic backdrop of my instruments, capturing my attention and informing decisions on how to proceed. The philosopher Jean Luc Nancy frames the act of listening as an attempt to grasp at a meaning that is perhaps just out of reach:
“[...] to listen is to be straining toward a possible meaning, and consequently one that is not immediately accessible.”
J. L. Nancy (2007, 6)
This notion of listening, as a means to lean into the uncertain, resonates well with my practice, which is steeped in the exploration of unknown sonorous pathways. It also means that to listen is much more than an encounter with sonic pressure waves hitting the ear. Taking cues from the composer and musician Pauline Oliveros, specifically her collection of works, Sonic Meditations and her work on deep listening and quantum listening, it becomes clear that listening to sound involves perception, imagination, and remembrance:
“Deep Listening is exploring the relationships among any and all sounds whether natural or technological, intended or unintended, real, remembered or imaginary. Thought is included.”
P. Oliveros (1999, 74)
Through listening, a multiplicity of sonic activity is allowed to take place. Encountered sounds are measured against a backdrop of memories and lived experience, and in turn, trigger associations as a form of inner harmonization, imagining many possible sonic developments:
“Deep coupled with Listening or Deep Listening for me is learning to expand the perception of sounds to include the whole space/time continuum of sound - encountering the vastness and complexities as much as possible.”
P. Oliveros (2005, 23)
The chaotic nature of my instruments feed into this notion of an encounter with vast complexities. The instruments generate more questions than answers, and each sonic behavior sparks a flurry of associations, reminiscences, and imaginations. There is no right or wrong way to interpret the sound, but it is rather the act of deep listening, of attentively and actively attempting to grasp at many possible meanings, that makes the whole affair meaningful:
“What is heard is changed by listening and it, in turn, changes the listener.”
In concert, audiences are invited to join in this effort, to grasp at possible meanings alongside the performer. While there may never be a full agreement of what exactly transpires, there is a richness of analogy and metaphor that allows each attentive listener to form their own personal interpretation:
“In effect, the listener is a silent accompanist. Listening with music, [...] is a mode of correspondence.”
To sum up, listening, as used within the research, is:
- - Active, requiring full attention.
- - Attempting to grasp meaning.
- - Involving sensory perception, as well as remembrance and imagination.
- - Personal, informed by lived experience.
Wondering
It has already been established that chaotic processes can not be predicted in advance. However, there is still some form of logic operating behind chaos, a logic that is too complex to fully comprehend. So while it may be unproductive to make predictions, it is possible to wonder ahead. While wonder in itself is rather ambiguous, it is important to make some distinctions, to clarify how this sense of wonder is useful:
“Wonder is an experience of otherness, in which both the ‘specialness’ and ultimate elusiveness or incomprehensibility (or incomplete incomprehensibility) of the world sink in.”
As a sensation or feeling, wonder is rather unique in its relationship to incomprehensibility, as it recognizes the limits of understanding without resorting to making guesses, predictions, or judgments. This characteristic of wonder works well in situations that are too complex to grasp, for example, when one is confronted with chaotic processes. The Dutch philosopher Anders Schinkel makes a distinction between two forms of wondering: contemplative wondering and inquisitive wondering. The former is more associated with deep thought while the latter comes closer to the notion of curiosity although with a difference in focus:
“In short: whereas curiosity is the desire for ‘knowledge’, at the heart of wonder is a longing for meaning.”
Both forms of wonder interact with one another and both have connections to my practice. Contemplative wonder may be more concerned with the question of the relationship between the volatility of chaos and the musical patterns emerging from it. Inquisitive wondering follows and surrounds listening, anticipating the future sonic developments without making prior judgments or predictions. In either case:
“Wonder entails an intensification of the present; the experience is fuller and more vivid than ordinary experience.”
A. Schinkel (2021, 49)
This sense of wonder is used as a method of focusing attention during play in concerts, but it is also an invitation for audiences to join in this wondering. As the concert proceeds, wonder works contagiously and seduces attentive listeners to participate:
“The artist not only undergoes wonder; he forms and creates it, and in the sensitive spectator it is recreated.”
When building instruments, inquisitive wonder takes the form of tinkering. Prototypes are first built and then taken apart again, hacked, and remodeled nearly beyond recognition. Each modification explores a multitude of permutations of a design, playfully discovering unforeseeable qualities.