Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T14:19:33.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Complexity as Process: Complexity-inspired approaches to composition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

Tom Davis
Tom Davis*
Affiliation:
Poole House, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University Bournemouth, BH12 5BB, UK
*
E-mail: tom@tdavis.co.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the use of Complexity Theory as an inspiration for the creation of new musical works, and highlights problems and possible solutions associated with its application as a compositional tool. In particular it explores how the philosophy behind Complexity Theory affects notions of process-based composition, indeterminacy in music and the performer/listener/environment relationship, culminating in providing a basis for the understanding of music creation as an active process within a context. The author presents one of his own sound installations, Cross-Pollination, as an example of a composition inspired and best understood from the philosophical position as described in Complexity Theory.

Type
Articles
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 15 , Issue 2: Organising electroacoustic music , August 2010 , pp. 137 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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

Baker, K. 1988. Minimalism: Art of Circumstance. New York: Abbeville Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W. 1936. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In C. Harrisson and P. Wood (eds.) Art in Theory, 1900–1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 2000.Google Scholar
Bernard, J. W. 1993. The Minimalist Aesthetic in the Plastic Arts and in Music. Perspectives in New Music 31(1): 86–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertuglia, C. S., Vaio, F. 2005. Nonlinearity, Chaos, and Complexity: The Dynamics of Natural and Social Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourriaud, N. 1998. Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Presses du Réel.Google Scholar
Burnham, J. 1968. Systems Esthetics. Artforum 7(1): 30–35.Google Scholar
Burnham, J. 1969. The Aesthetics of Intelligent Systems. In E. F. Fry (ed.) On the Future of Art. New York: The Viking Press, 1970.Google Scholar
Cage, J. 1958. Composition as Process: Indeterminacy. In C. Cox and D. Warner (eds.) Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. New York: Continuum, 2004.Google Scholar
De Oliveira, Oxley, N., Petry, M. J. 2003. Installation Art in the New Millennium: The Empire of the Senses. New York: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. 1971. Intentional Systems. The Journal of Philosophy 68(4): 87–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Scipio, A. 2002. Systems of Embers, Dust, Clouds: Observations after Xenakis and Brun. Computer Music Journal 26(1): 22–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dourish, P. 2004. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Eco, U. 1989. The Poetics of the Open Work. In C. Cox and D. Warner (eds.) Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. New York: Continuum, 2004.Google Scholar
Green, O. 2006. More than ‘Just a Hammer’: Critical Techniques in Electroacoustic Practice, SoundAsArt, 26 November 2006.Google Scholar
Hamman, M. 2002. From Technical to Technological: The Imperative of Technology in Experimental Music Composition. Perspectives in New Music 40(1): 92–120.Google Scholar
Hamman, M. 2004. On Technology and Art: Xenakis at Work. Journal of New Music Research 33(2): 115–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Impett, J. 2001. Interaction, Simulation and Invention: A Model for Interactive Music. In E. Bilotta, E. R. Miranda, P. Pantano and P. M. Todd (eds.) Proceedings of ALMMA 2001 Workshop on Artificial Models for Musical Applications. Cosenza: Editoriale Bios, 108–119.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. 2002. Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Kaprow, A., Kelley, J. 2003. Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
LaBelle, B. 2006. Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.Google Scholar
O’Connor, T., Wong, H. Y. 2006. Emergent Properties. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent (accessed 17 December 2007).Google Scholar
Reich, S. 2004. Music as a Gradual Process. In C. Cox and D. Warner (eds.) Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Reich, S. 2007. Steve Reich interview on Pendulum Music. http://www.furious.com/perfect/ohm/reich.html (accessed 17 December 2007).Google Scholar
Tenhaaf, N. 2008. Art Embodies A-Life: The VIDA Competition. Leonardo 41(1): 6–15.Google Scholar
Waters, S. 2007. Performance Ecosystems: Ecological Approaches to Musical Interaction. EMS: Electroacoustic Music Studies Network, 12th–15th June 2007.Google Scholar