The symposium — entitled .. under control of music, music under control of ..; composing (in) digital worlds — brings together artists, thinkers and researchers from different fields to shine a light on the manifold challenges for the sonic artist composing (in) the digital worlds today.
Music has always been a way to represent, influence and control the social settings and situations it evolves in. During the last century, composers and sound artists of the self-proclaimed avant-garde focused on this aspect as well as on how music was embedded in the economic and political complexities of the emerging entertainment and media industries. Artists decided not simply to produce products for art markets, but aimed at a fundamental critique of their tools and media in situ.
With the advent of new tools for the production and dissemination of sound throughout the last two centuries, the strategies of artists working with these tools in sound transformed, too. The microphone changed the arena for singers; the electric guitar enabled the instrument to take center stage (and to be heard there). The gramophone and radio allowed sound to travel long distance and in time, transforming music from something rather ephemeral and tied to a specific place (earshot) and time (the moment) into something to be consumed (and not just to be made) where- and whenever.
In the dawning digital society with its algorithmically curated sound-worlds and the possibilities and economic realities of big data, the environment in which musical practice evolves is undergoing drastic change. Algorithmic music production is in the process of moving from academic computer music studios to giant corporations’ service departments, aiming at harvesting musical practice (reception and production) for new ways of influencing and controlling human — i.e. customer —behavior.
The symposium ‘.. under control of Music | Music under control of ..; composing (in) digital worlds‘ poses questions regarding these new forms of music making. What potential is there for control, abuse, for artistic creation, subversion and altogether new forms of musical practice?
Speakers: Univ.Prof. Ursula Brandstätter (AT), Thor Magnusson (IS/UK), Sam Ferguson (AU), Enrique Tomás (ES/AT), Alexandra Murray-Leslie (AU/ES), Thomas Grill (AT), Volkmar Klien (AT)
