Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T01:18:55.319Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fostering a Post-Digital Avant-Garde: Research-led teaching of music technology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2016

John R. Ferguson  and
Andrew R. Brown
John R. Ferguson*
Affiliation:
Griffith University, Queensland Conservatorium, PO Box 3428, South Brisbane Qld 4101, Australia
Andrew R. Brown*
Affiliation:
Griffith University, Queensland College of Art, South Bank campus, S02, 226 Grey Street, Qld 4101Australia
*
*Emails: [email protected]; [email protected]
*Emails: [email protected]; [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article we discuss how contemporary computational and electronic music-making practices might be characterised as a post-digital avant-garde. We also discuss how practitioners within the higher education sector can play a role in leading the development of these practices through their research and teaching. A brief overview of twentieth-century avant-garde practices is provided to set the scene before a case for defining a post-digital avant-garde is made. By way of illustration, the authors describe their own post-digital creative practices and then discuss how these integrate into their academic duties. We reflect on themes that run through avant-garde practices and continue into the post-digital. Finally, we describe how these themes inform an undergraduate music technology programme such that it might be shaped to reflect these developments and prepare students for a post-digital future.

Type
Articles
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 21 , Special Issue 2: Situating the Avant–Garde: Conformity and oppositional culture , August 2016 , pp. 127 - 137
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2016 

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

REFERENCES

Attali, J. 1985. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Vol. 16. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Borgdorff, H. 2006. The Debate on Research in the Arts. Bergen: Bergen National Academy of the Arts.Google Scholar
Braungart, M. and McDonough, W. 2009. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. London: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Brown, A. R. and Sorensen, A. 2009. Integrating Creative Practice and Research in the Digital Media Arts. In H. Smith and R. Dean (eds.) Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Buxmann, P. and Hinz, O. 2013. Makers. Business & Information Systems Engineering 5(5): 357–360.Google Scholar
Cascone, K. 2000. The Aesthetics of Failure: ‘Post-digital’ Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music. Computer Music Journal 24(4): 12–18.Google Scholar
Cascone, K. 2004. Laptop Music – Counterfeiting Aura in the Age of Infinite Reproduction. Digital Aesthetics Research Centre. http://darc.imv.au.dk/?page_id=17 (accessed 7 April 2016).Google Scholar
Cascone, K. 2010. The Failure of Aesthetics. https://vimeo.com/17082963 (accessed 7 April 2016).Google Scholar
Collins, N. 2009. Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, 2nd edn. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Collins, N., McLean, A., Rohrhuber, J. and Ward, A. 2003. Live Coding in Laptop Performance. Organised Sound 8(3): 321–330.Google Scholar
Cook, P. 2009. Re-Designing Principles for Computer Music Controllers: A Case Study of SqueezeVox Maggie. Proceedings of New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME). www.nime.org/proceedings/2009/nime2009_218.pdf (accessed 22 January 2016).Google Scholar
Cottington, D. 2013. The Avant-Garde: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, J. 2015. Composition is Not Research. Tempo 69(272): 6–11.Google Scholar
Demers, J. 2010. Listening Through the Noise: The Aesthetics of Experimental Electronic Music. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. R. 2013. Imagined Agency: Technology, Unpredictability, and Ambiguity. Contemporary Music Review 32(2–3): 135–149.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. R. 2015. Perspectives on Research-led Teaching. In E. Haddon and P. Burnard (eds.) Creative Teaching for Creative Learning in Higher Music Education. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Fineberg, J. 2000. Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being, 2nd edn. London: Laurence King.Google Scholar
Gaylor, B. 2008. RiP!. A Remix Manifesto. http://ripremix.com (accessed 7 April 2016).Google Scholar
Harrison, N. 2004. Can I Get An Amen? http://nkhstudio.com/pages/popup_amen.html (accessed 7 April 2016).Google Scholar
Heidegger, M. 1977. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Hugill, A. 2012. The Digital Musician, 2nd edn. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, H. 2009. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, D. 2006. Endgame: The Problem of Civilization. New York: Seven Stories.Google Scholar
Krauss, R. E. 1985. The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mooney, J. 2015. Hugh Davies’s Instruments and Live Coding: Two Conference Presentations. Hugh Davies Project. https://hughdaviesproject.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/ems-iclc (accessed 22 January 2016).Google Scholar
Mortimer, J. H., Nosko, C. and Sorensen, A. 2012. Supply Responses to Digital Distribution: Recorded Music and Live Performances. Information Economics and Policy 24(1): 3–14.Google Scholar
Nyman, M. 1999. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) 2015. STEM to STEAM. http://stemtosteam.org (accessed 7 April 2016).Google Scholar
Rushkoff, D. 2010. Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. New York: OR Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sorensen, A. 2005. Impromptu: An Interactive Programming Environment for Composition and Performance. In A. R. Brown and T. Opie (eds.) Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Music Conference 2005. Brisbane: ACMA.Google Scholar
Sorensen, A. and Brown, A. R. 2007. aa-cell in Practice: An Approach to Musical Live Coding. In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference. Copenhagen: ICMA.Google Scholar
Sorensen, A. and Gardner, H. 2010. Programming with Time: Cyber-physical Programming with Impromptu. Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages and Applications . New York: ACM.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, T. D. 2001. Strange Sounds: Music, Technology and Culture. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Thomas, G. 2015. Trying to Teach Popular Music as a Research-led Subject in Higher Education: Part I – Free Creativity as a Vocational Imperative. https://clawsandtongues.wordpress.com/2015/12/19/trying-to-teach-popular-music-as-a-research-led-subject-in-higher-education-part-i-free-creativity-as-a-vocational-imperative (accessed 22 January 2016).Google Scholar
V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media. Mission. http://v2.nl/organization/mission (accessed 2 February 2016).Google Scholar
Wheeler, B. 2005. Performance Art and its Institutionalization: A Map. www.brittawheeler.com/#!about/cee5 (accessed 7 April 2016).Google Scholar

Ferguson and Brown supplementary material S1

Supplementary Video

Download Ferguson and Brown supplementary material S1(Video)
Video 47.2 MB

Ferguson and Brown supplementary material S2

Supplementary Video

Download Ferguson and Brown supplementary material S2(Video)
Video 105.1 MB

Ferguson and Brown supplementary material S3

Supplementary Video

Download Ferguson and Brown supplementary material S3(Video)
Video 157.4 MB