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The Polyvalent Discourse of Electronic Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

ARIELLE SAIBER
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Extract

MIGHT ELECTRONIC MUSIC—A MAJOR FORCE BEHIND CHANGES IN ACOUSTIC TECHNOLOGY, COPYRIGHT LAW, HUMAN-MACHINE INTERface, artistic production, marketing and consumption practices, and global connectivity—help us think about the dizzying proliferation of today's written forms and how we talk about them? It can certainly offer new models and a rich vocabulary for speaking about such things as labeling, canon, and the relationship between author and audience. As “text” continues to bloat, shrink, scatter, and blur, thanks in part to the same digital tools used by contemporary e-music, perhaps looking at how this sound swarm is dealing with its identity will be useful to those who read, write, and write about literature. The essay that follows invites literary scholars to “listen awry” to a wildly polyvalent, indeterminate musical complex that simultaneously lobbies for, rejects, and eludes categorization.

Type
the changing profession
Information
PMLA , Volume 122 , Issue 5: Special Topic Remapping Genre , October 2007 , pp. 1613 - 1625
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by The Modern Language Association of America

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