Fine Arts and Music Collected Works - Theses
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ItemCreating an interactive music diffusion system( 2019)In this study I take a phenomenological approach to music composition, improvisation and sound system design. I apply the writing of author Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism to formulate an approach to composition and interactive design. I test whether it is possible to convert themes of Zuboff’s book into an interactive work of art which is relevant. I apply my research to the creation of an interactive sound installation based upon a Behavioural Value Reinvestment Cycle model. I explain my personal epoche, an interactive camera system, electro-acoustic music diffusion designs, audio software, and detail the development of the interactive music diffusion system design. I include descriptions of my compositions with accompanying sound recordings. A total of twelve compositions have been created for the purposes of this research. The music creation applies two approaches termed as either surveillance or conscious music. Surveillance music is composed by incorporating a camera for interactive outcomes. Conscious music compositions are works created in response to researching surveillance capitalism. To conclude I review and summarise my phenomenological experience and findings.
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ItemA Miniature City Between Things + The Interhuman Apparatus( 2020)A Miniature City Between Things + The Interhuman Apparatus Architectural-documentation is deployed within the discipline of architecture as a highly constrained and conventionalised system. This project seeks to unbind, re-appraise and re-locate this system to an interdisciplinary space, in order to test its possibilities. Through an examination of its histories, techniques, technologies and outputs, architectural-documentation is revealed as able to respond to complex heterogeneous topographies beyond the physical. The essay Useless Suffering by Emmanuel Levinas is utilised as an experimental space for the development of an apparatic composition. The text is considered as a site, upon and through which, a creative response is composed.
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ItemIn The Middle Of A Dream: The Craft and Phenomenology of Songwriting( 2019)In the Middle of a Dream Abstract, the count in One two three FOUR! The notion of 'song' is ubiquitous in Western culture but not much is known about songwriting which is odd considering how many songs have been written. At a formal level, songs and the way in which they are made are discussed infrequently. “While scholars and institutions have for some time studied and taught popular music from a socio-cultural perspective, a review of songwriting- process literature (C. Harrison, 2012d) reveals that popular, contemporary songwriting practice has not been widely researched academically...” How are the ideas generated? Do they arrive fully formed as if channelled from a higher place or are they conceived, written and assembled like other forms of creative endeavour? In fact, on a fundamental level are popular songs even actually written like the Lieder of Schumann or made from bits and pieces jammed in a recording studio? This project is a study of my practice as a songwriter. It has been pursued through the writing of a suite of songs and documented in a folio of notes, lead sheets and recordings, a live performance and accompanying dissertation. However, the recordings and performance are only to establish the fact that the writing took place for it is the writing of songs I have examined and not the making of records. In this regard I have diverged from the emerging scholarly discipline of the art of record production to focus primarily on the creation of the performable or recordable artefact. The recordings provided an end point to the writing process as well as documenting the finished works. References to the recording sessions note where changes to the compositions resulted and how the research was impacted. The songs were written with the sole intention of determining how they were written and not to create a stylistically or thematically unified whole. On the contrary my aim was to write as varied a selection of material as I could. It did not matter if the songs were any good or not. It didn’t matter if the recordings or the performances captured there on were proficient. Even studying the writing of a dreadful song would reveal a process worth avoiding. And the making of many a bad record has resulted in the occasional hit. In his book Song Writers on Song Writing4 Paul Zollo refers to three stages in the creation of a popular song, the writing, arranging and recording. I have focused solely on the first stage and from a songwriter’s ‘insider’ perspective. That being said there did develop a phenomenological and self-referential narrative as the writing proceeded and the study of the creative process tended to feedback into itself. At times this self-referencing considered the author’s autobiographical significance, the influence of the research on the research and interactions with participants. A reflective journal documenting the predetermined and accidental methods involved relates back to relevant popular and academic expositions. The following people have supported and helped me along the way and for that I thank them, Dr Robert Vincs for direction, advice and tastefully appropriate playing and Dr Tim Nikolsky for encouragement, organisation and great time. Gratitude also to the musicians who played on the recordings, Serge de Lucio, Margot Leighton, Anthony Barnhill and Daniel Berry and to Rohan Wallis for a finely tuned aesthetic. Particular appreciation for Niko Schauble’s input, he played on a couple, engineered some, mixed most and mastered all of the tracks with skill, generosity and good humour.
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ItemThe Identification of Production Methods Exploring Cell-based Repetition and Development in Techno Music and Audio-Visual Display.( 2020)The Identification of Production Methods Exploring Cell-based Repetition and Development in Techno Music and Audio-Visual Display. In 2020, accessibility to the tools of electronic music production have become near ubiquitous to anyone with access to modestly powered computing equipment. The use of musical, cell-based repetition as a musical device is straightforward to achieve using these tools, however further production methods are available to augment and enhance this process. This research investigates production methods exploring cell-based repetition in techno music, whilst exploring the representation of these concepts in visual media to create synchronous audio-visual work. A practice-based research methodology has led to the creation of this folio of eleven productions of techno music with accompanying audio-visual display. Additionally, this folio is accompanied by a 20,000-word dissertation, exploring the production methods and processes adopted and explored throughout the creative work. The dissertation also contains the compilation of a relevant field of practitioners and audio, that has served as a source of reference for analysis. Throughout this research, an exploration of temporal time perceptions and plateau-type experiences has served as a guiding aesthetic reference for working with the cellular repetition and exploring methods for creating development over time. In this dissertation, six areas of study are examined: Investigation into suitable construction methods for the creation of repeating cells; the use of polyrhythmic devices; the use of phasing LFO processes to create gradual yet constant, cyclical interactions of timbral variation; improvisation through real-time spontaneous interactive processes and the use of gradual, incremental automation to instrument parameters, exploring non-cyclical, unidirectional change. Lastly, the application of these audio production concepts is explored in the use of repeating visual cells in the creation of the synchronised audio-visual work.
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ItemThe Creative Approaches of Sound-making to Spoken-word Narrative in a Multimedia Environment( 2020)This research paper will examine the creative approaches of sound-making to a spoken-word narrative in a multimedia environment through practise-led research in the form of a body of audiovisual works. It will explore how certain electroacoustic compositional techniques on sampled sound can be used to convey a spoken narrative and enhance how the listener/viewer experiences it in conjunction with visual media. It will investigate this through the analysis of work from other iconic composers and discuss how and why their techniques have been used in my own work. It will then document my own creative processes in using spoken stories and poems as the source material through making a new body of work to understand the creative approaches of sound-making in giving a sonic identity to the voice and environmental sounds and analyse what informs my making process in a narrative-driven multimedia work.
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ItemThe Right Unravelling: Exploring The Synthesis of Somatics, Martial Arts and Improvised Dance for Technique and Performance( 2019)Taking a dialectical and reflective approach as the methodological framework for practice, this research investigates the synthesis of somatic movement practices with other performance based training forms, including martial arts, singing and percussion. Using essential building blocks of each training modality as tools, the research proposes that as each form is synthesised and enacted through somatic underpinnings, it allows for greater agency, awareness and dynamic 'moment to moment' potential to support choreographic structures, images and poetic narratives arising in improvised performance.
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ItemCollaboration and the Composer: Three Case Studies of Contrasting Collaborative Environments within the Creation of Music Theatre( 2019)This thesis is an analysis of collaborative relationships from a case study of Music theatre works in which I function as composer. The aim of this creative practice-led research is to illuminate working processes from the perspective of a composer-collaborator in the creation of these works, and reflect on key aspects of the collaborations which affected the way I approached composition and the works’ final performance outcomes. It discusses and documents my compositional approaches to creating sound for three productions: The Caucasian Chalk Circle, an existing text by Bertolt Brecht, a devised work including aspects of physical theatre entitled Crossroads and finally, contemporary playwright David Ives’ Venus in Fur. The reflection and discussion of my compositional process and creative output for these works will focus on three key aspects of collaboration: hierarchy in the rehearsal room between artists and art forms, language and communication between artists and how this is facilitated, as well as multidisciplinary timeframes and how these contrasting timeframes affected my ability to compose. Through this critical framework, I aim to illuminate how these factors shaped both my working methods and the sonic outcomes within these contrasting collaborative environments. The written dissertation is accompanied by a creative folio of works from the three case studies discussed. This includes both archival video footage of selected sections of these works from the live theatrical performances as well as accompanying audio recordings of the music written, where music and sound was pre-recorded.
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ItemCueca, tradition and innovation: utilising the traditional Bolivian music form of Cueca as a generative tool in jazz based composition and improvisation( 2019)The Cueca is an expression of Latin American culture in the forms of dance, poetry and music. This investigation examines the important elements of the Bolivian Cueca, its history, development and geographical journey alongside a creative element of practice-based research arising from an analysis of my first professional recordings of Cueca that explore African-American jazz-based improvisation leading to new compositions. For this purpose, I will undertake an ethnographic and musical analysis of the Bolivian Cueca (structure, rhythm, harmony, melody and improvisation) from the first pioneers and influential composers and interpreters Simeón Roncal (pianist, 1870-1953) and José Lavadenz (mandolinist, 1883-1967). This includes an autethnographic reflection of my relationship with my cultural identity as a composer, performer and son of the Bolivian composer Gilberto Rojas (1916-1983). My intention is to ground the rationale that integrates my later study of jazz-based improvisational studies within the Cueca tradition. I have included a phenomenological contextual analysis of my 2005 recording of “Chuquisaqueñita” in the CD/DVD “Lunar” and findings from my practice-led research which enabled my understanding of the hitherto unconscious elements that I had adopted from the aforementioned composers to then create and spontaneously engage jazz and improvisation techniques within the Cueca. My creative work includes Cuecas that I composed throughout this study, which was inspired by my personal understanding as a Bolivian currently living within a multicultural context in Melbourne, Australia, highlighting the development process of Australian jazz sensibilities alongside the cross cultural notions of agency we encounter as musicians within globalised jazz.
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ItemBetwixt & between: a visual representation of liminal space and beyond( 2018)This MFA examines how digital technology affects liminal space or the in-between. The title of this research paper ‘Betwixt & Between’, references the essay, Betwixt and Between: The liminal period in Rites De Passage, written by the cultural anthropologist Victor Turner in 1964. In this essay Turner describes the process of ritual initiation as a three stage process, the middle of which he assigns the term, liminal.1 ‘Visual representations of liminal space and beyond’ refers to the visual outcomes made while investigating the transformative nature of liminal space and what might occur beyond the threshold in the post liminal stage. Condensing the meaning of liminal space to its essence — that of transformation, the movie Xanadu is used as a medium and starting point for the process. Paul Stenner in, Liminality and Experience: A Transdisciplinary Approach to the Psychosocial, talks about, “the process of ritual as a type of technology,” and how, “at core, the various art forms (including theatre, painting, poetry, music and so forth) can also be considered as liminal affective technologies, and that they share important features with ritual .”2 The use of binary code, the very basis of computing, essentially transforms data from one form to another. This process of constant transformation creates multiple instances of liminal space. Using programming, microprocessors and electronics, the movie Xanadu is initially transformed using instruction. The raw data of the movie is altered to create glitches that reveal the materiality of the digital movie file. During the transformation process the liminal space is laid bare, poised on a threshold between one state and another. The use of digital technologies as part of the process when making these works introduces a collaboration in the making of the work. In some instances algorithms were applied to introduce an element of chance to the making. This action takes absolute control away from the artist and created collaborations between the program and the artist. The decision to use iPhones, iPads and HDMI displays, led the research to identify the interface as a liminal space. A comparison between the body and performance, to an interface, took the transformation one step further by providing a physical manifestation of liminal space. Examining this topic has led the research to determine that the process of making this work is central to the idea of liminal space and is just as important as the visual outcome. This idea is similar to ideas put forward by artists like Sol LeWitt that use instruction as a basis for their art making and Laura Owens who questions where a painting is, rather than what is a painting. As part of a post-internet practice, the final iteration of this process led research is presented in the form of a roller disco that echoes the theme of the movie and reveals the in-between for all to see. As part of the immersive exhibition, a series of electronic works, paintings, prints and a performance was presented in the Margaret Lawrence Gallery in December 2018.
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ItemHow do Digital Audio Workstations influence the way musicians make and record music?( 2019)Digital technology in music is evolving at an accelerating pace. Musicians are increasingly relying on software instruments and digital audio workstations (DAWs) to create popular music. This research examines the hypothesis that digital technology has changed the way musicians make music and explores concepts of digital music making, asking: How is technology changing the process of creating, performing and recording music? To explore this question, I acted as the recording engineer and producer (defined here as planning the work with a technical understanding, to record, mix and master for a final release) for two artists: semi-professional singer-songwriter Emily Soon, and amateur band Professor Walk. The process of production from start to finish involved the use of two different DAWs: Logic for Emily Soon and Pro Tools for Professor Walk. Examining the strengths and weaknesses of each of these DAWs relative to the creative process, with particular focus on signal processing, portability, sound palates, cloud-based storage solutions, ease of recording and editing, automation and telemetric collaboration, gave insight into the relationship between creation, performance, and recording in a modern popular-music context.