This paper examines a series of creative sound-works which combine human and biological agents to re-mix, create and re-invent musical scores. The central concept is to consider Genes, Memes and Musical notation as parallel mnemonic structures that function as instructions for the fleshing-out of life across temporal barriers.
GeneMusiK and associated works Under the IceCap and the Quartor pour la fin du temps à l’Escargot, are generative processes where the outcome is surrendered to biological agents, but which operate within a broad combinatory frame- work of cultural, social and biological pathways.
The stochastic process of biological transformation which erode the human agency invested in authorship is however returned to the human sphere as performance and the nuances of interpretation and virtuosity. The final example Oratorio for a Million Souls differs in that the musical scores are created not as a symbolic representation of a biological system (Bee colonies) but as an indexical interpretation of actual acoustic and sensor data.
Read the full article here – Co-Composition & De-Composition(s)
Or just watch the presentation 🙂
