Zugl.: Hamburg, University, Diss., 2008.

Silence is a negative term denoting absence of sounds. However, our ordinary way of speaking about silence suggests that the latter is some perceptible reality, 'some- thing' perceived. But is it legitimate to say that we hear silence - absence of sound? What implications about perception does such a way of speaking have? The aim of the present thesis is to analyse these questions. The analysis unfolds along three axes. The first part of the thesis reconstructs the problem of perception of silence in John Cage's 'silent piece' 4'33" in context of its conceptual origin, Cage's aesthetics, and reflection of his work in his written texts. Hence the introduction of the problem of perceptible silence in recent thought. It discusses the thesis that we cannot hear absolute silence, not even in the soundproof chamber, and considers the question whether it is adequate to say that we can hear silence if we expect to hear music, but the music does not sound - a question that was raised by the premiere of 4'33". The second part of the thesis scrutinizes the position according to which we can directly hear/listen to silence which is the absence of sounds, namely the arguments of Roy Sorensen and Ian Phillips. Emphasis is put on Sorensen's theory since it is in direct contrast to Cage's position (though Sorensen...

This thesis is a 'big-picture' look at the course of Western philosophy and its eventual arrival at ideas that look remarkably similar to the revelations of Guatama Buddha 2500 years ago. I look at the roots of how the West has understood itself and understood "being" through the centuries and at the revolutions in thought that took place in the 20th century. I look more closely at 20th century thinkers to demonstrate how their thinking begins to align with the ancient insights of Eastern philosophy, particularly the notions of a prevailing emptiness as "ground" of Being and of the fallacy of the individual subject. I also look at how some 20th century artists have engaged with these new ideas. I see generally two responses to the postmodern (post-subject) position: that of a play of surfaces, such as in the work of Andy Warhol and the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard; and that of an embracing of absence, presented in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and the works of such artists as John Cage, George Brecht, Pauline Oliveros, Bill Wegman, David Hammons and others.

This Bachelor Thesis in composition explores an alternative compositional process for creating improvised music through the approach of sound design. The questions addressed in the thesis are concerned with how the soundscape can be controlled by the composer while still maintaining the expressivity of an improvised performance. Thus, the composer’s role as both sound designer, producer and performer is investigated using live electronics and score design. The theoretical framework for the thesis is to be found in the intersection between Anglo-American experimental music, electronic music, sound design and electroacoustic improvisation. Key influences include indeterminacy as expressed in the music of John Cage, Deep Listening practices pioneered by Pauline Oliveros as well as the aesthetical paradigms of electronic and electroacoustic music. The artistic methods revolved around the following steps: studio workshops with musicians (Fredrik Ekenvi and José Louis Relova Gallego) exploring timbres, playing techniques and music technology in real-time followed by associative discussions about the soundscapes created; composing audio and graphical drafts influenced by the workshops; designing diagrams for the electronics and compiling these to a design document; workshopping and performing the final piece (Towards the Event Horizon). Towards the Event Horizon (for bass clarinet, electric guitar and live electronics) is the final result of the work, comprising a score with accompanying design document as well as a recording of the original performance at Studio Acusticum in Piteå 20th of March 2021. The artefacts and associated documentation are presented in their entirety on the dedicated Research Catalogue exposition. Conclusions include how composition and sound design are tied together and cannot be considered as isolated processes, especially in the context of live electronics; the interrelationship between the improviser, the acoustic soundscape and the artistic associations that inform the improvisation; the importance of form as the defining element of a composition and lastly; how a score for improvised music can be devised in the shape of a blueprint of form and texture, setting certain technical, sonic and gestural conditions while leaving the performer to play freely within this frame. / <p>Konstnärliga artefakter presenteras via Research Catalogue: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1250652/1250651</p>

[pt] A tese se dedica à escrita de Guimarães Rosa sob a perspectiva da inarticulação: atenta às ocasiões em que a língua é levada a seu limite intensivo, ao se deixar atravessar sobretudo por vozes animais (grunhir, uivar, grasnar, piar, balir, sibilar, chiar, etc.), ruídos naturais (vento, água, fogo, etc.) e pelo registro musical. Explorando os modos singulares com que Rosa trabalha sonoridades investidas de forças anárquicas e criadoras, o estudo mostra que um dos traços mais relevantes em sua obra é trazer à tona a experiência de inarticulação da linguagem. Tal experiência manifesta-se como lugar privilegiado de desestabilização das fronteiras habitualmente pressupostas entre o que se convencionou chamar, de um lado e de outro, língua e vida - revelando o corpo material da língua como condição irredutível para que se descortinem vínculos intensivos com as coisas através da literatura. O pensamento contido na própria forma como Rosa trabalha a sua língua é posto em diálogo com as reflexões de Gilles Deleuze/Felix Guattari sobre a língua intensiva, e com as considerações de Friedrich Nietzsche acerca da experiência dionisíaca da música. Assim orientada, a tese se compõe de três ensaios. O primeiro aborda a inarticulação da língua na novela Buriti, de Corpo de Baile, em leitura centrada na personagem Chefe Zequiel e nos modos pelos quais sua sensibilidade auditiva prodigiosa capta micro-percepções sonoras da noite e as transfere para uma língua à beira de se tornar guincho, uivo, assovio do vento. O ensaio seguinte mostra o paralelo existente entre o retorno do ruído na música contemporânea, capitaneado pelo músico John Cage, e a invasão da escrita pela infinita gama de sonoridades não dicionarizadas de que se compõe a obra de Guimarães Rosa. Elabora-se ainda, em correlação com a analogia musical aí desenvolvida, uma interpretação da pouco comentada novela A estória do homem do Pinguelo, de Estas Estórias. Por fim, o terceiro ensaio apresenta a aliança entre poesia, música e inarticulação da língua no cerne do projeto literário do escritor mineiro. Oferece-se aí uma visão do processo criativo de Guimarães Rosa como transmutação de forças e afectos presentes nos sons antes da articulação, em uma língua poética em íntimo enlace com a musicalidade. Também se propõem, nessa ocasião, leituras de Cara-de- Bronze, de Corpo de Baile, e de Duelo, de Sagarana. / [en] The present thesis approaches the writing of Guimarães Rosa from the perspective of the inarticulate. It attends to those occasions in which his writing takes language to its intensive limit, at which it incorporates animal noises (grunting, howling, cawing, chirping, bleating, hissing, wheezing), natural sounds (wind, water, fire, etc.), and the musical register. Exploring the singular manner in which Rosa cultivates sonorities invested with anarchical and creative forces, the study shows that one of the most striking aspects of his work is the way it gives voice to the experience of the inarticulate within language. Such an experience manifests itself as a privileged site of destabilization of the traditional frontiers between what is conventionally called language and what is called life. This serves to reveal the material body of language as an irreducible condition for the creation of an intensive connection with life through literature. Rosa s thinking, as it is presented through his writing, is also put into dialogue with Gilles Deleuze s and Felix Guattari s notion of the intensive language and Friedrich Nietzsche s account of the Dionysian experience of music. The thesis consists of three chapters. The first approaches the inarticulate in the novella Buriti, from Corpo de Baile. It focusses on the character Chief Zequiel, who possesses a prodigious auditory sensitivity that allows him to perceive very slight, night-time sounds and convert them into a language that borders on squealing, howling, the whispering of the wind. The following chapter draws parallels between the reintroduction of noise into contemporary music by John Cage in particular and the intrusion of a multitude of non-lexicographic sonorities into Rosa s writing. This musical analogy is also intertwined with an interpretation of the neglected novella, A estória do homem do Pinguelo, from Estas Estórias. The third and final chapter discusses the alliance between poetry, music and inarticulate language at the heart of Rosa s literary oeuvre. It regards his creative process as a transmutation of the pre-articulate forces and affects present in sounds into a poetic language that is intimately intertwined with musicality. Finally, it proposes a reading of Cara-de-bronze from Corpo de Baile and Duelo from Sagarana.

Toutes les illustrations qui ponctuent cette thèse ont été réalisées par Chantal Poirier. Elles ont été insérées dans le texte selon un ordre méticuleusement aléatoire. / Le texte qui suit, malgré son libellé onomastique (le nom « John Cage »), son orientation disciplinaire (la « théorie littéraire ») et sa visée thématique (« la révision du commentaire critique »), se place d’emblée dans une posture d’écriture et de création. Il consiste à proposer comme point de départ l’identité de la forme textuelle et de sa dérivation métatextuelle, en d’autres mots : de la voix citée et analysée avec l’autre voix citante et analysante. Cette prémisse dérive elle-même d’une confrontation locale : les spécificités et les idiosyncrasies de la textualité mise en place par John Cage à partir des années quarante (partitions littéraires des recueils Silence et A Year from Monday, mésostiches de M et X, réécritures et « writing through » d’Empty Words…). En effet, l’examen par la théorie littéraire d’un corpus aussi disséminé et « néologique » que l’est celui de John Cage pousse son rédacteur à poser la question de sa propre écriture (« autoréflexivité ») et à rendre possible une réalisation artistique personnelle (« performativité »). C’est donc à travers la contingence d’une langue et d’une subjectivité au travail que la théorisation (textuelle) du texte cherche ici à s’élucider et à s’écrire. Le travail commence par installer les modalités à la fois circulaires et circulatoires de la théorie littéraire, une tension rhétorique et épistémologique qu’il identifie sous le nom d’« aporie autoréflexive » (le texte théorique est concerné par la question de lui-même). Il s’efforce ensuite d’analyser la nouveauté de l’œuvre littéraire cagienne, en empruntant un schéma dialectique et antagoniste : d’un côté, une « textualité-objet », originale et orthographique, de l’autre, une « textualité-sujet », disséminante et intertextuelle, anarchique et jubilatoire. Enfin, le texte propose la révision, la recomposition, la « réécriture » du commentaire critique sur les bases nouvelles d’une textologie autoréflexive et performative — une indiscipline d’écriture qui utilise sciemment les coordonnées linguistiques de son élocution (néologie, typographisme, procédés citationnels…) et qui fait place sans camouflage ou refoulement à la personnalité intertextuelle, contextuelle, métissée du rédacteur. Par l’entremise d’une sorte d’« exemplarité textuelle » (Cage), ce travail insiste pour une synthèse à la fois productive et expressive des voix analysées et analysantes dans les études littéraires. On verra que, par moments, cette proposition implique que le texte se marginalise. / The following text, despite its onomastic labelling (the name “John Cage”), its disciplinary orientation (“literary theory”), and its thematic aim (“the revision of the literary commentary”), positions itself as a writing and creative venture. It starts by stating the strict identity of texts and metatexts, in other words, of the quoted, analyzed voice, with the quoting, analyzing other voice. This premise derives from a specific confrontation: the specificities and idiosyncrasies of John Cage’s literary production since the late 1940s (the literary scores from the anthologies Silence and A Year from Monday, the mesostics from M and X, the rewritings and “Writing through’s” from Empty Words…). Indeed, the examination by literary theory of a body of work as disseminated and “neological” as John Cage’s encourages the literary critic or theoretician to ask the question of his own writing (“self-reflexivity”) and also to make possible an original artistic realization (“performativity”). It is therefore through the possibilities of a language and of a subjectivity at work that the (textual) theorization of texts tries herein to elucidate and to write itself. This work starts by setting up the modalities both circular and circulatory of literary theory—a rhetorical and epistemological tension that will be identified as the “self-reflexive aporia” (the theoretical text is primarily concerned by the question of itself). It then tries to analyze the novelty of Cage’s literary work, using a dialectical and antagonistic configuration: on one hand, an “objective textuality”, original and orthographical; on the other hand, a “subjective textuality”, disseminating and intertextual, anarchic and unrestrained. Finally, this text proposes the revision, recomposition and “rewriting” of the critical commentary on the basis of a new self-reflexive and performative textology. That is: a sort of undiscipline in writing that knowingly manoeuvres the linguistic coordinates of its elocution (neology, typographism, quotation processes…) and that does not try to conceal or repress the intertextual, contextual, heterogenous and disparate personality of its author. Through a sort of “textual exemplarity” (Cage), this work insists on a synthesis both productive and expressive between the voices analyzing and the voices being analyzed. We will see accordingly that this proposition implies, from time to time, that the text be marginalized.

The Meisner Technique emerged as a part of the realist, modern theatre of the early-Twentieth Century and extended its influence through the rest of that century, including the 1960s and 1970s when there was an explosion of various forms of postmodern performance. This work will demonstrate that while Meisner’s Technique is a part of the paradigm of modern, realist theatre, it simultaneously challenges this ideology with disruptive processes of the sort that postmodern performance instigates. It is the thesis of this work that the Meisner Technique operates according to a set of phenomenologically-aligned imperatives that create strong resonances with certain forms of postmodern performance. This establishes the dynamic wherein the Meisner Technique is able to enter into discourse with instances of the postmodern paradigm of performance. In the first three chapters I will conduct in-depth analyses of Meisner actors’ relationships with their environment, their fellow performers, and their actions from a range of phenomenological perspectives. In the fourth chapter I will apply the conclusions of these analyses to the operation of the Meisner Technique within the paradigm of modern, realist theatre. In the fifth chapter I will set a backdrop to the postmodern field and suggest the issues from this tradition with which the Meisner Technique might resonate. Chapters Six, Seven, and Eight each take one example of an artist from the postmodern field, Richard Foreman, Michael Kirby, and Robert Wilson respectively, establishes their own particular context, and suggests those processes relating to acting/performing technique that might provoke the most productive exchanges. This juxtaposition suggests the places between the practices where discourse might take root and suggests the beginnings of such dialogues.

The understanding, I draw from this inquiry has come through a muddy, and complex entangledprocess. I have been re-turning like a "Baradian" earthworm, to experiences of being, in spacesof not-knowing. Digesting the mud, moving it, once more, like worms do, through the body.By doing an agential cut, into two spaces, eventually three strong agents unfold: Risk,Vulnerability, and Trust. Out of this result, an ethical and pedagogical question arise: How totake account of Vulnerability and Trust when encouraging our students to Risk?Entering a space of not knowing is at the foundation of my art practice. When as an arteducator,I went to China to inquire into the educational strategies of Chinese Classical Painting,I found myself thrown into a multitude of spaces of not knowing. This thesis, is an inquiry intohow being in such spaces, perform knowledge. To explore this, I return to the field-notes andvisual material including a report in the form of a visual essay of the study from 2011. I re-turnto this material with new tools and concepts inspired by Karen Barads metaphors of diffractionand earth-worms approach, as well as my artists tools: brush, water colours, ink, and paper;inrtoducing painting as a tool for analysis.As a theoretical approach, I entangle the flat ontology of Deleuze and Guattari, and theonto-epistem-ology of Barad, with the philosophical traditions in China of Buddhism and Dao.From an onto-epistem-ological perspective, I ask the question: "If we know about the worldbecause we are of the world," what knowledge then appear, when we experience our being in theworld as a space of not knowing. In this study, I have found that a space of not knowing performlearning through experiences of Vulnerability, Risk and Trust.The art part of this thesis is connected to Risk as well as to Vulnerability and Trust. Itfeatures a rope hanging from the ceiling to the floor. It is a rope that has been used during severalyears by a Circus artist during performances; hanging high up in the ceiling — demanding focusand presence from him. The installation at Konstfack spring-show 2018 featured the Circus artistrope together with a painting made in the context of Buddhist Vipassana meditation, entanglingmy tactile approach in art, with the text of this thesis.

<p>Bilaga: 1 partitur</p>

Le texte qui suit, malgré son libellé onomastique (le nom « John Cage »), son orientation disciplinaire (la « théorie littéraire ») et sa visée thématique (« la révision du commentaire critique »), se place d’emblée dans une posture d’écriture et de création. Il consiste à proposer comme point de départ l’identité de la forme textuelle et de sa dérivation métatextuelle, en d’autres mots : de la voix citée et analysée avec l’autre voix citante et analysante. Cette prémisse dérive elle-même d’une confrontation locale : les spécificités et les idiosyncrasies de la textualité mise en place par John Cage à partir des années quarante (partitions littéraires des recueils Silence et A Year from Monday, mésostiches de M et X, réécritures et « writing through » d’Empty Words…). En effet, l’examen par la théorie littéraire d’un corpus aussi disséminé et « néologique » que l’est celui de John Cage pousse son rédacteur à poser la question de sa propre écriture (« autoréflexivité ») et à rendre possible une réalisation artistique personnelle (« performativité »). C’est donc à travers la contingence d’une langue et d’une subjectivité au travail que la théorisation (textuelle) du texte cherche ici à s’élucider et à s’écrire. Le travail commence par installer les modalités à la fois circulaires et circulatoires de la théorie littéraire, une tension rhétorique et épistémologique qu’il identifie sous le nom d’« aporie autoréflexive » (le texte théorique est concerné par la question de lui-même). Il s’efforce ensuite d’analyser la nouveauté de l’œuvre littéraire cagienne, en empruntant un schéma dialectique et antagoniste : d’un côté, une « textualité-objet », originale et orthographique, de l’autre, une « textualité-sujet », disséminante et intertextuelle, anarchique et jubilatoire. Enfin, le texte propose la révision, la recomposition, la « réécriture » du commentaire critique sur les bases nouvelles d’une textologie autoréflexive et performative — une indiscipline d’écriture qui utilise sciemment les coordonnées linguistiques de son élocution (néologie, typographisme, procédés citationnels…) et qui fait place sans camouflage ou refoulement à la personnalité intertextuelle, contextuelle, métissée du rédacteur. Par l’entremise d’une sorte d’« exemplarité textuelle » (Cage), ce travail insiste pour une synthèse à la fois productive et expressive des voix analysées et analysantes dans les études littéraires. On verra que, par moments, cette proposition implique que le texte se marginalise. / The following text, despite its onomastic labelling (the name “John Cage”), its disciplinary orientation (“literary theory”), and its thematic aim (“the revision of the literary commentary”), positions itself as a writing and creative venture. It starts by stating the strict identity of texts and metatexts, in other words, of the quoted, analyzed voice, with the quoting, analyzing other voice. This premise derives from a specific confrontation: the specificities and idiosyncrasies of John Cage’s literary production since the late 1940s (the literary scores from the anthologies Silence and A Year from Monday, the mesostics from M and X, the rewritings and “Writing through’s” from Empty Words…). Indeed, the examination by literary theory of a body of work as disseminated and “neological” as John Cage’s encourages the literary critic or theoretician to ask the question of his own writing (“self-reflexivity”) and also to make possible an original artistic realization (“performativity”). It is therefore through the possibilities of a language and of a subjectivity at work that the (textual) theorization of texts tries herein to elucidate and to write itself. This work starts by setting up the modalities both circular and circulatory of literary theory—a rhetorical and epistemological tension that will be identified as the “self-reflexive aporia” (the theoretical text is primarily concerned by the question of itself). It then tries to analyze the novelty of Cage’s literary work, using a dialectical and antagonistic configuration: on one hand, an “objective textuality”, original and orthographical; on the other hand, a “subjective textuality”, disseminating and intertextual, anarchic and unrestrained. Finally, this text proposes the revision, recomposition and “rewriting” of the critical commentary on the basis of a new self-reflexive and performative textology. That is: a sort of undiscipline in writing that knowingly manoeuvres the linguistic coordinates of its elocution (neology, typographism, quotation processes…) and that does not try to conceal or repress the intertextual, contextual, heterogenous and disparate personality of its author. Through a sort of “textual exemplarity” (Cage), this work insists on a synthesis both productive and expressive between the voices analyzing and the voices being analyzed. We will see accordingly that this proposition implies, from time to time, that the text be marginalized. / Toutes les illustrations qui ponctuent cette thèse ont été réalisées par Chantal Poirier. Elles ont été insérées dans le texte selon un ordre méticuleusement aléatoire.