The purpose of this thesis is to assess theories of emotion, meaning, and expression in music from the perspective of the performer. While a significant body of research is devoted to theories about such matters—to which I will refer collectively as “theories of communicative content”—there is a general lack of attention paid to how such theories apply in actual music performance. In other words, these theories tend to avoid explicating not only how music conveys such content in acts of performance, but also how performers, through such acts, imbue music with communicative content. I seek to address this oversight because the process of applying communicative content in performance, indeed, the very process of performing itself, may offer insight into the mechanisms involved for making music meaningful and expressive. To that end, I will investigate evidence from actual musical practice and from actual music practitioners. The thesis will consider current research on expression, meaning, and emotion in music, propose a new model that derives from performance itself, and assess old and new models alike through case-study interviews with professional-level performers. By bringing the performer’s voice into the discussion, this thesis aims to formulate a model that not only gives an accurate account of how music becomes meaningful in performance, but also provides musicians with clearly defined methods for how to make music in ways that are emotionally charged and meaningfully expressive.

This thesis explores what I call 'physical spectatorship' as it is generated by a group of films concerned with the mutilation of the human body. Focusing on the representation of mutilation on the screen and the physical responses this evokes, the thesis is organised around the study of a series of dynamic engagements that reconfigure the film-viewer relationship; these include: corporeal mimicry and the cinematic visualisations of mutilation; generalised anxiety and experimental use of sound; and the nausea generated by audio-visual techniques that both signify and locate the filmic gut in the viewer's body. Combining close textual analyses with theoretical approaches, this thesis draws upon psychoanalytic, phenomenological and feminist theories of film and spectatorship. Throughout the chapters, my argument builds upon the work of Vivian Sobchack and Laura Marks in order to interrogate further what might be meant by the notion of the embodied spectator. The chapters explore this notion, alongside that of the film viewer, to generate a dialogue with previous theorists of the cinematic spectator, including Christian Metz and Richard Rushton. Exploring through close textual analyses the specific filmic techniques that generate intense physical responses, this thesis argues that the mutilation film demands a rethinking of some of the key categories in theories of spectatorship. Extending across national cinemas and reaching beyond conventional generic distinctions, the mutilation film produces a visceral aesthetic that has yet to be analysed. Focusing on particular aspects of the mutilation film, such as the assault narrative sequence, use of extreme frequencies and haptic sounds and images, the thesis offers detailed readings of the following texts: Dans Ma Peau (Marina de Van, 2002), Irréversible (Gaspar Noé, 2002), Saw II (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2005) Saw III (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2006) Saw IV (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2007) Saw V (David Hackl, 2008) Saw VI (Kevin Greutert, 2009) Saw 3D (Kevin Greutert, 2010), Hostel (Eli Roth, 2005), À l'intérieur (Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, 2007), The Human Centipede: First Sequence (Tom Six, 2009) and The Human Centipede: Full Sequence (Tom Six, 2011).The analyses that form this thesis demonstrate the problems with separating notions of the 'spectator as textual construction' from that of the 'viewer as physically embodied'; yet these readings also indicate the necessity of continuing the task of conceptualising their interrelatedness, rather than simply using them interchangeably. The conclusion argues that the concept of physical spectatorship offers one way to understand how particular contemporary aesthetics have reconfigured the boundary between viewer and film.

Die Dissertation ist eine medienhistorische Studie über die Einführung des Tons im sowjetischen Kino, die ästhetische und technologische Veränderungen in einem weiter gefassten politischen und kulturellen Kontext interpretiert. In historischen Untersuchungen des frühen Tonfilms der letzten zehn Jahre wurde der sowjetischen Methode des asynchronen Tons häufig die verbreitetere Methode der möglichst genauen Synchronisation gegenübergestellt, wie sie von der Filmindustrie in Hollywood in den späten 1920er und frühen 1930er Jahren entwickelt wurde. Die Arbeit geht über diese zum Standard gewordene Erzählung hinaus. In einer Reihe von Fallstudien wird die Arbeit sowjetischer Filmemacher, Drehbuchautoren, Filmtheoretiker und Toningenieure analysiert, um zu demonstrieren, dass in der Sowjetunion in der Frühphase des Filmtons sehr unterschiedliche Haltungen zum Ton existierten. Die Dissertation konzentriert sich sowohl auf die Theorien des Filmtons als auch auf die Praktiken, wobei es sich unter anderem auf Dziga Vertov, Nikolai Ekk, Michail Cechanovskij und Pavel Tager bezieht. Die Begriffe „Asynchronizität“ und „Synchronizität“ haben in den Debatten über die Einführung des Tonfilms in der Sowjetunion eine zentrale Rolle gespielt. Die vorliegende Dissertation bietet die erste grundlegende Untersuchung dieser Begriffe innerhalb des Kontextes der komplexen Ursprünge des frühen sowjetischen Tonfilms. / The dissertation is a media-historical study of the emergence of sound in Soviet cinema, which links aesthetic and technological changes to the broader political and cultural context. Over the last decade, histories of early sound film have usually contrasted the Soviet method of asynchronous sound to the prevalent method of tight synchronization as it was popularized by the Hollywood film industry in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The dissertation looks beyond this standardized narrative. In a series of case studies, it analyzes the work of Soviet filmmakers, screenwriters, film theoreticians and acoustical engineers to demonstrate that many diverse approaches to sound were actually in play at the onset of film sound in the Soviet Union. The dissertation focuses on both film sound theory and practice mainly in the works of Dziga Vertov, Nikolai Ekk, Pavel Tager and Mikhail Tsekhanovsky. The terms “asynchronicity” and “synchronicity” were central in the debates about the emergence of sound film in the Soviet Union. This study provides the first thorough examination of these terms within the context of the complex origins of early Soviet sound cinema.

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo estudar a relação som-imagem nos filmes de animação norte-americanos realizados no período final do cinema silencioso e no início do cinema sonoro. Foram feitos levantamentos históricos sobre o processo de produção do cinema de animação e sobre o processo de criação de suas trilhas sonoras antes e após o advento do som sincrônico. A partir desses levantamentos e da análise de curtas-metragens do final da década de 1920, identificou-se características próprias do cinema de animação tanto em relação ao uso de soluções visuais para sugestões sonoras nos filmes silenciosos quanto à criação de uma relação única entre som e imagem nos filmes sonoros, especialmente nos filmes produzidos por Walt Disney. / The present work aims at studying the sound-image relationship in North American animated films made at the end of the silent era and in the beginning of the sound film era. Historical surveys have been developed about the production process of animated films and about the creative process of their soundtrack before and after the advent of synchronized sound. From these surveys and analysis of short films made at the end of the 1920s, specific traits of animated film have been identified in regard to visual solutions for sound suggestion in silent cartoons as well as the creation of a unique relationship between image and sound in the sound films, especially in Walt Disney\'s films.

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo estudar a relação som-imagem nos filmes de animação norte-americanos realizados no período final do cinema silencioso e no início do cinema sonoro. Foram feitos levantamentos históricos sobre o processo de produção do cinema de animação e sobre o processo de criação de suas trilhas sonoras antes e após o advento do som sincrônico. A partir desses levantamentos e da análise de curtas-metragens do final da década de 1920, identificou-se características próprias do cinema de animação tanto em relação ao uso de soluções visuais para sugestões sonoras nos filmes silenciosos quanto à criação de uma relação única entre som e imagem nos filmes sonoros, especialmente nos filmes produzidos por Walt Disney. / The present work aims at studying the sound-image relationship in North American animated films made at the end of the silent era and in the beginning of the sound film era. Historical surveys have been developed about the production process of animated films and about the creative process of their soundtrack before and after the advent of synchronized sound. From these surveys and analysis of short films made at the end of the 1920s, specific traits of animated film have been identified in regard to visual solutions for sound suggestion in silent cartoons as well as the creation of a unique relationship between image and sound in the sound films, especially in Walt Disney\'s films.

Dans cette thèse, il est question d'interroger la relation entre le son et l'image dans les pratiques plastiques actuelles à partir de travaux majoritairement vidéographiques et de tenter de déterminer comment cette articulation est un vecteur de violence, d'émotion, de fascination mais également comment elle s'inscrit dans le contexte de l'émergence de la pensée, du déplacement du sens et de la réception de l'oeuvre par le spectateur. Ces rapports entre le visuel et le sonore sont dégagés au fil des vidéos rencontrées et une analyse à caractère plus spécifiquement monographique est menée à partir des oeuvres d'Ange Leccia produites de 1982 à 2013 et celles de Douglas Gordon réalisées de 1990 à 2008. Une partie de cette étude est également consacrée à faire émerger la problématique du travail vidéographique de l'auteur de cette thèse en lien avec la thématique abordée. En dernier lieu, une analyse comparée met en regard les pratiques d'Ange Leccia, de Douglas Gordon, celles d'artistes contemporains ainsi que celles de l'auteur de ce texte en privilégiant les liaisons du sonore et du visuel dans les travaux plastiques réalisés à partir du réemploi d'images d'archives, de films cinématographiques et l'utilisation de chansons populaires. / The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relation between sound and image in the actual artistic works and especially from video art and to try to determine how this linkage provides violence, emotion, fascination but also how it comes within the scope of the contest of the thinking emergence, the meaning shifting, the work reception by the public. These links between visual and sound parts are brought out from videos coming across the discussion thread and a more specifically monographic analysis is drawn from the Ange Leccia's artistic work producted from 1982 to 2013 and Douglas Gordon's one realized from 1990 to 2008. One part of this study is also devoted to the videographic work problematics of the author of this thesis with respect to the theme involved. Lastly, a comparative analysis puts in a position to question the artistic practice of Ange Leccia and Douglas Gordon, of contemporary artists and the work of the author of this text favouring the relation between sound and image which relies on artistic work based on the sampling of archives, of movies and the use of popular songs.