Intra-Agencies

In my recent practice I have developed a model of composition based on cybernetics, ANT, and interactions between human and material agencies. This model is a strict application of two overlapping processes enacted within a nonlinear and indeterminate acoustic environment. Typically this environment is musical/acoustic material that is metastable and extensible, affording stable patterns under certain conditions; multiphonics are a simple but non-exhaustive example of this. This article presents my current work-in-progress, a piece for solo cello, (1) discussing treatment of the instrument as a nonlinear space of acoustic continua (rather than event-based musical actions), and (2) outlining a theoretical basis for the performative exploration of such unstable musical materials by referring to research in the sociology/anthropology of science and technology (Lucy Suchman’s theory of Situated Actions), and philosophy of science (Andrew Pickering’s theories of human and material agencies).