Call for Papers
Music Ex Machina: Methods and Methodologies for Technology-centred Practice-Based Research in Contemporary Music
This call is now closed. Registrations for this symposium will open shortly.
Royal Holloway, University of London
16 June 2023
Keynote Speaker: Dr Scott McLaughlin, University of Leeds
The entanglement of digital technology within practices of contemporary music-making cannot be overstated. Varied forms of cutting-edge technology, both hardware and software incorporating programming languages and artificial intelligence, are so enmeshed within contemporary music as to form its very aesthetic backbone as well as the stimulus allowing access to new forms of expression. But in the ‘expanded field’ within which traditional roles of composer and performer are up for renegotiation (Shlomowitz 2018), what role does technology, itself a social and multi-layered actant (Latour 1991), play within the creative methods and methodologies of contemporary musical practice? Beyond an enabling tool or novel conduit, how does digital technology shape and affect creative musical processes?
This symposium, co-hosted by Cyborg Soloists and Technology in Musical Performance (TiMP), will explore and reflect upon the new methods and methodologies afforded by cutting edge technologies in creative musical practice, including but not limited to:
Machine learning and AI
AR and VR technologies
Motion sensors or capture
Instrument building and design
Hyperinstruments
Wearables
We invite researchers/artist-researchers working with such technologies in the field of contemporary music to submit abstracts for presented papers. These could include composers, performers, sound artists, software developers, instrument builders, and others involved in creating works with technology for live performance. Papers relating to the symposium theme are welcome, but might reflect specifically upon any of the following topics:
Recent technological developments and how they pose opportunities and challenges for contemporary music.
New approaches to composition or performance catalysed by recent technological developments.
Development and critique of new or existing practice-based methodologies.
Examining impacts of practice-research in technology-focused contemporary music on other fields or industries.
Conceptual frameworks used in the analysis of technologically-informed practice.
The relationship and tensions between creative processes and artistic outputs.
Methods of documentation and ethnography in technologically-informed practice.
Agency and affect of technological actants within creative practice.
Ontologies, epistemologies and phenomenologies.
Perspectives relating to the posthuman, transhuman, ahuman, more-than-human, metahuman and cyborg.
Presenters might share finished work and ideas or work-in-progress. The symposium is a chance to open a dialogue about your work and offer constructive feedback to peers.
How to submit
Please submit abstracts (200 words) and bios (100 words) to mark.dyer@rhul.ac.uk and caitlin.rowley@rhul.ac.uk by 26 March 2023. Successful applicants will be notified by 14 April 2023.
Selected contributors will be asked to present 20-minute papers followed by 10 minutes for questions.
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