Sunday, July 17, 2016

CfP: composition as critical practice


For its 10th Research Seminar, "Sound Work", the Orpheus Institute is investigating "composition as critical technical practice". 

Jonathan Impett, artistic researcher

Jonathan Impett



The seminar is convened by composer-performer-researcher Jonathan Impett, and will take pace on 21-23 November 2016, in Ghent, Belgium. At about that time, the last installment of the hot 2015 UK debate on "composition as research" will have been a year old (see here and here for more on that debate). The Orpheus Seminar "will consider composition as a research activity - a process informed by theory and intuition, constraint and contingency, expectation and experience. It is a continuous iterative process of inscription and reflection in which its models, metaphors, aspirations, obligations, tools and technologies all play a part. This process is distributed temporally, socially and materially. The artefacts of composition – however notated, improvised, virtual, embodied or technologically implemented – are hybrid technical objects. Neither pure ‘inspiration’ not unmediated formalism account for what they contribute. We might rather consider composition as a design process, and study its dynamics and decisions in the spirit of critical technical practice – a term coined by Philip Agre in his work on the creation of the artefacts of artificial intelligence."

Keynote speakers are Nicolas Collins (Art Institute of Chicago) and Alan Blackwell (interdisciplinary design - University of Cambridge). The call aims at proposals by practitioners from all disciplines, particularly welcoming "presentations that explore the demonstration of composition as research in innovative ways." The deadline for proposals, to be sent to info@orpheusinstituut.be, is August 17, 2016.

More information can be read here.

No comments: