I’m pleased to announce that my latest article about one of my compositions ‘We Lived in the Gaps between the Stories.’Ā (2017) has been published in the latest ‘Women and Music’ journal (vol 22, 2018).
More information about this journal’s latest volume can be found here.
Women and Music
A Journal of Gender and Culture
Edited by Emily Wilbourne
Tomorrow I will be giving a talk at theĀ āExploring Xenakis: Performance, Practice, Philosophyā Symposium with colleague and critical theorist Michael D. Atkinson. Our talk discusses Xenakis, the Avant Garde, May ’68 and the legendary quoteĀ āXenakis, not Gounodā which was scrawled in graffiti during the protests in France.
Image Source: https://www.slideshare.net/victoriameyers/3sndurburbdes11413 [accessed: 11.09.17]
Below is an abstract of our talk:
May ā68 saw a time of political tension in France: the Situationist International signified a growing desire to move away from capitalism and the world of boredom and alienation it entails, and, likewise, young radicals wanted to free music from the shackles of reification that contradicted the notion of āavant gardeā. People protested via music, vandalism, public broadcasts, sexuality, subversive behaviour, and vandalism. Graffiti was rife, with phrases such as āCommute, work, commute, sleepā¦ā, āIn a society that has abolished every kind of adventure the only adventure that remains is to abolish the societyā, and āArt is dead, donāt consume its corpse.ā Upon the walls of the Conservatoire National SupĆ©rieur de Musique de Paris were graffitied the words āXenakis, not Gounodā.
This focus on an avant-garde practice that exemplifies experimentation, chance, subversion, and the like was part of an effort to sublate art with everyday life, that is, to enact a revolution of everyday life. In this talk, we will explore the intertwining of such revolutionary desires with the avant-garde tendencies of the day, and, further, how the ageing, commodification, and subsequent reification of the Avant Garde is antithetical to the desires and ideology behind itself. We will focus in particular on how Xenakis and those like him became central to the revolutionary consciousness of the day, and what it is about Xenakisā practice that paradoxically disavows such possibilities.
I will be giving a talk at the University of Leeds in December.Ā More information will be available hereĀ at some point. My talk is based on my PhD thesis, and is titled ‘”avant garde” and “Avant Garde”: A Practice-Led Investigation’. Below is an abstract for the talk:
āavant gardeā and āAvant Gardeā: one term denotes artistic progression, the other describes a fixed concept. Both fuel artistic practice. The terms are easily and often confused and this goes someway to blurring the boundaries between being progressive and adhering to a style. This talk examines and compares these two definitions by way of an introspective examination of the compositional process. Investigations involve a series of forced attempts at being avant garde (progressive); however, as will become clear throughout this talk, forced attempts at being progressive are destined to fail due to the inescapable phenomenon of Menoās paradox that, instead, explains the existence of the Avant Garde as a fixed concept.Ā Theoretical research suggests that this is symptomatic of the way current society is organised. This talk explores ways in which compositional practice can work with the societal status quo in order to be avant garde in the progressive sense.
The above image comprises the cover of the 1983 edition of Guy Debordās Society of the Spectacle by J.R. Eyerman, superimposed onto a photo of Kasimir Malevichās Black Square taken by Micha Theiner (edited by Michael D. Atkinson and Alannah Marie Halay).
Image credit:Ā Kasimir Malevich, J.R. Eyerman, Micha Theiner, Michael D. Atkinson, Alannah Marie Halay
I have recently completed editing a multi-authored book based on the proceedings of theĀ (Per)Forming Art Symposium which I founded in 2015. I am pleased to announce that the bookĀ will beĀ available via the Cambridge Scholars Publishing website from the 1st October, 2016.
This publication is based on the proceedings of the firstĀ (Per)Forming ArtĀ event, which took place September, 2015. More information regarding this event can be found here.
Further information regarding this publication can be found on theĀ (Per)Forming Art website.
Below is a book description, which is also available on the Cambridge Scholars Publishing website:
Front cover: Alannah Marie Halay (ed.), (Per)Forming Art: Performance as Research in Contemporary ArtworksĀ
Book Description:
Tomorrow I will present a paper at a postgraduate symposium inĀ Leeds about composition and what it might entail. This talk also forms a small part of the argument in my PhD thesis. A the moment, it poses more questions than it answers. Below is an abstract for this talk:
What is really involved in the act of composing? Does it concern āmaterialā (whatever that is) or structure? Are composers genuinely ācreatingā when they compose or are they merely rearranging what already exists into a coherent form? In order to explore this area, my investigation begins with the following question: what level of constituent āmaterialā is necessary for a piece to be recognised as the same piece or to be identified as a different piece? My practice-led investigation into this query concerns a series of compositions where each piece is a re-ordered version of the first composition in the series. This collection of pieces poses several research questions: first, can (or will) these pieces be perceived as separate compositions that share the same obvious āblocksā of material (which is essentially what they are) or as essentially the same composition? Second, if perceived as separate, do the āmovementsā in this collection sound like separate compositions by different composers or like separate compositions by the same composer? Third, if they sound like separate compositions by the same composer, then is it the micro-level which determines whether or not a piece sounds like it is written by a particular composer? Finally, what can this research say about the act of composing?
IntersticeĀ is out and available to download via iTunes! More information can be found here.
IntersticeĀ is an artwork and iPhone app that enables users to record, and listen to, an audible representation of their heartbeat. It also allows users to select a musical fragment to accompany their heartbeat. As such, users from all over the world are able to collaborate in the formation of a composition comprising an intricate cacophony of audible heartbeats and musical fragments.
Users can listen to the resultant conglomeration of audible heartbeats and musical fragments by navigating a three-dimensional representation of Earth.
Each user can add up to five audible representations of their heart rate with an accompanying musical fragment. Any one of these five recorded heart rates with accompanying musical fragments can be deleted and replaced with new submissions at any time.
Interstice is created by software developer Samuel Halay and composer Alannah Marie Halay.Ā More information behindĀ Interstice‘s conceptual framework can be found here and here.
Tomorrow I will present a paper in theĀ PGRĀ Symposium at the University of Leeds. My presentation will discuss how performance can be consciously applied to the compositional process.
The acts of composing and performing are central processes to the formation of a musical work. Performance is a medium through which music is formed. It is a significant part of a workās compositional process and, as such, forms a symbiotic relationship with the act of composing. An iterative cycle between performance and composition comes about when the composer performs their own work and/or composes through performance. Performance in this manner can be seen as a form of practice-based research that can guide the compositional process. This presentation explores the relationship between composition and performance with a particular focus on how the act of performing can be used as a compositional process. It explains such an approach in relation to some recent compositions, and makes reference to the ā(Per)Forming Artā Symposium, an annual event which IĀ began organising this yearĀ and held for the first timeĀ in September at the University of Leeds.
More information about the (Per)Forming Art symposium can be found here.
I have recently organised a symposium that explores performance and composition and practice-led research. More information can be found here.
The acts of composing and performing are central processes to the formation of a musical work. Performance is a medium through which music is formed. It is a significant part of a workās compositional process and, as such, forms a symbiotic relationship with the act of composing. An iterative cycle between performance and composition comes about when the composer performs their own work or composes through performance. Performance in this manner can be seen as a form of practice-based research that can guide the compositional process.
Primarily engaging with music of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, (Per)Forming Art: Performance as Research in Contemporary Artworks focuses on performance as a type of compositional technique and as a mode of practice-based research for the act of composing a work. It addresses how performance and composition are reciprocally entwined and what role this hermeneutic relationship plays in creative practice today. This publication is the work of multiple authors from academic institutions around the world; each approaches the topic ā(Per)Forming Artā from their own perspective. As such, the contents of this book will appeal to a variety of academic interests pertaining to various āstyles,ā traditions and cultures, all of which are unified by the relationship between performance and composition.
IĀ would like to thank the following researchers for contributing to this book:Ā Michael D. Atkinson (Sheffield Hallam University);Ā Gabriele Cavallo (Goldsmiths, University of London);Ā HansāPeter Gasselseder (University of Aalborg);Ā Jacopo Gianninoto (Assumption University of Thailand);Ā Maria KallionpƤƤ (University of Oxford);Ā Marina Liontou Mochament (Leiden University, Orpheus Institute);Ā Adilia Yip (Royal Conservatoire Antwerp);Ā Cornelia Zambila (Orpheus Institute Ghent)