Sound Scripts
Abstract
In this paper I describe my live performance practice utilising bespoke synthesisers and controllers. I address the conceptual approach and processes in the context of esoteric systems and give a technical description of the instruments. I situate my work in the context of Victorian Spiritualism and magic ritual. Following their precedent, I amalgamate systems and esoteric concepts to meet the goals of transformation and connecting to unknown forces, designing hybrid systems that allow me to approach a performance as an automatic mediumship process. I work primarily with NASA’s lunar orbital data, W.B. Yeats’ esoteric system detailed in A Vision (1937), and the Tarot. These systems, in conjunction with the hardware instruments, allow me to devise an invocation performance practice, where I draw forth music from the aether, tapping into unseen and unknown forces outside of myself. Opposing binaries of the analogue and the digital, hardware and software, scientific data and esoteric systems, produce a ritual invocatory performance. The depth and complexity of the systems are such that I can abandon Western musical conventions while maintaining a sense of form and structure, creating a framework for receiving and embracing transmissions from the vast possibilities of noise, the cosmos, and translating them into an immersive listening experience.
Recommended Citation
Carroll, N. L.
(2019).
Everything in its Place: A Conceptual Framework For Anti-Music.
Sound Scripts, 6(1).
Retrieved from
https://ro.ecu.edu.au/soundscripts/vol6/iss1/15
