Presenters for 2004:   Stephanie Andrews   Christopher Bailey   Joanna Berzowska   Shushil Bhakar   and Eric Hortop   Cliff Burgess   Paulo Chagas   Dennis Dollens   Dan Falk   Sarah Filley   Ivette Fuentes-Guridi   Lila Kari   Narendra Pachkhede   Chris Salter   Chelsea Smock   Clara Ursitti   Derek van der Kooy   Yon Visell   Fabian Winkler   Panel Discussion Symposium, 2004 Musical gesture, technology and interdisciplinarity By Paulo C. Chagas KlangStudioC http://www.composers21.com/compdocs/chagaspc.htm In this presentation I develop a semiotic analysis of musical gestures and show how the use of technology in my piece Circular Roots -- for violin, electroacoustic sounds and interactive video processing -- contribute to the emergence of a new interdisciplinarity artistic situation. The starting point of my investigation is the role of gesture on musical understanding. According to Wittgenstein (1952; 1998; 2001) and Cavell (2000) gestures can be defined as expressions of instances and directions of projection of musical understanding. The gesture of listening, as pointed out by Flusser (1994), expresses the transformation of both body in music and music in body. Traditional musical sounds are originally produced by analog gestures. Instrumental sounds require a synchronized action between bodies and objects: the sound symbolizes the projection of a physical, muscular and intellectual effort of the vibrating object. The instrumental gestures make visible this projection. Gestures in electroacoustic music are decoded as expressions of programs. Programs are models involving technology that are communicated within the communication process (Flusser 2000). The apparatus enhances the musical possibilities, for example through automation, simulation, sound processing, information processing, etc. Electroacoustic music can also be seen under the aspect of interdisciplinarity, as part of the general category of sound art, which redefines the connections between opposite concepts like sound and noise, sound and image, music and language, voice and instrument, body and machine, real and virtual, etc. Interdisciplinarity expands polyphony (Chagas 2003) by recycling the previous material -- vocal and instrumental gestures -- through technology and creating new situations of understanding that are expressed by its own gestures, which, as suggested by Wittgenstein, can be defined as gestures of gestures. Circular Roots is an interdisciplinary sound and image composition exploring the interaction between instrumental and technological gestures. Sensors attached to the body of the violinist and/or the bow capture instrumental gestures, which are used to control image sound and image processing. Sensors information is interpreted as dynamic processes suggesting gestures that express the changing of some quality over time. The systematic use of feedback and recursivity for musical and image shaping emphasizes the gesture of circularity as the basic idea of the composition. Biography: Born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil in 1953, Paulo C. Chagas is a composer, theoretician and researcher in music technology. He has a PhD in Musicology (University of Liègeand), has worked as Sound Director of the Studio for Electronic Music of the WDR Radio, Cologne. He conducts research into electronic and computer music, algorithmic composition, interactivity and intermedia. References: Cavell, Stanley (2000). Excursus on Wittgenstein's Vision of Language. In: The New Wittgenstein. Alice Crary and Rupert Read (eds.). 21-37. London; New York: Routledge. Chagas, Paulo C. (2003). Polyphonie, Forme, Art Sonore [PhD Dissertation manuscript]. Liège: Universitéde Liège.   Page Top Copyright © 2004 Subtle Technologies Festival