Desiring-Machines: In between Difference and Repetition, Performer and Conductor, Cyclones and Physicality, Structure and Notation

DESIRING-MACHINES: IN BETWEEN DIFFERENCE AND REPETITION, PERFORMER AND CONDUCTOR, CYCLONES AND PHYSICALITY, STRUCTURE AND NOTATION EINAR TORFI EINARSSON INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND N MY RECENT MUSIC I EXPLORE what I like to call the separation of inseparable things by focusing on the physical nature of performance. This involves prescriptive notation and a special treatment of performers ’ physical actions, such as presenting material, which is normally united notationally, as separate parameters—e.g., left and right hands of string players getting their own part. As physicality is concerned, the movements of both hands—or fingers, hands, and mouths—do not have to work together for a specific end result as history would have it, they can be considered as independently moving forces, working for an unknown end result, rhythmically and dynamically independent. This is what Aaron Cassidy has termed “decoupling,” where physical components of players are decoupled from each other, often resulting in I 6 Perspectives of New Music unknown sonic results.1 This has consequences for our ideas of sound production and, importantly, notation, since new ways to notate this emphasis and focus—or these productive forces—must be explored. In the light of these techniques, I explored the concept of decoupling in other areas of compositional material, namely tempo. It occurred to me that tempo, too, could be decoupled from the rest—i.e., becoming an independent force, affecting other materials in unpredictable ways. What if tempo is rhythmically and dynamically independent, noncorresponding , and not in any way a joining mechanism nor a common ground for performers? This is what the piece Desiring-Machines2 explores in addition to employing the other decoupling mechanisms. When tempo is isolated or separated in this manner and becomes its own part, the conductor becomes the performer of that part. Desiring-Machines has other influential factors that relate to the treatment of the conductor. First, I should mention Dieter Schnebel’s visible music II for solo conductor.3 This piece is influential because it separates the conductor from any performer and treats the conductor independently with its own score/part. It therefore provokes a different way of thinking about the conductor. I wanted to explore this independence of the conductor further but somehow maintain his function to the performers. Keeping the conductor partly connected brings a certain active tension/perturbation and makes the conductor/ performer situation much more dynamic and intensive as it joins together separation and inseparability (the stable and the unstable). In that regard, the conductor’s function is destabilized. Another influential source comes from Aaron Cassidy’s And the scream, Bacon’s scream, is the operation through which the entire body escapes through the mouth (or, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion), where this tempo staff is present (Example 1). This tempo-staff hints at a separated conductor as it destabilizes and engages the conductor almost in an independent way. I say “almost” because this is not yet a fully independent conductor’s part. Since it is still attached to the time signatures and the bar structure belonging to the performers, it is fully corresponding (i.e., there is always a clear bar number and a clear downbeat, clear locality, etc.). It could therefore be argued that the conductor is there still functioning conventionally in the sense that he/she conducts in order to join. And that is exactly what Desiring-Machines wanted to reverse, namely to give the conductor the function of disjoining or separating: a disruptive conductor . This last thing relates to the non-musical third source, which is Stelarc’s “Split Body.” The “Split Body” is part of the performance art project by Stelarc in which the body is connected to a multiple-muscle stimulator, making involuntary physical movements possible. Desiring-Machines: In between Difference and Repetition 7 Technology now allows you to be physically moved by another mind. A computer interfaced MULTIPLE-MUSCLE STIMULATOR makes possible the complex programming of involuntary movements either in a local place or in a remote location. Part of your body would be moving, you’ve neither willed it to move, nor are you internally contracting your muscles to produce that movement . . . . There would be new interactive possibilities...