The Identity of the Work: agents and processes of electroacoustic music

Abstract

An electroacoustic musical work is a complex network of processes and elements: technical, musical, human, etc.; therefore, while the aesthetic perception is unified, its definition is fragmentary. This observation compels us to intensify our study of a taxonomy of agents and processes, with the aim of clarifying the identity of this music.

The discussion is positioned according to two different vantage points: (i) analysis of works, and (ii) the writings devoted to the aesthetics of electroacoustic music. Musicological analysis is simultaneously the means, the goal and the motivation for getting to know this arborescent reality. It allows us to arrive at the identification of six agents and four processes associated with the work, whose main properties we will describe. These elements are used as a methodological and theoretical grid for organising the discussion about the works. The question centres on a paradigm which is created from the analysis and returns to it, as an essential link between hermeneutic knowledge and the knowledge of the internal logic of an electroacoustic work.