Rights have become a major issue today for composers and authors. In a technologically changing world, it is never easy to know what to do when it comes to publishing content on the Web. It is clear that there is no easy solution. However, methods for Web publishing exist; it is mainly a question of acquiring the necessary information and trying to sort out what is the best context for each country.

In this paper I try to outline a model that can bring out the meaningful relationships between ‘the instrumental’ and ‘the electronics’ in mixed music. The model is based on the semiotic square which is considered in semiotics as a powerful conceptual framework to examine the relationships between two terms (S1/S2) and their negative (non-S1/non-S2), terms which can be characters, situations, actions, concepts, etc. Two paradigmatic axes represent the relations between the actors of mixed music: the sources (instrumental and electronic) on the one hand, and the manipulations (real-time processing and sound projection) on the other. According to the semiotic square, the relations inside the environment are defined in terms of contrariety, contradiction and complementarity. This model allows us to start out with a purely technological description of the ‘mixed music’ genre and of individual pieces, with the advantage of a pre-operative analysis of the system. It describes the immanent structure of the environments and releases the potential interactions between the instrumental and the electronics of mixed music. These interactions are examined, from a paradigmatic point of view, with numerous representative pieces of mixed music from the twentieth century.

This paper investigates some of the ways in which composers and sound artists have used recordings of speech, especially in works mediated by technology. It will consider this within a wider context of spoken word, text composition and performance-based genres such as sound poetry. It will attempt to categorise some of the compositional techniques that may be used to work with speech, make specific reference to archive and oral history material and attempt to draw some conclusions.

Memory, according to Henri Bergson, is gleaned from the present and realises the present perception from its sensory-motor elements through movements towards that which it perceives.

The purpose of this article is to propose and debate the deliberate use of such ‘present memory’ in the sonic artwork. The suggestion is that sonic memory material – sounds that are plundered from old recordings – can be collaged into complex sonic works to produce, not a nostalgic experience in the sense of a recognition of the past, but a current production of sonic material in a continually present perception. Such a production strategy employs the affective quality of memory to ‘trigger’ a sensorial engagement in the sense of a ‘pathetic’ engagement understood as an emotional and sentimental involvement with the work. The understanding is that such an emotional engagement involves the listener centrally in the production of the artwork and challenges modernist (visual) art discourses, which evaluate the work from a distance.

In 1991 I wrote a short article comparing three ‘live electronic’ ensembles based in the UK and active in the late 1960s and 1970s (one into the 1980s) (Emmerson 1991). It was only in the final stages of preparation of this paper for presentation at the EMS05 conference in Montreal that I realised that the death of Hugh Davies on 1 January 2005 meant that a key member of each of the three ensembles was no longer with us. This article is thus dedicated to Barry Anderson (1935–1987, founder and director of the West Square Electronic Music Ensemble), Tim Souster (1943–1994, co-founder of Intermodulation) and Hugh Davies (1943–2005, founder member of Gentle Fire). The fact that they can no longer describe, elucidate and explain the repertoire that they created is directly pertinent to this paper. While its practitioners must inevitably (though hopefully not so prematurely) move on, as we celebrate Mozart's 250th birthday with performances of the vast majority of his compositions, we must ask ‘in what form live electronic music can live on’

The musicologist is confronted with many situations during the analysis of electroacoustic music, whether on support media, mixed, or real-time. Musical genres and styles vary greatly, and the collection of electronic musical instruments has also proven to be very heterogeneous. The intrinsic characteristics of the electroacoustic parts and their scoring create serious limitations. Furthermore, many sources remain inaccessible or are already lost. Thus the preoccupation with documentary sources related to the acts of creation, interpretation, and technological context becomes more and more pressing. It is now essential to formulate a synthetic vision of this music, which has existed for half a century, and to pursue the search for invariants. This work must be based on a rigorous methodology that has yet to be developed. More generally speaking, the goal is to establish the terms and conditions of a systematic musicology of electroacoustics.

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.

In this article we describe a new approach to performing musical works that use Yamaha DX7-based synthesis. We also present an implementation of this approach in a performance system for Madonna of Winter and Spring by Jonathan Harvey. The Integra Project, ‘A European Composition and Performance Environment for Sharing Live Music Technologies’ (a three year co-operation agreement part financed by the European Commission, ref. 2005-849), is introduced as framework for reducing the difficulties with modernising and preserving works that use live electronics.

Radio and memory form a radical coupling, stitching together musical cultures with personal psychologies. I pursue such relations in Phantom Music by focusing on, and unpacking a project I developed for exhibition in 2005. The project, Phantom Radio, is based on forming a library of radio memory. Collecting stories from 105 individuals from around the world, the library consists of written statements and CDs of all the songs mentioned. Through the project, questions of broadcast technology, and the work of memory, are brought forward. To pursue such questions, the following article maps out the territory explored in the project. Reflecting on various threads, from habits of listening to the effects of music on individual lives, leads to a tracing out of the ‘phantasmic’ and the ‘social’ aspects of radio. And further, how music supplies a form of shared ground to the individual instances of unexpected experiences.

While much work is proceeding with regard to the preservation and restoration of audio documents in general and compositions for tape in particular, relatively little research has been published with regard to the issues of preserving compositions for live electronics. Such works often involve a distinct performance element difficult to capture in a single recording, and it is typically only in performance that such works can be experienced as the composer intended. However, performances can become difficult or even impossible to present over time due to data and/or equipment issues. Sustainability here therefore refers to the effective recording of all the information necessary to set up the live electronics for a performance. Equally, it refers to the availability of appropriate devices, as rapid technological change soon makes systems obsolete and manufacturers discontinue production. The authors have had a range of experience re-working performances over a number of years, including compositions by Luigi Nono and Jonathan Harvey, amongst others. In this paper we look at the problem as a whole, focusing on Jonathan Harvey's works with electronic elements, which span some twenty-six years, as exemplars of the types of problems involved.

The project Urban Song Paths took a traditional musical form, the Kaluli song path from Papua, New Guinea, and translated it for a contemporary urban situation. The Two Rivers Project explored a classic song path subject, the route of a waterway, in terms of two London rivers. A sense of place, the journey and the importance of the human voice were transferred from the Kaluli song path tradition into The Two Rivers Project, but other factors were necessary to create a truly urban song path form. Notions of dislocation, true and false memory, the changing functions of place and the unconscious effects of city zones were addressed by this work.

Art always does more than subsist upon technical progress; for centuries its practice has merged with it, and we should never forget that the first meaning of the word art was technê. However, never before has the relationship between art and technology raised so many questions and provoked so much misunderstanding. As a matter of fact, at the same time as the frontiers of technique continue to recede, the frontiers of art seem more and more difficult to grasp. (Couchot and Hillaire 2003: 15)

This paper provides an account of my current PhD research. It is conducted as an art project that involves both practice and theory. By taking Taiwanese sojourners in London as a case study, the research intends to present the emotional and cultural impacts they experience when they are immersed in the actual London soundscape. Following the proposed notion of ‘sonic constellations’, a few examples of audio works are demonstrated to analyse the relationships between sounds and the Taiwanese sojourners. Integrating art practice, soundscape studies, cultural studies and ethnography, the research is developed in an interdisciplinary way. The connected challenges taking place in various stages of the research, such as the pilot interview, will be addressed in this paper.

Portraits polychromes are a series of books associated with multimedia documents presented on the Internet site of the GRM since 2001. In releasing this collection, our primary concern was to increase awareness of the electroacoustic repertoire and the reserves in the GRM archives. The GRM, being a pioneering centre of electroacoustics, is fortunate to possess a consistent and significant reserve dating back to the beginning of the 1950s. At present, the catalogue contains around 2,000 works, accompanied with supplementary documents: composer's biographies, reviews, photographs, documentary movies, radio broadcasts, recorded public lectures, theoretical research work, transcriptions and analyses. In addition to the heritage value of the GRM's collection, the enterprise of the Portraits polychromes, with the aid of multimedia tools, aims to advance the progress of research on analysis and the transcription of musical works.

Arrangement has always played an essential part of transmitting, preserving and disseminating works in the musical practice of both ‘high art’ and popular music. However, at present it is rarely practised in electroacoustic music, which can partly be explained by the nature of electronic technology and current thinking about authenticity. Despite this context, there are benefits to performance opportunities through the diversity created by arrangement; therefore, the process of adapting the electroacoustics of Scelsi's Aitsi is explored. The work offers this opportunity, since it lacks precision in its musical documentation, has received a number of quite different renditions and shows ontological malleability as it exists in another form, Scelsi's Fifth String Quartet. The new electroacoustic adaptation exploits Max/MSP software to extend the electroacoustic treatment of the piano beyond previous interpretations, whilst attempting to remain consistent with the aesthetic of the work. The article aims to encourage the composition and adaptations of works that afford performers interpretative licence with the electroacoustics in order to promote the distinctive and evanescent nature of mixed acoustic-electroacoustic works in concert performance, and encourage its continuation through an evolving performing tradition.

Electroacoustic music has been of great interest to Latin American composers since its inception. Hundreds of composers have been working in this field, creating thousands of pieces. However, there is a significant lack of information and recordings in this respect, and little research has been conducted in this area until recently. One step forward to advance the exploration of a somewhat lost sound world is The Latin American Electroacoustic Music Collection, a documentation, preservation and dissemination project, developed by the author.

The unique sounds of the world's small-scale languages are being extinguished at an alarming rate. This article explores links between acoustic ecology and language ecology and outlines an approach to the creation of archive material as both source for and useful by-product of sound art practice and research. Through my work with endangered click-languages in the Kalahari Desert, it considers the boundaries between language and music and discusses the use of flat speaker technology to explore new relations between sound and image, portrait and soundscape in a cross-cultural context.