Logic of Experimentation

Paulo de Assis is a researcher affiliated with the Orpheus Institute of Ghent. He is an experimental performer, pianist and music philosopher, with transdisciplinary interests in composition, philosophy, psychoanalysis and epistemology.

This is a remarkable work, rich in ideas and provocative in its conclusions. Assis offers a transformative approach to music performance, which serves as a paradigmatic instance of artistic research. But he also provides the conceptual framework for a general ontology and epistemology of art, one that has implications well beyond the domain of music. This is a book that deserves the attention of researchers throughout the disciplines of the arts, humanities and social sciences.Bogue, Ronald, jar-online.net. 19/12/2019. https://doi.org/10.22501/jarnet.0023

• Preface: A Transdisciplinary ConjunctureIntroduction: Experimentation versus InterpretationPart 1. Assemblage Theory for MusicChapter 1: Virtual Works—Actual ThingsRasch — The limits of music philosophy and the role of artisticresearch — Music ontologies: some problems — Beyondtranscendence: approaching a Deleuzian ontology — Virtualworks, actual things: towards a new image of musical work —Strata — Rasch25: . . . vers la nuitChapter 2: Assemblage, Strata, DiagramMusical works as assemblages — Agencement, logic of assemblage,assemblage theory — Intermezzo: a note on translation —From structure to assemblage — Strata — Diagram — Logic ofassemblagePart 2: Experimental Systems in MusicChapter 3: Experimental Systems and Artistic ResearchAn epistemology for artistic research? — A methodology forartistic research — Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s experimental systems— Thought collective and ensembles of experimental systems:MusicExperiment21 — Series of experiments and modules ofresearchChapter 4: Epistemic Complexity in Music PerformanceComplexity and epistemic complexity — Epistemic complexityin biology — Epistemic complexity in technology — Epistemiccomplexity in music — Experimentation in music performance:how to make the future?Part 3. Beyond Interpretation: Bodies-in-ActionChapter 5: Transduction and the Body as a TransducerTransduction in music performance: relaying f lows of intensities;— Gilbert Simondon’s various definitions of transduction —Discharge (potentiality); — Passage (time and temporality);— Energy (thermodynamics): potential, scales, entropy— Information theory: structural germs and singularities(structuration) — Haecceity: from haecceitas (Duns Scotus) toeccéité (Simondon) to heccéité (Deleuze and Guattari) to microhaecceity— Topology: in-formation — Corporeality: somatictransduction — Permanent transduction: being-in-the-world andfluctuatio animi; 11. ConclusionChapter 6: Rasch26: The SomathemeThe somatheme — Roland Barthes at the piano: musica practica —The impact of Julia Kristeva: phenotext and genotext —New musical concepts: geno-song, pheno-song, somatheme —Intermezzo: fourteen somathemes — The impact of JacquesLacan: signifier and jouissance — Lacan’s desire — Situating thesomatheme within Lacan’s graphs of desire — Conclusion: artisticresearch and transdisciplinarityPart 4. A New Ethics of PerformanceChapter 7: The Emancipated Performer:Musical Renderings and Power RelationsMusic performance and power relations — The dominant imageof work and the problem of interpretation — The tacit authorities:Deleuze’s “Postscript on the Societies of Control” — Nietzsche’sthree modes of relation to history: monumental, antiquarian,critical — A new image of work — The emancipated performerChapter 8. . . . at the borders of time that surround our presence . . .What is the contemporary? — Agamben’s contemporary: Barthesreading Nietzsche — Nietzsche’s untimely: lost in translation —. . . at the border of time that surrounds our presence . . . — Artisticresearch as the carrier of the contemporaryAppendix 1: Beyond Urtext: A Dynamic Conception of Musical EditingOn notation and time — The urtext era — Urtext editions: anepistemological obstacle — Critical editing of music and differenttypes of editions — Music editing and performance practice: adynamic conceptionAppendix 2: The Conditions of Creation and the Haecceity of Musical Material: Philosophical-Aesthetic Convergences between Helmut Lachenmann and Gilles DeleuzeHelmut Lachenmann and Gilles Deleuze: an unconnectedconnection — Helmut Lachenmann: toward an aestheticostructuralmethodology — Helmut Lachenmann’s three “theses”on composing — Gilles Deleuze’s diagnostic function of art, captureof forces, and body without organs: first convergences with HelmutLachenmann — Helmut Lachenmann’s four conditions of themusical material — Gilles Deleuze’s opinion, corporeity, fold, andlatitude: further convergences with Helmut Lachenmann — Theconditions of creation and the haecceity of musical material: aphilosophical-aesthetic ErewhonAcknowledgementsIndex