Public defence, New Media, MMus Andrea Mancianti

Title of the thesis: Sounding agencies and performing others. A relational approach to queering composition

Thesis defender: Andrea Mancianti
Opponent: Prof. Stefan Östersjö, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
Custos: Prof. Lily Diáz-Kommonen, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

This thesis explores the processes of renegotiation and  transformation of roles among the participants to collaborative musical works in my recent artistic practice, and at the role different material and immaterial arrangements played in these processes.

As an alternative to more traditional and often hierarchical divisions of roles and practices (composing, performing, improvising, etc.) and in dialogue with queer-feminist theory, this study proposes a relational understanding of music composition, refusing binaries and hard boundaries. It sees composition as a relational process of collective renegotiation, in a continuum with performance and improvisation. An assumption of responsibility guided by mutual care for the process and its participants, in which roles are seen as temporary configurations of agency, ready to be rearranged together.

It continues along a recent corpus of artistic research concentrated on collaborations in music and other neighboring research fields. It borrows relationality from contributors such as Barad, Voegelin, and others, emergence from Di Scipio, while also adopting analytical frameworks put forth by Östersjö, Torrence, or John-Steiner.

The experimental artistic context for this research includes the installation Blindphones, the three pieces within the Autophagy cycle, the site-specific piece Kaikujen Säiliö, two records, Helsinki and Umbra, and the multidisciplinary projects remote/displaced and Rink.

The main results are articulated in three areas:

1. Material agencies explores how instruments and spaces, particularly augmented ones, introducing new resistance, can became catalysts for collectively negotiating outcomes. It also discusses how the role of prototyping new or modified instruments becomes an integral part of the creative process.

2. Inscription and emergence explores how, through different projects, the score evolved from a stable repository for the piece’s identity to a multifaceted map for emergent relationships, memory traces, or collective writings. This offers an alternative to the authority of the musical ‘work,’ redefining it as a process of working and re-working together.

3. Collaborations and relationships finally discusses the shift from separate, defined roles to forms of collaborations in which skills and contributions are fluid. It also emphasized how deep personal connection can become inseparable from artistic activity.

The thesis argues that adopting a model that is more articulated, in flow, and relational, renders better justice to the complexity and shape-shifting nature of current sonic-arts practices. It also suggests that addressing the social and political ramifications of these issues could contribute to alleviating feelings of discomfort, stress, anxiety, common in the artistic world.

The research shows how composition becomes a shared process of taking responsibility for a complex ecosystem of relations. This includes responsibility as participating in choices and decisions, but also responsibility as the ethical disposition toward all others involved. Time, mutual trust and care become essential catalysts for these processes to fully develop. The research uncovers a genuinely shared need for community-driven ways to be creative, to experiment artistically while addressing frustration and anxieties together, associating around pleasure, responsibility, and care rather than pursuing individual success at the price of constant competition and conflict.

Keywords: music composition, collaborations, trust, responsibility, material agencies, Western contemporary music, installations, DIY

Thesis available for public display 7 days prior to the defence at Aalto University's public display page. 

Contact information: andrea.mancianti@aalto.fi