academic writing
Artificial Creativity: Musically Improvising Computers and the Listening Subject (December 2019)
[Abstract] In this paper, I do not attempt to define an absolute idea of creativity; rather, I turn toward musically improvising computers to unpack notions of creativity within a very specific context (namely, 21st-century contemporary art music) using American composer Pauline Oliveros’s Expanded Instrument System (EIS) as a case study. I allow for a creativity that is co-determined by a non-human, machinic agency, temporarily setting aside Lovelace’s famous assumption that machines cannot be creative. In order to do this, I rely on the method of actor-network theory (ANT), which examines both human and non-human actors in terms of the natural and social networks of relations in which they exist and thereby assigns agency to all such actors. Through a close reading of the role of computer-improvisers in the music of Pauline Oliveros as performed by her close friend and collaborator, the flutist Claire Chase, I ask: how is creativity constructed in Oliveros’s context? How has software and hardware shaped and been shaped by that construction? As in this case study the notion of creativity is strictly tied to that of improvisation, I also question the relationship between the two. To conclude, I directly respond to recent developments in the theorization of the listening subject as put forth by musicologist Nina Eidsheim – namely, her proposal for a vibrational practice of listening in which “music is predominantly understood…as material and intermaterial vibration.” I argue that Eidsheim’s model breaks down in the face of computer temporalities that operate outside of, even beyond, the material here-and-now: indeed, any contemporary practice of listening must be pliable enough to capture the agency, however immaterial, of the listening machine.
Game Music: Game-Theoretic Principles in Music Composition (May 2020)
[Abstract] The history of the application of mathematical concepts in musical composition and theory dates back to at least Greek antiquity. However, it was only in the twentieth century that a handful of composers of contemporary classical music, largely led by Iannis Xenakis, began to formalize sophisticated stochastic methods within their work. In this paper, we survey two pieces of game music within the contemporary classical repertoire: Xenakis’s own Achorripsis – a group improvisation based on a matrix generated by a Poisson distribution – and a more recent Xenakis-inspired installation by Davide Morelli and Marco Liuni, a zero-sum game between opposing players. We then proceed to design and implement our own set of musical games related directly to the tension between determinism and stochasticity in Xenakis, Morelli, and Liuni’s work, concluding that the delicate balance between the two is the foundation of a score’s success.
Happy Endings and New Beginnings: An Unsolved Problem in Discrete Geometry (May 2019)
[Abstract] This expository paper concerns the history and developments of the Erdos-Skezeres conjecture and what has been dubbed the happy ending problem, which has remained unsolved since 1935. Against the backdrop of classical Euclidean geometry, we use the problem as a gateway into the study of geometrical objects and properties that are combinatorial in nature and representation. To conclude, we examine the most recent results toward improving upper and lower bounds for the minimum number of points in general position needed to guarantee the admission of a convex n-gon.
The Sound of Occupation: Music and The Spectacle of Collective Action (March 2020)
[Abstract] In an age of global socio-political campaigns led largely by young people and made possible only by digital media and smartphone technology, the 2019 Harvard-Yale sit-in stands out for the energy it galvanized both on and off the field. In this paper, however, I grapple with the site of protest itself. What unusual circumstances, if any, enabled students to overcome the collective action problem that stalls the vast majority of spontaneous political demonstrations? Taking into consideration the blatant incongruency between the sound technologies employed by sound engineers in response to the protest and those available to student protestors, I focus on what I believe to have been the role of sound and music in solidifying student morale. I contend that in combination, extreme volume and the cultural salience of certain popular music – the former corresponding to a materiality of sound, the latter bringing us to the level of the intellect – played a vital part in the turn of events on November 23rd, 2019, subverting the intentions of stadium personnel and exemplifying the ability of music to compel action.