Page 54 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

The topography of composing work 43

then put those transparencies on top of each other to represent the layering of
sound. Such visual blueprints resemble the “technique of over-painting. They
come from my spatial ideas, or rather they represent them, and they correspond
primordially to the intended sound.” These “base layers” are thus relevant
both for developing a musical notation and in the performance context.
However, this example should not be taken to mean that immaterial objects are
the product of a private sensitivity (see also on private language Wittgenstein
1953/1968: §§ 256–269). They are social because they are socially generated,
shared and used. They are structured objects, which are embedded in supra-
individual systems shaped by rules (language, notation systems, mathematics,
logics). These underlying systems are characterised by their high combinability.
A limited number of signs can form a very large, almost infinite number of
algorithms, scores and texts.

1.4.1 Written-down reflections and music-aesthetic discourses
When contemporary composers are asked about their education, models or
musical sphere of reference, it quickly becomes clear that they find themselves
in a culturally hyper-encoded referential space, which is structured in part by
the canon and in part by morals, and which they view with varying degrees of
ambivalence. None of the composers we interviewed question the centrality of
language – emphasised by Vygotzky and many others (see also Rorty
1967) – although they do occasionally criticise what they see as the
intensive intellectualisation of contemporary music: the use of arguments
and normative aesthetics as a means of consolidating one’s own ideolo-
gical position. The centrality of language manifests itself in the fact that
creative composition practices unfold not only in a sensory-auditory
manner, but also in verbal discourse. Ideas, concepts and intertextual
references can be found in all the interviews. Katharina Klement states
that “an artistic work is always in an aesthetic context”. Clemens
Gadenstätter adds that language plays a pivotal role in his work since
composing consists not only of notating, “butalsooftexts andessays”
that he writes.
Discourses, theories and systematically elaborated ideas are ubiquitous
in contemporary art worlds. Not all composers, however, read theoretical
writings with the same intensity, record their thoughts in a diary, or write
texts on music. And yet composers are urged to confront music theory,
musicology, philosophy, and music psychology while training. This
understanding of a musical education has been the tradition in western
cultures for generations. It is also based on generalised social expecta-
tions, artists’ job descriptions and specific discursive practices that
generate meaning, which have become constitutive in contemporary art
(see Becker 1982/2008: 131–164; Zembylas 1997: 105–113, 165–170;
Heinich 2014). Drawing on Anthony Giddens’ work, we understand the
artist’s self-identity to be the result of loops of reflexivity that have been