Network musics - Play, engagement and the democratization of performance

Abstract

The rapid development of network communication technologies has allowed composers to create new ways in which to directly engage participants in the exploration of new musical environments. A number of distinctive aesthetic approaches to the musical application of networks will be outlined in this paper each of which is mediated and conditioned by the technical and aesthetic foundations of the network technologies themselves. Recent work in the field by artists such as Atau Tanaka and Metraform will be examined, as will some of the earlier pioneering work in the genre by Max Neuhaus. While recognizing the historical context of collaborative work, the author will examine how the strategies employed in the work of these artists have helped redefine a new aesthetics of engagement in which play, spatial and temporal dislocation are amongst the genre's defining characteristics.