Poietic leakages

The Cultural eXchanges event on electroacoustic music, the MTI Symposium, explained a lot for those unfamiliar with what the twenty-first century term ‘electroacoustic’ could refer to. It’s an umbrella term for all genres of music produced through electronic means: musique concrète and EDM (Electronic Dance Music) are just two examples.

The talk focused on more general issues to begin with, such as the relationship between the artist and the listener. This introduced the aforementioned idea of ‘poietic leakage’ - basically what the artist envisioned in the piece of music in comparison to the listener’s interpretation. This led to a discussion on the upcoming website – OREMA (the Online Repository for Electroacoustic Music Analysis), which plans to act as a Wikipedia of sorts for people who wish to upload their analyses of electronica compositions.

The most inspirational part of the discussion followed as several speakers presented their own analyses of a variety of electronic compositions. Though I felt the idea of using so many demonstrations did begin to drag, what stood out was the diversity of genres covered. Hugh Le Caine’s “Dripsody” came from as far back as 1955, was explored - a piece created simply from tape reels and a recording of a drop of water! Alongside this was IDM music in Monolake’s “Internal Clock”, and noise music in Merzbow’s “Meattrapezoid” (which, when blasted across the room, shocked just about everyone).

Overall, the event created the impression that electronic music is beginning to be observed as a whole. There’s a sense of unity, respect and pride in the subject that would not have even been there even as little as twenty years ago, and a desire to build on that. Above all, I strongly recommend keeping an eye on OREMA for anyone who’s interested in exploring electroacoustic music as a whole, inclusive category.


George Forster