The Music of Things

The talk will focus on making music through the fundamental exploration of electronic components, solder, wires and electricity itself. This serves as an extension to David Tudor’s idea of composing inside electronics. Musical instrument is no longer considered as a complete self-contained entity, but a collection of inter-connectable things. Making, such as DIY (do-it-yourself) electronic instruments, is viewed not as a separate activity - for example, through workshops - but as a processual part of performance. From this premise, new paradigms for performance and composition of electronic music are born. The continuum of instrument, object and thing is also discussed; and particular reference is made to the work of Charlie Chaplin in relation to object transformations and object play. Chaplin’s ‘object gags’ are seen as a way of deconstructing an object through performance. The event Dark Electronics, collaboration between Kanta Horio and myself for the Sapporo International Art Festival 2017, is used as a starting point to discuss themes relating to making as a processual part of performance.