Research Catalogue

activities

• Doctor of Arts (2010) connected to: Polifonia
  Degree: Doctorate, Leiden University (Netherlands), Orpheus Institute (Belgium), recipient: Anıl Çamcı
  
• Environment as a language for Electronic Music: enhancing the link between the concept and the percept
  Polifonia project, Principal Investigator: Anıl Çamcı
  The inherent differences between instrumental and electronic music, entail entirely different experiences for both the composer and the listener. As the music opens up to endless sonic possibilities, encounters with it display new characteristics as well. Electronic music prompts significantly different mental processes, when our deep-seated mechanisms of music perception no longer concur with neither the language nor the materials of the music. Although compositional and analytical approaches to electronic music have evolved, over the years, from highly parametric techniques to more cognition-driven methods, the communication between the composer and the listener is largely yet to be explored. As listeners are exposed to sounds that are not musical in the traditional sense, the cognitive response to electronic music exhibit a new layer of meaning attribution amid the continuum from material to affect. Since electronic music, by nature, can comprise any sound within the limits of human perception, the referential foundation, by which to process this music, ultimately encompasses the entirety of our "ear-witness accounts" [Truax, 2001]. This research, therefore, utilises environmental sounds as a reference to study electronic music in terms of formal units called gestures, which denote meaningful events. Through this investigation of the communication between the artist and the audience via experimental methods that function reciprocally with compositional practice, the research aims at developing strategies to improve the composer's control over the listener's experience and addresses the following question: "Can the concept to percept link in electronic music be enhanced, on a gestural basis, via environmental sound models?"