Beyond the unnecessary self

Henrik Frisk

About this exposition

In my 2013 paper The (un)necessary self (Frisk 2013) I explored the idea of giving up of the self as an important step towards the dismantling of the romantic idea of creation, and approach an understanding of creativity that is more closely aligned with the other. The other should be understood as anything that affects the artistic practice: a co-creator, a listener, a participant or a remote collaborator as well as any non-human actor. The point was to move the focus from the creator to what is created and to understand the roles of the various agents involved. This idea is further developed in this paper through several new trajectories. In music, hyper-capitalism of the twenty first century is eager to commodify the artistic output, the artist, as well as the listeners. This is not only a problem for the freedom of art (a concept equally complex), it also makes the role of the self difficult to understand. But in the radicalization of the role of the creator, both a new work concept and a review of the self become necessary, even beyond the notion of giving up of the self. The ethics in artistic practices, that is, the moral values that are expressed through artistic practices in music, specifically improvisation, may complement traditional views on ethics and form an important aspect when discussing the roles of the self. The notion of the Care of the Self, as discussed in Michel Foucault's Volume Three of the History of Sexuality, is used as a method to approach this complex area.

type	research exposition
keywords	electroacoustic music, obsolete instruments, improvisation
date	08/09/2025
published	20/11/2025
last modified	20/11/2025
status	published
affiliation	Royal Collage of Music in Stockholm
copyright	Henrik Frisk
license	CC BY-NC-ND
language	English
url	https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3851172/3851173
doi	https://doi.org/10.22501/rc.3851172
published in	Research Catalogue

name	DATATON-01
copyright	Henrik Frisk
license	All rights reserved
usages	picture

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Beyond the unnecessary self (2025)

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