Skip to content
Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00354
- Thesis Title
- The Phenomenological Impact of Interface on the Analysis of Digital Music and Sonic Art
- Author
- Michael Austin
- E-mail
- michael.austin AT utdallas.edu
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- Ph.D. in the Humanities - Aesthetic Studies (Arts and Technology)
- Year
- 2011
- Number of Pages
- 206
- University
- University of Texas at Dallas
- Thesis Supervisor
- Frank Dufour
- Supervisor e-mail
- Frank.Dufour AT utdallas.edu
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Robert Xavier Rodriguez
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Arts and Technology
- Copyright Ownership
- Michael Austin
- Languages Familiar to Author
- English
- URL where full thesis can be found
- Keywords
- phenomenology, music, sound art, interface, Unités Sémiotique Temporelles, musicology, aesthetics
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- The experience of an artwork is just as important as any other constituent element of the work, particularly in contemporary digital music and sonic art. While theorists analyze a piece to find out “how it works,” the actual experience of the work in question is often disregarded in favor of a score and an abstract conception of the “object” being analyzed; further, the system within which, or for which, the work was created has an enormous impact on the experience of the musical or sonic artwork, but it, too, is not often acknowledged. This dissertation investigates the experience of music and sonic art and examines how interface relates to that experience. I make a case for the phenomenological analysis of contemporary music and sonic art, offer a new inclusive definition of interface as it relates to works of these genres, and propose a pragmatic, hybrid analytical technique for phenomenological investigation. Further, I address issues of the experience of temporality, energetics, interaction, and other relationships within a medium (and among media) in selected works that have hitherto been considered “un-analyzable” because they lie outside of traditional analytical paradigms.