What are we making? The work-without-content in live computer music

This paper explores the nature of the work in the case of
computer-mediated real-time, interactive, situated or
improvised music – works often defined principally in
terms of uniqueness but which constitute a common
practice. The context for such an understanding derives
from criticism of contemporary culture, especially Alain
Badiou's call for an affirmationist art. The notion of the
work without content is proposed, developed from the
philosophy of Giorgio Agamben. Such works are
characterised by the map of their dynamical
redistribution of the materials and mechanisms whereby
they inscribe a unique surface in a particular context.
They must incorporate some mechanism for emergent
events to transform space or discourse; modelling,
simulation and the state-change of representation have
crucial roles. The work without content acts as an
interface between the originating impulse and a shared
present. Its apparatus is understood as an economy of
interactions. As a broader cultural paradigm it has
implications for our understanding of music from other
times and places.

Paper presented at conference held at Centre for Research in New Music University of Huddersfield 31st July – 5th August, 2011.