Screen capture from "U Have Been Disconnected for Flooding," by Michael Austin (2011).

LABS

The Phenomenological Impact of Interface by Michael Austin


Screen capture from “U Have Been Disconnected for Flooding,” by Michael Austin (2011).

Leonardo Abstract Services (LABS) 2010-2012
The Phenomenological Impact of Interface on the Analysis of Digital Music and Sonic Art

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.

Degree: Ph.D. in the Humanities – Aesthetic Studies (Arts and Technology)
Year: 2011
Pages: 206
University: University of Texas at Dallas
Supervisor: Frank Dufour
Semail: Frank.Dufour@utdallas.edu
Supervisor 2: Robert Xavier Rodriguez
Language: English
Dept: Arts and Technology
Copyright: Michael Austin
Lang_author: English
Url:
Email: michael.austin@utdallas.edu
Keywords: phenomenology, music, sound art, interface, Unités Sémiotique Temporelles, musicology, aesthetics

LEONARDO ABSTRACTS SERVICE (LABS) is a comprehensive collection of Ph.D., Masters and MFA thesis abstracts on topics in the emerging intersection between art, science and technology.

If you are interested you can submit your abstract to the English LABS, Spanish LABS, Chinese LABS and French LABS international Peer Review Panels for inclusion in their respective databases. The authors of abstracts most highly ranked by the panel will also be invited to submit an article for consideration for publication in the refereed journal Leonardo.