Formulating a unique conception of technics through the brushing project

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the intersection of artistic practice and the inquiry into technics through a practice-led research methodology centered on the Brushing Project. Initiated in 2019, the Brushing Project explores the transformation of nuanced brushing gestures and the sophisticated materiality of brushes into expressive musical performances. By interpreting the creative artifact not as a static object but as a dynamic process of "musicking," this research employs a media-archaeological methodology to conduct a sensorial and material analysis of the media involved in novel musical instrument making. The primary objective is to formulate a unique conception of technics by exposing the technicity implicit in the artistic process. The research first establishes a historical and contextual foundation through the lens of critical organology and the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) community. Rather than acting as a mere tool for performance, an instrument is embedded within dense networks of interactions between diverse entities and socio-cultural dynamics; its significance is defined by these multifaceted relationships. Through an analysis of seminal artists such as Harry Partch, Ellen Fullman, David Tudor/ Composers Inside Electronics, and Pamela Z, the dissertation repositions novel instrument making as a genuine art practice in which making a novel instrument is indistinguishable from implememnting a holistic art practice. This perspective suggests that an instrument’s meaning and function are contingent upon its specific relations and use. The discussion established in the previous paragraph is expanded through the lenses of enactivism and Deleuzian metaphysics. The survey of critical organology and the art practices of novel musical instrument making necessitates an enactive body, positing that cognition and abstract concepts emerge from bottom-up, action-oriented sensorimotor patterns rather than top-down representational maps. Furthermore, the media specificity of the acoustic, electronic, and digital is critiqued through the actual use cases of artists and further theorized via a rhizomatic perspective and the Deleuzian metaphysics of the actual, virtual, and intensity. Through this, a core element of novel musical instruments is exposed; the enactive body within material engagement and the continuous feedback loop between making and playing. The following chapter addresses the philosophical discussion surrounding technics. Through a close reading of the discourses on technics by Martin Heidegger, Gilbert Simondon, Bernard Stiegler, and Yuk Hui, this chapter establishes the term organology as an anchor between instrumentality and technicity. Thus, it formulates a notion of the incomplete and enactive organology by integrating the discussions from the previous chapters. Finally, the dissertation culminates in a discussion and analysis of the Brushing Project. It details the development of the Brushing Interface, a self-made, novel musical instrument. The chapter traces the project from its most minute technical developments, such as creating DIY force-sensitive resistors (FSRs), to broad artistic outcomes, including a performance at the MATA Festival in New York City and a premiere at La Biennale di Venezia. This trajectory illustrates how an incomplete and enactive organology manifests through the continuous feedback loop between making and playing across every aspect of the project.