Anastrophe

Description

The project Anastrophe is a piece specially written for being played on an acousmonium and was premiered in the Nordbahnhalle Vienna 2018. Pre-Socratic literature (Porphyrios about Pythagoras) tells us that “Those who came to him [Pythagoras] were divided between \\\\"mathematicians\\\\"[\\\\"scholars\\\\"] and \\\\"acousmaticians\\\\"[\\\\"listeners\\\\"], whereby mathematicians were those who were granted deep insight in his teachings and acousmaticians were only allowed to hear insights, without exact explanations or reasoning.” Acousmatic music typically is stuck in pre or post club culture, often displaying a surprising avoidance of beats. The work Anastrophe takes a clear step towards beat driven music, without losing focus on sound design, space, and progressiveness in structure and novel sound textures alike. The complete work is entirely synthetic/procedural, made with custom-made software. Thus, it also breaks with the tradition of Musique concrète, which historically has a deep connection to acousmonium pieces. The \\\\'hearing insights without reasoning\\\\' is a beautiful way to understand both the state of current acousmatic music in its positive and negative consequences. Praising the surface of sound is integral to this work. The old discourse about education in art, academic art etc. is explored by centering artistic decisions around the \\\\'hearer\\\\', the acousmaticians, the audience, and the creator. These thoughts are reflected in the piece’s title, Anastrophe. Being the antonym of catastrophe, the term literally means an overturn towards a thing instead of against it. Since the word is also in use in the field of rhetoric, where it means the technique of interchanging word order, it also resembles compositional structures of the piece, where common compositional orders are questioned.
The Project \\\\'Anastrophe\\\\' was given an Honorary Mention at PrixArs Electronica 2019.