Composing Short-circuits: a transductive analysis of the embodied relations between instrument and performer

Abstract

This thesis explores the interconnectedness of human bodies, digital instruments and performance art. The focus is set on the analysis of the relationships between digital instruments and performers, where the interaction between them appears seamless, even though there is no apparent contact between them. I aim to elaborate on a perspective that challenges an ontological subject-object divide, in light of the contemporary pervasiveness and incorporation of digital technology in our daily life. This thesis contributes to this field by proposing the analysis of the digital instrument SineCorpus and addressing how the relationality between instrument and performer becomes experiential by proposing the concept-method of the short-circuit. I will argue that the SineCorpus instrument is not merely an extension of the performer’s body, but also that the performer’s cognition does not solely operate as the active catalyst of the performance. They compose a short-circuit, a metastable concretisation of the relations that allow them to entangle through movement. I envision the short circuit as a concept to describe the transductive process that performer and instrument undergo as they approach each other. The performer’s gestures and presence become informational and affective matter for the instrument, while the sounds and light emissions of the instrument have the same resonance to the performer's cognition and expression. I propose movement as the phenomenon that conducts the instrument-performer relationships as a metastable concretisation of the short-circuit. The instrument-performer relationality concretises or becomes experiential when the instrument and performer meet in action; thus, their relationality is generated through the transductive qualities of movement. Movement, although ephemeral, simultaneously retains embodied elements as well as a tendency to abstraction.