Call for Papers

EMS14 SPECIFIC THEME:
Electroacoustic Music Beyond Concert Performance

 

The concert work is still considered to be the epitome of electroacoustic music. During a work’s performance the relationships between composition and audience in time and space are defined as homogeneous  – just as in the Aristotelian drama. However, since the 1960s, specific forms of electroacoustic music that challenge the possibility (or conception) of an absolute and exclusive reception have gained substantially in importance. This development resulted in concert forms of extended duration, as well as sound art and music in the media offering the listener opportunities to arrange the perceived sounds in new individual arrangements or to explore the aural space of one piece in various ways. The aesthetical positions and the practical consequences for electroacoustic music that have emerged from these specific environments shall be considered at EMS14 conference.

This EMS conference aims to discuss a number of relevant questions concerning electroacoustic music beyond concert performance among musicologists, composers and sound artists. Musicological studies in this field still lack consistent, rigorous research. Therefore, we explicitly invite papers that focus on aesthetics, history, analysis and practical issues of electroacoustic music

    > of Extended Duration

    > as Sound Art/Sound Installation

    > as Media Music

    > as Conceptual Music

    > as Participatory Music

    > in the context of Happenings or extended Concert Forms

 

EMS14 THEMES

 

The conference is also open to other topics relevant to histories and/or contemporary practices of electroacoustic music. Submission of papers relating to any aspect of the field would be appreciated as well, including, but not limited, to: analysis, perception, listening, terminology, composition, performance, cultural issues and education.

Analysis:
- What types of discourse are relevant to electroacoustic works?
- Which analytical methods are currently being developed?
- Can one adapt existent analytical methods of music to electroacoustic works, many of which involve no prescriptive notation?
- How can we further develop the field of study of electroacoustic musics?

Listening, Intention-Reception:
- Issues of perception and interpretation.

Transcription and representation of sound, new audio-visual tools:
- How are analytical tools being produced and disseminated in the community?
- Which means are available for communicating this sonic art form through symbolic and graphic representations?
- Does the study of electroacoustic musics require specifically designed tools or can it take advantage of methods conceived for other musics?

Taxonomy, terminology - 'meaningful' units of music description:
- Which systems of classification are in use or should be developed?
- How can we become more consistent in our use of terminology in a field as dynamic as electroacoustic music?

Semiotics/semiology, 'meaning':
- What (and how) do different electroacoustic music genres express?

Performance, presentation, dissemination:
- What is the 'work'?
- New presentation spaces, technologies.
- Aesthetical and musical issues raised by Internet communities, group compositions, telematics and performances.
- How can live performance/composition strategies be analysed?
- What is 'live'-electronic music?

Social aspects in the context of electroacoustic music:
- Have gender balances shifted since the early days?
- The relationship between technology/electroacoustic music and gender.

Soundscape, sound ecology:
- Analytical tools for the understanding of soundscapes.
- New approaches to sound ecology, sonification, sound environment.

Electroacoustic music in East and South-East Asia:
- Studies of the development and practices of electroacoustic music in East and South-East Asia.

Research on history of electroacoustic music:
- Research on historical documentation.
- Studies on the genesis, development and activities of private and public studios.
- How can and should we revise history?

Guidelines for Submission

The deadline for receipt of proposals of papers is Friday, 3 January 2014 midnight EST. Notification of acceptance will be emailed to applicants in March.

The duration of a paper presentation should be 20 minutes followed by a question period of 5 minutes. Standard presentation equipment will be provided including a video projector, CD player, and stereo sound system.

Conference languages are English and French.

Paper Submissions

Submissions can be made by uploading a zipped folder and providing the download link, or by direct email to:  ems2014.berlin[at]gmail.com .

A submission should consist of one pdf-document and the same as word-, odt-, or rtf-document in English with the following parts:
- the paper abstract in English (500 up to 1,000 words), headed with:
          > author name(s) and title (if any)
          > organization affiliation (if any)
          > contact address
          > telephone
          > email address
- a curriculum vitae (1 page maximum);
- a list of publications (1 page maximum);
- a brief bio (up to150 words).

The abstract should be ready for publication if the paper is accepted. A program containing the paper abstracts will be made available on the EMS website and distributed at the conference.

You can download the Call here!