‘Did I play that?’ Exploring the framework of affordances in relation to groove at the intersections of improvisation and digital manipulation

Description

The concept of affordances from ecological theory outlines how objects have potential uses that they ‘afford’ the organism confronting them (Gibson, 1977). In this talk, I will consider the theory of affordances in relation to the creative process of my electronic music project, Nightports and specific attention will be given to how it interacts with and sheds light on various issues pertaining to time, rhythm and groove.

As a project, Nightports is bound by a fundamental aesthetic of restriction: only sounds produced by the featured musician (or place) can be used – nothing else – though these can be transformed, distorted, translated, reworked, stretched, cut, ordered and reordered without limitation. The resulting music is a hybrid of the specific characteristics of the musician’s playing plus the interventions of the producers. Through practical examples, this presentation will discuss how the interactive relationship between the affordances of the musical object, available technology and the musical creativity of artists facilitate the specific rhythmic outcome of each creative process.

Period	28 Mar 2023
Held at	University of Oslo, Norway
Degree of Recognition	International