Aspects of the Virtual and the Real: Repetition, Memory and the Integration of Recorded Sound in my Recent Music

This article reflects on my subjective position in relation to the ways in which time passes in two recent works, Dead Time (2019) and Towards a slowing of the past (2023). I consider how each of these pieces relates to my interest in musical time and demonstrate how the inclusion of pre-recorded materials has allowed me to explore aspects of memory and repetition in new ways. A Deleuzian model of difference and repetition is considered and used to illustrate how becoming might be observed in the mind and body of the perceiver as much as in the materials themselves. I reflect on the complex relationship between the virtual and the real by examining differences in perception between performed events and pre-recorded versions of those same events that are incorporated into musical works as part of the real-time experience. I discuss the ways in which sampled material integrated within the performances of these works might evoke different temporal states, such as metaxis, in which we are simultaneously engaged with aspects of pastness and presentness.