In an article entitled 'Séance and technology: intermundane communication as a methodology for contemporary music', Dr Jonathan Packham explores ‘séancing’ as both a framework for interpreting performances of technologically focused contemporary music, and as a credible methodology for new music composition.
Jonathan Packham
This article examines compositions that stage communion with spirits via technological means. Through analysis of four works, it proposes ‘séancing’ as both a framework for interpreting performances of technologically focused contemporary music, and as a credible methodology for new music composition. In Francesca Fargion’s Louise, gently falling (2023), Vochlea’s Dubler 2 conjures a spectral vocalist that energises both rehearsal and performance. In Laurence Osborn’s Counterfeits (Siminică) (2023), Augmented Instruments Lab’s TouchKeys help stage a theatrical séance that blurs intermundane boundaries. Nwando Ebizie uses Google’s LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) to explore questions of sapience, pedagogy, and possession in I Will Fix Myself (Just Circles) (2022). Zubin Kanga’s Metamemory(2023) makes use of PriSM SampleRNN to blur distinctions between real recorded performances and techno-hallucinogenic fictions.
For full information and to read the article, viist this website: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14794713.2024.2412507
About Dr Jonathan Packham
Jonathan Packham is a composer and researcher with interests in a variety of contemporary experimental music and sonic arts. He completed a DPhil in Music at St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford in 2021, supported by an AHRC DTP studentship. He is currently the Postdoctoral Research Assistant with Cyborg Solosists at Royal Holloway University of London. Some of his recent compositions include a tetralogy of club-adjacent releases under his electronic alias SALINGER via EXPO, pavilion lovesong number 1, commissioned by SONCITIES, and SLOWLY SHRINKING WORLDS, commissioned by trombonist Sebastiaan Kemner. In 2020 he won the EMPRES Award for Experimental Electronic Music for his collaborative composition FISSION, co-written with producer Xactus. Since late 2016 he has been experimenting with live-generated video scores in virtual environments using VR headset technologies, as exemplified in 2019’s SECRET ANIMALS. Jonathan has published writing on experimental music and sonic art, both in peer-reviewed academic journals Leonardo and TEMPO and in an essay collection titled Crafting a Sonic Urbanism: the Political Voice II convened by Theatrum Mundi. Alongside his research position with Cyborg Soloists, Jonathan is Stipendiary Lecturer in Music at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.
