Un millar de exposiciones colectivas

As outlined in the introductory chapter, the questioning of EDM and its representations of authorship can prompt discussion of a relationship to preconceived ideas of ‘the underground’ and an associated emphasis on the music rather than its composer. These ideas will resurface for further analysis throughout this thesis, yet a key characteristic of the underground – that is consistently recounted throughout the subsequent chapters – is the perception of a culture that is somehow marginalised. In questioning how this particularly applies to EDM, this chapter specifically examines how an association with technological production can lead to the recognition of EDM as a marginalised form of music. In conjunction with this, the role of technology can be attributed as a factor in depictions of the composer as marginalised figure: something that will contrast sharply with more conventional approaches that are prevalent in other forms of popular music. Then considering EDM’s alignment with specific technologies, this second chapter subsequently explores the authorial consequences within music that is produced in ways that may be viewed as ‘non-traditional’. The focus here is on the reliance on and a definition by musical technologies and how these, in turn, have altered perceptions of the composer; especially through the automated generation of musical elements and the subsequent depiction of the automated.

Technology has intrinsically been linked to music throughout history so it would be naïve to assume that it is just within recent developments that a connection between technological advancement and musical change has been evident. Style and genre shifts have long been triggered by technological breakthrough: whether via manufacturing capabilities facilitating the invention and evolution of musical instruments; the ability to capture the output of musicians as recordings; or the further modification or manipulation of recorded material. Durant underlines this wide and ubiquitous employment of technologies when stating that:

Virtually all forms of music-making are dependent upon some kind of deliberately designed and specialised equipment or technology […] The history of musical instruments is always, in this sense, a history of technology.

Consequently musical creativity is “inextricably bound to developments in audio technology and the working practices that ensue” (Warner, 2003, p.xi). As such, precision is required in order to determine what is meant by ‘technology’ with reference to EDM. For example, producer Trevor Horn’s response to a question concerning technology’s influence on his own electronic pop compositions highlights the potential ambiguity in a discussion without clear parameters. Countering Timothy Warner’s query regarding the extent that Horn’s output has been defined by the technology involved in its creation, he asserts how this is a “wide question” and illustrates his point by observing how “technology has affected the music since people built cathedrals” (Warner, 2003, p.143). In fact Horn could have picked an earlier era to illustrate his idea given how it is clear that music’s development can be observed as a sequence in tandem with the aforementioned ‘history of technology’.

So to define EDM’s technologies is to first locate a later point in the history of music: not just after cathedrals, but following Edison’s development of the phonograph and the creation of electromechanical instruments. As part of a continuum, it may be difficult to identify the exact starting point for the audio that would come to shape EDM since each development will have a forbear and, as Mackenzie and Wajcman observe, “the history of technology is a path- dependent history, one in which past events exercise continuing influences” (1999, p.19). Therefore – as with the socio-cultural aspects of EDM discussed in the introductory chapter – the description of a clear technological chronology is argued as being too extensive to include here. If that is required, Shapiro’s Modulations: A History of Electronic Music – Throbbing Words on Sound (2000) provides a comprehensive guide alongside a glossary of relevant genres with particular attention paid to The Futurists, the Dynamophone, Varèse, Theremin, Electroacoustic Echo machines, Musique Concrète and Schaeffer, Stockhausen’s experiments of the 1950s, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the 1960s, the Mellotron, the Moog and Moroder through to Roland’s TR-77, its 909, 808 and 303 plus digital synthesis and ‘time stretch’. All of these developments contribute to a lineage of which EDM is a part, yet each boasts its own elaborate and potentially tangential history. So to retain focus, broader examples of technologies within this chapter are used solely when they are relevant to the discussed contemporary work/issues of authorship while the technologies that are wholly intrinsic to EDM are defined as both analogue and digital music-generating machines from the latter half of the 20th _{Century (mainly synthesisers, sequencers, drum machines, samplers}

and computers).

The ‘Machinic’ - as cited in the chapter’s title - is indicative of Deleuze and Guattari’s premise of unholy alliances formed between human and non-human (1988, p.241). These can

take a variety of forms including, but not limited to, extensions or hybrids that incorporate animal or plant life. In the case of this thesis, the machinic is specifically addressing the use of technologies in defining affiliations between man and machine to culminate in entities that, in turn, can embody an expanded range of capabilities. The cyborg, robot or android is especially relevant to this discussion and this chapter therefore includes two case studies that consider the deployment of the cyborg as representational form. The first of these centres upon German electronic band Kraftwerk that, while predating EDM, have a reputation as both pioneers of and a continued influence on modern electronic music alongside a similarly influential reluctance to utilise typical ‘pop star’ imagery. Kraftwerk’s approach to both music-making and image is then pertinent to the discussion of relationships between man and machine and links to a further section that broadens the discussion beyond this example to address a connection to, a later production unit located within EDM, Daft Punk. These two case studies are then also indicative of alternate methods of production – particularly with reference to the respective producer’s use of the synthesiser and the sampler. In both cases, it is clear that these technologies have contributed to a corruption of the classic/romantic image of the composer.

Prior to this, the ground is prepared with an examination of machinic alliances that queries the technological distinctions between EDM and other forms of music: specifically in their relationship to what are commonly observed as ‘rock’ attributes and values. It will look not only at the characteristics of the music itself but the way in which these aspects have informed ideas regarding how EDM’s composer and culture is subsequently represented.