Studiumizing the Punctum: Applying Barthes' Hermeneutic to Sampled Sounds

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Using nothing more than equalization, multiplication, and phase shifting on a computer audio program I will demonstrate how even the most meaning-laden of music can become referentless. Through continued overlap, temporal offsetting, amplification, and diminishing the punctum of a song can become a featureless studium that is similar to Shoshana Felman's concept of the radical negative; the single event that is neither referentially positive, nor referentially negative. Altering familiar music in this way initiates a questioning of what actually happens in between the event of auralization and sonic ingestion and deciphering. Such questioning is necessary in regards to the performativity of both audience and performer in a performance, and the performativity of quotidian listening.

Stream: Constructing Art Worlds

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I am currently enrolled in the MA program in Performance Studies at Tisch. Currently my work occupies two fields: corporeal theory and sound. I am interested in formations and performances of corporeality that efface the idea of sovereignty and volition, positing the individual human body as actant within a structure, rather than arbiter of agency. Sound carries two valences in praxis for me: phonography, and composition. Phonography is a relatively new musical practice that involves the use of field recordings as source material. For me it is particularly influenced by Cage's notion of the volition of sounds. My composition are likewise influenced by Cage and consist of time brackets with basic instructions.