Graham Dunning

My PhD has now been approved by university, so I can now share my thesis and the media that goes along with it. Here’s the main page with the thesis download and links: grahamdunning.com/phd In a three-year practice-as-research project, I developed new instrumental interfaces, performances, recordings and collaborations with the Mechanical Techno extended turntable setup. The thesis presents this practical work alongside discussing of the project as both a type of assemblage and a process of assemblage.

See the abstract below for more info.

Abstract

This practice-as-research thesis uses Mechanical Techno, an automated musical instrument-system and kinetic sounding sculpture, to analyse liveness in electronic music, framed by the concept of the assemblage.

As a project Mechanical Techno uniquely bridges several fields of research: experimental turntable practice, electronic dance music, sound art, and new musical instrument design. The research project shows a new body of work developed across these areas. A portfolio comprises documentation of a live performance, studio recordings, musical instrument designs, and new collaborations. Led by the practical work, the exegesis discusses the way the instrument-system works and what it can do, framing the work at different scales of assemblage.

Mechanical Techno is presented as a system which embodies a high degree of action-sound-coupling and machine liveness, enabled by the particular performance approach and set of affordances which are built into its design. Through live work in the studio, the project is considered as a physical audio workstation, enabling a discussion of the resulting mechanical and human signatures which define its aesthetic. Mechanical Techno sits between an automatic playback system and a playable musical instrument, and uses various interfaces for live inscription developed during the research project. This enables an investigation of the role of the setter in contemporary music practice. By combining Mechanical Techno with other artists’ projects, new collaborations are considered as live assemblages. The thesis argues that the use of the extended turntable as a mechanical musical instrument is a category of turntable practice distinct from both dance music DJing and instrumental turntablism. The several strands of creative practice contribute to an overarching discussion of liveness and its relationship to assemblage theory within experimental and electronic musicking.