I have been preoccupied for a long time with Magritte’s pipe image and the relationship between image and original, between the thing itself and its reproduction. My particular interest is in how this relationship translates to sound. How does birdsong differ from its recording? How does the “image” of a recorded drum kit behave in contrast to the thing itself, the sound of the kit? If the recorded acoustic image of a sound is not the sound itself then what is the sound beyond its image? What attributes, qualities and possibilities does it have? How could these be used to explore meaning in music?
Another preoccupation is something experimental computer scientist Georg Trogemann once said:
“Openness [… in digital systems …] can be created by leaving essential things unformalised.”
This sentence (and its consequences for software development) resonates with my interest in digital audio systems that are open to the wide field of musical ideas and expressions of musicians.
What would that mean for the construction of sound synthesis systems, of human-computer-interaction in sound or in general for digital sound systems? Ultimately, what does it mean for any digital system a human will use to work with?