Co-Sounding: Fostering intersubjectivity in electronic music improvisation

Abstract

Shared music improvisation constitutes a formidable vector for intersubjective connection. Improvisation is a space of non-semantic communication that allows for putting oneself at risk and requires mutual trust and listening, as well as dialogical qualities. This article investigates the intersubjective dimension of improvisation in electronic music praxis, focusing on how the electronic medium can be used to foster mediation between musicians. The article builds on a practice-based enquiry in duo format, conducted in three successive technological settings, with a methodological entanglement of aesthetic and design aims. Systematic video documentation and participant observation provide an analytical counterpoint to an immersion in the improvisatory praxis. A set of design strategies for fostering intersubjective connection in shared musicianship emerges from the research. The findings provide the basis for a dialectical consideration between musical and intersubjective aesthetics. The discussion points to the diversity of social functions of music and their respective aesthetics. Electronic instruments’ inherent plasticity allows for reconfiguring the social space of music-making, and thus opens perspectives for devising synergetic music systems that emphasise an ethos of shared agency over the production of musical objects or performances.