Beyond Representation: Relationality and Affect in Musical Practices

Abstract

ABSTRACT The theoretical approaches that have been developed under the umbrella of posthumanism in recent years are highly stimulating for current trends in disciplines focused on music research. The aim of this article is to explore their possible usefulness in specific empirical cases, which have to do with musical practices. My point of departure in the article is to understand music as a sonic flow, created and/or perceived with aesthetic purposes, but which can perform functions that go well beyond these purposes, a sonic flow that affects us. This invites us to go beyond representational thinking and give due weight to affect and sensation. Within the frame of relational ontologies, in which the central idea is that being is relating, the body, as a locus of culture and therefore also of music, gains relevance for musical studies. A fundamental difference between the humanistic and posthumanist views is that while the first understands the human being in an antagonistic relationship with what surrounds him or her, the second regards the human being as embodied in an extended technological world, which among many other things includes music as well. In this manner, we may regard music not as something separated from our bodies but as in a constituent relationship with them. In addition to (and beyond) understanding music and musical practices as texts, which must be deciphered, we can also focus on them according to perspectives that take into account agencies and the body. Nonrepresentational theories can be useful in approaching music as something that is felt and lived.