Journal articles on the topic 'Contemporary flute'

Extended flute techniques, which are frequently found in contemporary flute literature, carry the flute to a different dimension, pushing the boundaries of composers and performers. Although the number of pieces containing these techniques in the world has increased rapidly, along with Turkish flute repertoire, written Turkish sources about extended flute techniques are limited to theses and articles. In this research, the use of extended flute techniques in flute education programmes in Turkey was investigated. A survey method was used in the research, and 20 teaching staff members participated in the survey by answering the questionnaire. As a result of the research, it was determined that 18 teaching staff members included extended flute techniques in their flute education programmes, and 2 teaching staff members did not use these techniques in flute education, particularly because “the techniques and pieces do not accord with the levels of the students” and because of “the difficulty of the pieces”. In the conclusion, the difficulties faced by the teaching staff during training in extended flute techniques are summarized, and the suggestions of the teaching staff are mentioned.

Music in Japan is richly varied and includes documented genres dating back more than 1000 years. From classical court music known as gagaku, to the dramatic music plays in kabuki, to contemporary J-pop (subgenre of popular music), educators can find a sound to suit every instructional need. The focus here will be on considerations of three traditional instruments used in Japan: the koto (zither), shakuhachi (bamboo flute), and shamisen (three-stringed instrument), and a unique educational experience for those interested in studying these traditions. The learning program is offered through a koto school in Tokyo that is more than a century old, and they now offer a course in English every other summer. Also offered are suggestions for incorporating traditional Japanese music into elementary and secondary general music settings.

The article examines the relation between traditional vocal music and contemporary compositional poetics in Serbian art song, created in the last two decades. The special relationship between the ?eastern? Balkans inheritance and ?western? compositional practices which characterized Serbian music throughout the 20th century is considered in a contemporary, post-modern context and within a particular genre framework. The status of the reference itself, as well as of referential relationships, are examined through examples taken from three works: Dve tuzbalice (1997) for soprano, viola and piano by Djuro Zivkovic (1975), Da su meni oci tvoje (2008) for soprano, flute and piano by Ivan Brkljacic (1977) and Rukoveti (2000) for soprano and orchestra by Isidora Zebeljan (1967).

The article discloses the instrumental language nature of Dnipro composer Valentina Martyniuk from the perspective of the ethno-cultural features for master's author style. The investigation is being carried out on the basis of compositions for wind instruments, namely "Interview on a given topic" for clarinet solo, Vocalize for flute and piano, as well as Melody for horn (or flute) and piano. The investigation has established the defining foundation of the vocal of the composer's instrumental language to be the phenomenon of folk singing style of artistic instrumental creations. This phenomenon is born on the productive basis of national genre, namely Ukrainian solo singing. V. Martyniuk realizes artistic creative potential in the singing expressive melody, improvisation, priority of solo representation of musical compositions, the composer removes the assignment of a certain instrument for a specific musical composition, creates the priority for secondo-third interval connections. The author of the article affirms the contemporary conception of Ukrainian instrumental solo singing in the academic instrumental music.

This article addresses the long-controversial dating of the cadenza with flute in the mad scene of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. New manuscript sources indicate that the famous cadenza dates not from the first half of the nineteenth century, as musicologists had assumed, but from 1889, when it was added to the opera for Nelly Melba’s performances at the Palais Garnier, Paris. The cadenza was most likely composed by Melba’s teacher Mathilde Marchesi to showcase the light voice and virtuosic technique of her student. Once introduced, the cadenza with flute decisively altered the impact and reception of the mad scene. In the first two decades after the opera’s 1835 première, the mad scene had not been particularly popular, perhaps because it contravened contemporary Italian taste for mad scenes featuring docile, virginal heroines. By the fin de siècle, however, the mad scene was regarded as the highlight of the opera, the excesses of the cadenza resonating with the new vogue for violent and hysterical heroines on the operatic stage.

ABSTRACTAlthough the common way to perform late eighteenth-century flute or oboe concertos today is for the soloist to rest during tutti passages, this is probably not what most composers had in mind. Recent research has shown that keyboard and violin soloists played an important role as orchestral members during the ritornellos of their concertos, the former providing a continuo part and the latter doubling the orchestral first violins. But what about concertos for flute or oboe? Were these soloists also to play during the tuttis, and if so, what? Primary source evidence (supported by statements in contemporary treatises) reveals that many eighteenth-century composers expected woodwind soloists to participate during all or some orchestral ritornellos. Printed and manuscript parts of the period reveal several types of soloist participation, suggesting that the practice was widespread yet also flexible. Reinstatement of the soloist in the tuttis, performing all of the music that eighteenth-century composers asked them to perform, would alter the way these concertos sound, in turn forcing a change in how they are perceived.

Douglas Hensley has been an active chamber musician ever since he took up serious study of the classical guitar. He received bachelor and master's degrees under the direction of David Tanenbaum from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and he has studied with many other musicians in private lessons and master classes. Over the past ten years he has premiered close to fifty new compositions, performed numerous U.S. premieres and the West Coast premiere of Elliott Carter's “Changes” for solo guitar. For Opus One Records in New York he has recorded Larry Polansky's “Hensley Variations” and David Loeb's “Trois Cansos” with flautist Kenneth Kramer and violist John Casten. He has also recorded a collection of duets with Japanese shakuhachi master Masayuka Koga, “Autumn Mist,” for Fortuna Records of Novato, California. His principal activities are as cofounder (with violist/violinist John Casten) and guitarist of the San Francisco-based contemporary performance ensemble ISKRA, which is made up of flute, clarinet, guitar, violin/viola, doublebass and soprano voice. Anyone with additional information about flute, viola, guitar trios (or other chamber music with guitar), or queries, is urged to contact him at 607-A Frederick St., San Francisco, CA 94117.

Swedish baritone Hakan Hagegard has had an extraordinary international career performing in opera, oratorio, and recitals. While his signature role may have been that of Papageno, in Ingmar Bergman’s famous film of The Magic Flute, Mr. Hagegard is equally at home and adept with contemporary repertoire. He is also widely known and respected for his interest in developing ways to help other artists survive the rigors of performance. An integral part of this was the building of an artists retreat and meeting place, HageGarden, in rural Sweden. Editor Alice Brandfonbrener, who is a friend of Hakan Hagegard, recently conducted this interview with the singer long distance with the help of e-mail.

Abstract Sound banks are collections of sound samples from musical instruments of the symphonic orchestra, traditional instruments from various areas of the world and sounds of virtual devices, such as synthesizers, which are increasingly present in contemporary musical creations. Sound banks are loaded in a device called sampler, which can edit and play them. The article describes analog and especially virtual samplers, complex devices that can store or play sounds from specific libraries of sound banks. It also defines and catalogs the main types of digital virtual instruments (that include traditional symphonic orchestra instruments, ones with modern electronic instruments/percussion instruments, and ethnic collections for various geographic areas. Our research on digital applications used in music writing relies on 20 years of experience. Currently, applications are valuable tools for composers and musicians, and for everyone in the contemporary music industry. In 2006, I created the first collection of sound banks made in Romania “The Essence of Panflute”, library containing sound samples 583, grouped in 33 virtual instruments. This is the most complex virtual version of the Romanian pan flute, played by the renowned Cătălin Tîrcolea. The library is designed and edited by Cătălin Răsvan, for the company S.C. Canira Music Internațional. This collection of sound banks presents in minute detail the laborious process of recording and editing this virtual library. “The Essence of Panflute” has seen international acclaim, is distributed by the German company Best Service, one of the major companies in the world, was reviewed in the most prestigious magazine in this field, Sound on Sound, and has opened the door for current/future creators of music. We hope that it is only the beginning for our work in the research and development of digital virtual sound, which is a special category for the instruments in our country.

Nicola LeFanu, prominent among Britain's woman composers, noted both for her strong lyrical style and her exploration of the use of microtonality, employed all these skills in abundance in the world première of her new piece A Phoenix for Carla at this year's Spitalfields Summer Festival. I was attracted to this work due to its being billed as portraying a theme connected with the London Riots of 2011, which lends itself to drama as well as an examination of underlying sociological factors. However, leaving aside these wider considerations, the piece was in fact a microcosm, devoted to a highly sensitive expression of empathy for the plight of flautist Carla Rees, whose Croydon Flat had been entirely destroyed by fire along with all her possessions in the August 2011 riots, it being in close proximity to the tragic burning down of the 144-year old House of Reeves furniture shop much displayed on our TV News channels at the time. Carla lost at least 10 flutes, including two Kingma Alto flutes specially made for her in the Netherlands on which she had based her international contemporary music career as leader of the digital acoustic Ensemble Rarescale, centred on bringing new music for Alto Flute to a wider audience. When interviewed in The Independent nearly a year later Carla commented on the aftermath: ‘I have good days and bad days, keeping going is the main thing. I'm really trying to focus on the positive but there's a deep sense of hurt in the middle of me which doesn't go away. An experience like this is like a reset button on your entire life’.

Abstract the piece by composer Viorel Munteanu reveals the symbiosis between past musical ages and modernity, between established compositional techniques (of the string orchestra) and contemporary sound emission processes (the solo flute). The syntaxes of past trends in music, polyphony and homophony, as well as modern treatments of rhythm, such as polyrhythm, coexist felicitously and result in a type of musical thought that, although anchored in the past, looks forward to the future. Rhythm can be considered from various metric perspectives, especially in the faster parts of the concerto. Rhythmic layers are present both vertically (polyrhythms) and horizontally (polyphons of rhythms); the cross of the two variants is of particular interest. The aksak rhythm, characteristic of the Balkan area, may come as a surprise as it briefly occurs in Part III; this unexpected element brings an inspired change of horizon, followed by a return to the previous giusto expression. The form of the last part, Rondo, can also be discussed from a modern perspective, rooted in the past; it could actually be placed within in the Rondo-Sonata pattern; however, its sound contour does not belong to the tonal sphere, but rather to a form of extended modalism. The soloist instrument merges with the string orchestra and emerges from it, in a discourse that clearly bears the mark of the composer’s creative personality. The most successful element of the work is its expressiveness, the way in which the compositional and technical means are subordinated to the aesthetic message that Viorel Munteanu intends to transmit to the public.

Seventy years after its publication, librarians at the New York Public Library catalogued Moby Dick with other books that explored the finer points of whaling. In making this bibliographic classification, librarians at this most American exemplar of that most American institution, the public lending library, read Melville's novel not as a great national epic but as an instance of the particular, the regional, the ethnic, the vocational. Given that American readers (not to mention critics of American literature) continue to be more interested in the particular than the epic, it is not surprising that Melville's successor, Cormac Mc-Carthy's epic Blood Meridian (1985), has failed to attract the critical attention it deserves. Writing resolutely against the contemporary grain, McCarthy treats American history and identity as if it were a continuous whole. Although revisionist, McCarthy's version of American history offers little comfort to those who would rewrite American history from the point of view of the peoples who were obliterated so that American history might fulfill its Destiny. Where a typical revisionist history might read Manifest Destiny as a story about Europeans and European values destroying local lands and cultures, McCarthy insists that this kind of history is fragmentary because it depends on a denial of the fact that we only arrive at such critical positions of moral superiority because we are the survivors and successors to this Destiny. His novel examines the burgeoning American empire of the mid-19th century not to indulge in the compensatory pleasures of self-accusation but to remind us of how particularizing versions of history necessarily deny how we have become to be who we are.

This article examines the conceptual relationship between the notion of dynamics in music and the idea of ​​dynamics as “power” and “potentiality” in metaphysics. What is implicit in both notions is the idea of “force”, as configured in a philosophical tradition from Aristotle to Nietzsche, Heidegger and Deleuze. It is no coincidence that the system of signs that, in music, indicates the intensity of sound, its strength and its expression, takes its name from this philosophical concept. What follows tries to understand in which sense the term dynamics, as a theory of force and potentiality, steps into the field of music. The Aristotelian concept of dynamis, Leibniz’s theory of vis activa and the Nietzschean “Will to Power” reveal their profound meaning when related to the specific dynamic ontology realized by music. Two contemporary musical examples, taken from flute works by Sciarrino and Hosokawa, show with particular evidence how to understand a metaphysical idea of ​​musical dynamics.

This paper is the first attempt to lay out the major scientific achievements of teachers of faculties of wind and percussion instruments of Ukrainian universities with 3-4 accreditation levels, for the period from second half of XX – to beg. of XXI century. This article systematizes and precisely analyzes the content of obtained PhD dissertations on musical art, theory and methodic of professional education, musical art, theory, the methodic and organization of cultural and educational activities. In the period of Ukraine’s integration into the European entities, scientific work becomes the leitmotif of the activity of a teacher of a higher art educational institution. The works of the leading scientists of Ukraine became the fundamental scientific researches of the evolution of spiritual musical performance. V. Apatsky in the doctoral dissertation “Theoretical foundations of playing the wind instruments (on the example of bassoon)” examines the acoustic nature of the instrument and the specificity of sound formation on it, the structure and functioning of the executive apparatus and methods of its formation, the basic means of expressiveness of the bassoonist and methods of development of performing skill. I. Yakustidi in the dissertation “The value of horn tone in the learning process” and by the method of numerical laboratory measurements explored the work of the sound-forming apparatus of the horn performer. Along with the experimental experiments, the dissertation covers the issues of performance history, theory and practice, methods of teaching horn performance. P. Krul in his study “Genesis of Wind and Percussion Instrumental Performance of Ukraine” traces the genesis of wind and percussion music in Ukraine. V. Posvaluk in the dissertation “Ways of Formation and Problems of Development of the Ukrainian Trumpet Performance School: Historical, Professional-Performing, Theoretical and Methodological Aspects” for the first time reveals the peculiarity of the historical way of formation and development of the national trumpet performance school and its regional peculiarities. V. Bohdanov dedicates his dissertation “Ways of Development of the Wind Musical Art in Ukraine (from the Origins to the Beginning of the XX Century) to the Study of the Wind Musical Art of Ukraine. Based on the systematization of actual data, the main directions of its evolution are highlighted. V. Kachmarchyk. The priority areas of the dissertation research “German flute art of the 18th – 19th centuries” were the creation of the historical periodization of the German flute art of the 18th – 19th centuries, and defining the role of J. J. Kwanz, J. G. Tromlits, A. B. Furstenau and T. Bohm in the formation of the German flute school. Y. Sverlyuk in his work “Theoretical and methodological bases of vocational training of conductor of an orchestra collective in higher art establishments” he explored methodological, theoretical and methodical bases of vocational training of conductor taking into account the specifics of future professional activity. A. Karpyak. In his Doctoral dissertation “Flutist’s Artistic Thesaurus as the Basis of Performing Skills” and for the first time in Ukrainian musicology, he provided a reasoned critical analysis of the key issues and problems in the development of contemporary flute art.

In this paper, I explore how contemporary musicians using electronic technologies in improvised music conceptualize skill and virtuosity in their musical practices. This includes ideas about the role and agency of technology, learned and repeatable physical skill, skill acquisition, skill transmission, and the projection of learned skill from traditional instruments onto new instruments. The musicians’ use of idiosyncratic and individually constructed instruments—instruments with little or no history of a performance practice—makes this field a rich resource to examine how such conceptions are developed. Among the musicians I interviewed, the relationship between physical skill and virtuosity is particularly contested. While they frequently value such skill, they also connect it to perceived excesses of certain factions within Western art music, jazz, and other established musical performance practices where physical skill can be conflated with (or considered as the primary element of) musical skill, writ large. This perception of the excess and the prioritization of physical skill have led some interviewed musicians to adopt antivirtuosity as a reactive counter-ideology or to explore the less tangible concepts of hearing, creativity, imagination, memory, novelty, innovation, and even ideas of management as constitutive of musical virtuosity and skill. This paper is part of a larger ethnographic examination of a diverse cross-section of contemporary musicians who improvise with new, repurposed, and reinvented electronic technologies, including Robert Henke (one of the original authors of the software package Ableton Live), guitarist Nels Cline (Wilco), composer and flute player Anne La Berge, and trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith.

The article outlines the most characteristic features of existentialism as an artistic phenomenon in the world literature, emphasizes the features of Ukrainian existentialism, which is characterized by its national peculiarity. The special attention is devoted to the particularities of the perception of revolutionary reality by various types of characters of B. Antonenko-Davidovich's early period creativity. A separate emphasis is placed on the contrast between the two types of consciousness, which in the author’s works forms a kind of opposition and is the link that connects the works of the early and post-rehabilitation periods of the author's prose. On the background of the “Vartovyi Chapenko” (“Guard Chapenko”) essay, a transitional element between the two types formed by the revolutionary heroes is drawn, whose tragedy determined the misunderstanding of the true essence of the Bolshevik system. On the basis of the “Synia Voloshka” (“Blue Flute”) story an existential model of self-understanding in the world is analyzed; it was discovered that such a way of self-identification is oppositional to the requirements of the contemporary society; it focuses on the destruction of the bright ideals and the appeal of hero-defenders to such existential categories as "alienation", "death", "absurdity". It has been proved that existential motives become distinctive markers of B. Antonenko-Davidovich's prose.

This article examines the folding together of music and landscape in some recent albums featuring the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute that today animates an active and international music scene. Through analysis of the texts, images, and sounds on these albums, I explore the re-imagining of the shakuhachi’s musical geography as the instrument reaches new players and places in Europe, Australia, and North America. Using recordings that incorporate environmental sounds alongside the shakuhachi, I examine ideas about the perceived authenticity of particular sounds, performance spaces, and recording aesthetics. These recordings unsettle our thinking about the relationship between music and landscape in several ways. First they document performers’ connections with particular sites, yet complicate any notion that the shakuhachi is related to a single place or nation, signalling a distinctly contemporary sense of place. Second, the centrality of mediation in these artistic projects makes technology crucial to the production of the natural and renders the naturalness of the shakuhachi audible in new ways. Third, the use of environmental sounds provokes questions about agency and the boundaries between human and non-human sound-making. By treating these albums as assemblages of material, social, technological, and natural elements, I reveal the lively and complex character of otherwise everyday musical objects.

The opus of contemporary Serbian composer Milorad Marinkovic (b. 1976), which encompasses works of choral, chamber, concertante and symphony music, leans towards classical forms of artistic music, Serbian folklore music, and Serbian Orthodox church chant. This paper deals with pieces composed for larger instrumental ensembles: Herojska uvertira (Heroic Overture) for symphony orchestra, Psalmodija (Psalmody) for symphony orchestra, Koncert za klavir i orkestar (Piano concerto) and Mala opera (Little Opera) for chamber ensemble (septet) with prominent soloist parts of flute and clarinet. Special attention is placed on different procedures used by Marinkovic to accomplish wholeness and integration of the musical tissue. This paper observes these pieces as examples of religious music, having in mind the composer?s own understanding of the notion. Among common characteristics of the observed works that justify this point of view are specific single movement forms and the prominent role of main thematic materials, a cyclic principle, and programmatic elements. References to Serbian church chant observed in Marinkovic?s instrumental works are also discussed, especially in parallel with the analogue procedures used by Ljubica Maric (1909- 2003), one of the composer?s role models. Although Marinkovic?s works for instrumental ensembles do not fall into the category of spiritual music in its narrow sense (as defined by the composer himself), in this paper they are nevertheless considered as ?spiritual? in a broader sense, as an expression of the composer?s desire to spiritualize his entire artistic output.

The paper presents knowledge acquired during the monitoring of a flue-gas stack, performed as part of technical and scientific surveillance of mining activity and its impact on industrial objects. The chimney is located in an area impacted by mining activity since the 1970s, from a coal mine which is no longer in existence. In the period of 2013-16, this area was subject to mining carried out by a mining entrepreneur who currently holds a license to excavate hard coal. Periodic measurements of the deflection of the 113-meter chimney are performed using conventional geodetic methods. The GIG used 3 methods to observe the stack: landbased 3D laser scanning, continuous deflection monitoring with a laser sensor, and drone-based visual inspections. The drone offered the possibility to closely inspect the upper sections of the flue-gas stack, which are difficult to see from the ground level.

Viktor Vlasov is one of the brightest representatives of Ukrainian button accordion school, and his work is a special page in the musical culture of Ukraine and a significant component of the button accordion art for children. By his work V. Vlasov implements, new ideas and techniques of performing skills that rely on bright artistic images in the native children’s music, and also applies the means of composition techniques that appear in contemporary button accordion art and he pays attention to the latest unconventional methods of sound making. Due to this variety, V. Vlasov’s works have no only their main task – the education of children, but also it is a guideline for other composers. Music scholars, who study the work of Ukrainian composer-accordionist V. Vlasov, have the important task to give a proper assessment of work in general, and summarize the basic criteria of his approach to the formation of the system of young accordionist’s professional skills. Children’s music of button accordion of Ukrainian authors is a significant amount of works for young performers. Although the history of button accordion performance and pedagogy in comparison with other musical instruments is very short, it can be confirmed of the formation of certain schools of button accordion craftsmanship, including the author’s schools, one of which includes the original work of V. Vlasov. In Ukraine, the period of children’s music of button accordion development was synchronized with the formation of a professional button accordion music in general. Beginning from the second half of the twentieth century composers-accordionists made a huge contribution to the musical heritage, including for children. At the same time, information about this stage of musical culture is still poorly explored, the potential of the Ukrainian children’s music of button accordion is not sufficiently defined, the information about collections of plays for children and young people of Ukrainian composers is not generalized or systematized. Ukrainian music for children encompasses a multitude of individual composer styles (from V. Kosenko, M. Lysenko, I. Shamo to contemporary authors such as A. Gaidenko, V. Vlasov, P. Gubanov, O. Shmykov, B. Myronchuk and many others. V. Vlasov definitely can be considered composers with a brightly individually creative writing. All composer’s musical creativity is original and is closely connected with Ukrainian and world classics using authentic folklore, with an appeal to modern pop and jazz genres. He is the author of many works for button accordion which are as complicated, oriented on high level masters as works for beginners. V. Vlasov’s «Album for Children and Youth» has become an important achievement in the field of button accordion art. The cycle of V. Vlasov includes 45 different-colored music pieces; they are not connected with a plot-thematic line, because each music piece has its musical and artistic content. In addition, the music pieces are grouped into five notebooks in accordance with the general plan and a clear pedagogical task. In the first two notebooks of the album («Album of the first-graders», « At a visit to a fairy tale «), the world of a modern child is developed very clearly in the tradition of children’s album from such composers as R. Schumann and P. Chaikovsky to S. Prokofiev and B. Bartok. In the notebook «Folk tunes» which includes folk treats, V. Vlasov managed to cover folk leaks of different regions of Ukraine. The music pieces of the last notebook («Variety-jazz plays») are based on modern jazz language. Researchers more often pay attention to the listed notebooks. This article focuses on the central book of the album – «Chamber Plays». Three sonatas at the beginning of this notebook are perceived as a microcycle where the specificity of sonat thinking is consistently revealed and the artistic and technical tasks for the artist are gradually becoming more complex. The first music piece is a miniature «Sonatyna» of F-dur of early classical type, but even in the summary presentation the thematic contrast is already presented and the functional and logical side of the sonata form is implemented. The second «Sonatyna» D-dur meets the examples of Vienna classics – the thematic is based on the original contrast, there is already a motive comparison in a small development. The third «Sonatyna» C-dur is the most difficult task for performance; it relies on a complex of expressive means corresponding to the music of the 20th century – the toccata-basis of the themes, a complex harmonious language. Thus, three sonatas are a short «summary» of the genre for button accordionists at beginner level. The study of these sonatas is important for assimilating the most complex musical structure. The following music plieces are devoted to other genres, where the author focuses on the transformation of stylistic features. The romantic type of «Serenade» focused on J. Field’s nocturnes has such features as intricacy, expressiveness, sensuality and refinement and corresponds to the general lyrical character of the music piece. The greatest artistic complexity for button accordion performers in «Serenade» is precisely the embodiment of the character of a work that requires a certain level of student’s artistic development, an open emotionality. «Harpsichord» is a work that helps to restore the picture of the aristocratic salon of the times of Rococo, but at the same time it gives certain tasks for the young performer. V. Vlasov somewhat unusually interprets the distribution of textural functions in this musical piece: the part in the left hand imitates the sound of a harpsichord, creating a harmonic accompaniment, while the soloing art of the right hand reflects the timbre of flute or oboe; here the coordination of the hands of the button accordionist and the differentiation of the strokes are important. The last music piece of the book «Watercolour» seems more complicated in content, and more complex in texture development and performance tasks. In this musical creation of this genre of painting, the composer redefines the established notions about the art technique of watercolors and combines the traditions of musical Impressionism with the elements of the «plot», which is represented as a picture. The Viktor Vlasov work, one of the most prominent representatives of the Ukrainian Button accordion School, is a special page of the musical culture of Ukraine and an important component of children’s button accordion music. The most important achievement of the composer in the “Album for Children and Youth” is the systematic, consistent, professional justification of the whole set of musical and auditory ideas and professional skills that make this cycle can be a real school of button accordion craftsmanship.

Background. The history of the development of orchestral music for Chinese traditional instruments covers more than a thousand years. During this time, the traditional orchestra has undergone significant changes. In the article the modern stage of the development of the orchestra of a new type is considered starting from the 1920s, when its modification began and integration with the principles of the Western Symphony Orchestra. The modernization of the Chinese orchestra of traditional instruments began in the twentieth century after the overthrow of imperial rule and the emerging changes in Chinese society. Nevertheless, the process of integrating the Western musical traditions was carried out in China for several centuries, which prepared the ground for the qualitative changes that began in the 20th century in the field of national musical art. The development of orchestral music for Chinese traditional instruments is not sufficiently studied today in musicology. One of the little studied periods is the initial stage of the formation of the Chinese orchestra of folk instruments of a new type in the 1920s – 1930s. Objectives. The purpose of the article is to reveal the prerequisites and specifics of the formation of the Chinese orchestra of traditional instruments of a new type in the 1920s and 1930s, to determine the role of outstanding Chinese musicians in the process of modernizing the orchestra and creating the appropriate national repertoire. The methodology of research is based on musical-historical approach combined with musical-theoretical and performer analysis. Results. The first shifts in the integration of Western and national traditions in Chinese traditional orchestral music became possible thanks to the activities of the music society “Datong yuehui”, as well as the emergence of higher professional musical institutions in China and the training of Chinese musicians abroad. The most important role in the formation of the Chinese orchestra of traditional instruments of a new type was played by outstanding musicians Zheng Jinwen, Liu Tianhua, Zheng Tisi. Zheng Jinwen was the initiator of the creation of the society “Datong Yuhui” in 1920. He began the process of standardizing various Chinese instruments with the goal of unifying their sound tuning fork. This was necessary for a well-coordinated game in the orchestral ensemble. The musician modernized and developed new methods of tuning traditional instruments for flute dizi, multi-barrel sheng and expanded the orchestra to forty people. Zheng Jinwen adapted the national repertoire to a new type of orchestra, performing as an author of orchestral transcriptions of ancient music for traditional Chinese instruments. Liu Tianhua became the creator of the Society for the Development of National Music at Peking University (1927–1932). The musician reformed the old system of Chinese notation “gongchi” based on hieroglyphs, modernized it and adapted it to the Western musical notation. Substantial achievement of Liu Tianhua was a significant modification of the erhu with the replacement of strings by metal, changing the settings in accordance with the standards of Western stringed instruments. As a result, the erhu acquired the status of a leading or solo instrument in a new type of orchestra. The activity of the first modern Chinese orchestra of traditional instruments, the musical collective of the Broadcasting Company of China, created in Nanjing in 1935, had a great importance. In 1937, from the Second Sino-Japanese War, the orchestra was transferred to Chongqing, and after the victory of the Communists in 1949, he moved to Taiwan. One of the orchestral musicians, Zheng Tisi, played an outstanding role in the formation of this group. The musician carried out the reformation of this orchestra in the field of tuning instruments. The range of the orchestra was expanded by the introduction of additional wooden string instruments dahu and dihu, having a volumetric sound-board and tuned an octave below the violin erhu. Their purpose was to fill the lower register, alike to the cellos and double basses in Western orchestras. For the first time the post of conductor and his assistant was introduced by Zheng Tisi, which was also able to attract professional composers to create a multi-voiced orchestral national repertoire. The innovations of the outstanding musician made his orchestra a role model for all subsequent similar contemporary Chinese orchestras. Conclusions. The process of forming a Chinese orchestra of traditional instruments of a new type in the 1920s and 1930s made it possible to modernize Chinese traditional folk instruments and the ancient Chinese notation system in order to adapt Chinese orchestral music to the integrative processes in musical art. Orchestral music was reformed in accordance with the principles of Western European symphonic and conducting art. In this process, outstanding highly professional Chinese musicians who contributed to the development of orchestral music in their country and the creation of a corresponding national repertoire played the leading role.

Urban airspace environments present exciting new opportunities for delivering drone services to an increasingly large global market, including: information gathering; package delivery; air-taxi services. A key challenge is how to model airspace environments over densely populated urban spaces, coupled with the design and development of scalable traffic management systems that may need to handle potentially hundreds to thousands of drone movements per hour. This paper explores the background to Urban unmanned traffic management (UTM), examining high-level initiatives, such as the USA’s Unmanned Air Traffic (UTM) systems and Europe’s U-Space services, as well as a number of contemporary research activities in this area. The main body of the paper describes the initial research outputs of the U-Flyte R&D group, based at Maynooth University in Ireland, who have focused on developing an integrated approach to airspace modelling and traffic management platforms for operating large drone fleets over urban environments. This work proposes pragmatic and innovative approaches to expedite the roll-out of these much-needed urban UTM solutions. These approaches include the certification of drones for urban operation, the adoption of a collaborative and democratic approach to designing urban airspace, the development of a scalable traffic management and the replacement of direct human involvement in operating drones and coordinating drone traffic with machines. The key fundamental elements of airspace architecture and traffic management for busy drone operations in urban environments are described together with initial UTM performance results from simulation studies.

Abstract Introgression among parasite species has the potential to transfer traits of biomedical importance across species boundaries. The parasitic blood fluke Schistosoma haematobium causes urogenital schistosomiasis in humans across sub-Saharan Africa. Hybridization with other schistosome species is assumed to occur commonly, because genetic crosses between S. haematobium and livestock schistosomes, including S. bovis, can be staged in the laboratory, and sequencing of mtDNA and rDNA amplified from microscopic miracidia larvae frequently reveals markers from different species. However, the frequency, direction, age, and genomic consequences of hybridization are unknown. We hatched miracidia from eggs and sequenced the exomes from 96 individual S. haematobium miracidia from infected patients from Niger and the Zanzibar archipelago. These data revealed no evidence for contemporary hybridization between S. bovis and S. haematobium in our samples. However, all Nigerien S. haematobium genomes sampled show hybrid ancestry, with 3.3–8.2% of their nuclear genomes derived from S. bovis, providing evidence of an ancient introgression event that occurred at least 108–613 generations ago. Some S. bovis-derived alleles have spread to high frequency or reached fixation and show strong signatures of directional selection; the strongest signal spans a single gene in the invadolysin gene family (Chr. 4). Our results suggest that S. bovis/S. haematobium hybridization occurs rarely but demonstrate profound consequences of ancient introgression from a livestock parasite into the genome of S. haematobium, the most prevalent schistosome species infecting humans.

The use of coal is suspected to have high environmental impact. Natural gas is treated as more environmentally friendly with high methane content and lower emission factors. In order to calculate the environmental impact in the whole life cycle associated with combustion of coal and natural gas all stages from ?cradle to grave? should be taken into account. In particular, the transportation stage, especially in the case of life cycle analysis of gas, seems to be crucial. The distance of transmission of gas from gas fields, for instance located in Siberia, could be mainly associated with high diffuse emission of methane. The comparison of environmental impact assessment of coal and natural gas utilization for heating purposes is presented in the paper. The additional factor taken into account is localisation of boilers. In the analysis the coal is sombusted in combined heat and power plants equipped with flue gas treatment units is that released emissions are relatively remote from an urban area. In contrast, the natural gas is burned in small domestic installations with no additional FGT systems. The results of the analysis are given in 6 major impact categories. Moreover, the results of the life cycle analysis were brought into comprehensive thermo-ecological cost index, which is a cumulated exergy consumption of non-renewable resources. The results presented in the paper refer to the contemporary problem of the choice of energy sources in the context of its overall environmental efficiency.

Established in 1795 in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the Paris Conservatoire emerged from a training school for National Guard musicians. Aligned with the French Republic’s broader educational reforms, the Conservatoire was marked by its secularization, standardized curriculum, military-style discipline, and hierarchical organization. Among its most ambitious achievements was the publication of new instruction treatises from 1799 to 1814. Covering elementary theory, solfège, harmony, and all the major instruments, these methods articulated the Conservatoire’s pedagogy and circulated widely in nineteenth-century Europe. Hugot and Wunderlich’s Méthode de flûte (1804) exemplifies the Conservatoire’s approach, making a distinct break from methods published only a few years earlier: abstract technical drills predominate, evenness of tone quality in all key areas is emphasized, and the instruction of improvisation is curtailed. Airs, brunettes, and other pieces typical of ancien régime tutors are replaced with exercises demanding repetitive practicing. Meticulous instructions for the mastery of the flute’s four-key mechanism bear a striking resemblance to rifle-handling directions in contemporary military training and combat manuals by Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, and others. The Conservatoire instruction manuals serve not only as guidebooks to historical fingerings and period performance style; they also can be read as social and political texts. Meant to advance a more rational music pedagogy, these treatises show the extent to which the military model permeated everyday life in post-revolutionary France. Further, they demonstrate a new conception of musical training beyond personal development toward the creation of professional musicians serving a patriotic, republican function. The treatise thus becomes what Michel Foucault calls a “simple instrument,” disciplining musicians’ bodies for the political goals of the state.

AbstractThe Volga-Ural region, like many others in the territory of Eastern Europe, experienced repeated waves of migrating peoples during the Middle Ages. One result of the migratory process was the appearance in this region of numerous sites, many of which shared significant similarities, belonging to the Imen'kovo and Turbaslino cultures. The ethno-cultural and chronological features of these cultures has remained a point of controversy for quite some time. In recent years, a series of settlements and cemeteries located in Turkestan have been the focus of study. The materials from these sites suggests that their dating was contemporary with the First (Great) Türk Kaghanate and the late Sarmatian period. Many elements of the Turbaslino Imen'kovo cemeteries (Kushnarenkovo, II Kominternovo burial fields, the late burials of the Birska burial fields, among others) are related to the antiquities of the Dzhyetyasarskovo culture of the Aral Sea region. These elements include, but are not limited to, the following: lined pits, the intentional deformation of skulls found in graves, a variety of items of clothing and ornaments (Fig. 2; Fig. 3, 6 - 25, 28, 29; Fig. 4, 1 - 8, 11, 19). Other especially remarkable finds are two chalices of greenish and bluish glass from the Birska and II Kominternovo burial fields (Fig. 1E, 1; Fig. 4, 14; Photos 1 and 2). Their similar sizes, form, and fluted ornamentation would suggest common origin - probably Near Eastern (Syrian?) imports, most likely used originally for administrating communion wine by Christians. The appearance of these finds in the Volga-Ural region is best explained by the migratory process which occurred in the area during the second half of the sixth century A.D. which was connected with the creation of the First Türk Kaghanate.

Opera Zora D., composed by Isidora Zebeljan during 2002 and 2003, and which was premiered in Amsterdam in June 2003, is the first Serbian opera that had a world premiere abroad. It is also the first Serbian opera that has been staged outside Serbia since 1935, after being acclaimed at a competition organized by the Genesis Foundation from London. Isidora Zebeljan was commissioned (granted financial backing) to compose a complete opera with a secured stage realization. The Dutch Chamber Opera (Opera studio Nederland) and the Viennese Chamber Opera (Wiener Kammeroper) were the co-producers of the first production. The opera was directed by David Pountney, the renowned opera director, while an international team of young singers and celebrated artists assisted the co-production. The opera was played three times in Amsterdam. Winfried Maczewski conducted the Amsterdam Nieuw Ensemble whereas Daniel Hoyem Cavazza conducted the Wiener Kammeroper on twelve performances. The Viennese premier of Zora D. opened the season of celebrations, thus marking the 50th anniversary of the Wiener Kammeroper. The libretto, based on the script for a TV film by Dusan Ristic, was co-written by Isidora Zebeljan, Milica Zebeljan and Borislav Cicovacki. Speaking of genre, the libretto represents a m?lange of thriller, melodrama and mystery, with elements of fiction. The opera consists of the prologue and seven scenes. The story, set in the present-day Belgrade, also goes back to the 1930?s and the periods interweave. The opera was written for four vocalists: the soprano, the baritone, and two mezzo-sopranos. The chamber orchestra has fifteen musicians. The story: One summer day in 1935, Belgrade poetess Zora Dulijan mysteriously disappears. Sixty years later, Mina, an ordinary girl from Belgrade, quite unexpectedly becomes part of an incredible story, which gradually unravels as time goes by. Led by a dream (recurring night after night, with some vague verses about poplar trees and contours of a mysterious woman with a silver scarf being all that Mina remembers) she sets out to solve the mystery that seems to haunt her for no apparent reason. Part of the secret is also an invisible force, which Mina uses to gradually piece together the story of a great love that was brutally brought to an end 60 years ago and now seeks fulfillment. At the same time, Vida, a woman in her 80s, who has just returned to Belgrade from a long exile, begins to feel tortured and haunted by ghouls from the past, the very same she has been trying to escape all those years. Mina, desperate to solve the mystery, and Vida, in search of final rest and redemption, meet to disclose to us the answer and tell us what really happened to Zora D. The leading characters of the opera, whose main attribute is illusiveness, undergo transformation that is something rarely found in opera literature. This quality of the characters and the story, as well as the absence of a real drama in the libretto, matches the specific idea of a contemporary opera. Unlike composers who insist on giving characters psychological quality, thus reducing their emotions to clich?s for reasons of clarity, Isidora Zebeljan demonstrates a need for a completely different type of opera. Her idea is to have an opera which focuses on the sensual exploits of music itself. This is the very type of opera sought after by Isidora Zebeljan. The first and most striking feature of her music is a very unique melodic invention. Opera Zora D. could be described as a necklace of thickly threaded music pearls. Microelements of the traditional music from Serbia (Vojvodina), Romania and the south of the Balkans give her melodies a very special quality. Those elements, however, have not been taken over in their entirety, nor do they exist in the form that would link this music to any particular type of folk music. Music elements of the traditional music, incorporated in the music expression of Isidora Zebeljan, provide additional distinctiveness and the colour, while being experienced as an integral part of Zebeljan?s creative being which carries within itself the awareness of the composer?s musical roots. Melodic elements of the opera expressed in such a manner give form to vocal parts, which require of performers great musicality and perfect technique without compromising the nature of their vocal expression. Specific chords with a diminished fifth, resulting from the use of folk music scales with augmented second, give the opera a distinct harmonic quality. The rhythmic and metric components of music are complex, naturally stemming from the melody and are characterized by a mixture of rhythms and changeable metrics. The rhythmic patterns of percussion are incorporated in the whole by parallel lining up of melodic and rhythmic layers, so that they produce sonorous multiplicity. Very often the rhythmic elements have characteristics of a dance. The chamber orchestra consists of flute (piccolo and alto), clarinet and bass-clarinet, saxophone (soprano and alto) bassoon, French horn, trumpet, harp, piano, percussion, and string quintet. By providing specific orchestration and coloring, Isidora Zebeljan manages to completely shift the real dramatic suspense from words to music particularly the orchestra, thus causing various emotional states to quickly change. Speaking of structure, the opera represents an infinite sequence of melodies. Although rarely, melodic entities have, in some places, the form of arias. There are no real recitatives in the entire opera. Each segment of the opera belongs to a corresponding melodic section of the stage that they are part of. The extraordinary quality of the music in Zora D. lies in the music surprise that it provides, which is an element of the composer?s language and style rarely seen in the music literature but is a symbol of a special talent. Emotional states are not merely evoked through particular musical clich?s, the unusual origin of which may be found in the exceptional parallel quality of states stemming from the very music. The listener, in his or her initial encounter with the music of the opera, will never hear dark and disconsolate music when tragic and dramatic happenings are taking place. Listening to the music will, however, help them feel the sound layer of the tragedy that is present in the offered sound. They will not follow it consciously but, instead, they will be leaded to the exact emotional stimulus that they will not be able to defy rationally. Such a music expression we call a music fiction. Artistic team involved in the first production of Zora D. has discovered a HVS technique, which helps shifting elements of scenography, from one set into the next, very efficiently and effectively. Isidora Zebeljan?s opera Zora D. represents a great success of Serbian music on the international scene, and undoubtedly the greatest success of Serbian opera. Her music liberates listeners from the compulsion of reflecting upon the content they are listening to. Instead, her music compels them to feel.

One of the basic objectives of contemporary pedagogy is developing youth’s national musical culture. In the course of history, when the idea of Lithuanian independence used to become realistic and tangible, special attention was paid to identity issues. The efforts to sustain and to thoroughly foster our traditions, customs, language and ethnical music had the greatest impact on the development of Lithuanian people’s national awareness. The essential categories characterizing the Lithuanian national identity have been and remained self-awareness, language, customs, folk art, and ethnical instruments. Playing instrumental music in ensembles using ethnical instruments has also greatly contributed to preserving of Lithuanian traditions and national identity, as a way of national awareness. Object of research: Some aspects of schoolchild’s and students ethnic identity development through ethnic instrumental music. Aim of research: investigate of the meaning of teaching ethnic instrumental music in the process of developing the knowledge of the ethnical identity. Methods of research: questionnaire scientific methodological literature review, questionnaire and a summary of comparison. The traditions of playing instrumental music in ensembles are quite old and deep-rooted in Lithuania. Ethnical instruments (the kanklės, reed-pipes, pan flutes, etc.) have been always regarded as a symbol of national awareness. Therefore, continuity and dissemination of related traditions and their application in various aspects contributes, at least partially, to the possibility of preserving national values and developing national identity. Playing instruments in ensembles helps young people develop their musical listening skills and memory, get more matured spiritually, as well as form aesthetic feelings and artistic understanding of music. For educators, the ability to play different ethnical instruments is helpful in the respect of having more variety in their classes, involving the learners in extracurricular activities, and making closer acquaintances with the pupils and their parents. The possibility to develop the national identity of young people by means of playing in ensembles is exploited not only in Lithuania. This kind of experience has been used quite long in the practices of other countries. Therefore, in the rapid course of globalisation processes, it is of great importance to educate the young generation in the spirit of national traditions.

In the 21st century, the development of the flute follows the steps of modernization closely, and a batch of outstanding works with novel genre and innovative theme appear. This paper will focus on two new national art funded projects in China. One is the large humanity art epic The Ancient Call by Chinese Flute music college professor Zhang Weiliang from China Conservatory of Music, and the other is Tang Junqiao’s Chinese Flute stage play Heavenly Tune of Chinese Flute. This paper aims to explore the motivation that China’s performance composers create and promote the innovation of the traditional music, innovate the artistic features of Chinese Flute works, and analyze the improvement of the Chinese Flute performance art as well as the possibility of future development.

In 1913, French composer Claude Debussy penned a work for solo flute that to this day has remained popular in the flute repertoire. Syrinx, written to accompany a scene in the play Psyche, tells the story of Pan and Syrinx from Greek mythology. This poster project seeks to explain the impact that Debussy’s Syrinx has made on 20th and 21st Century flute composition. This impact included descriptive music, use of whole tone scales, freedom from strict meter, and a poetic performance style for the unaccompanied flute genre. Some elements of Debussy’s style come from his first encounter with Asian music at the World’s Fair. In the Baroque period, it was not unusual for composers to write for unaccompanied instruments. Scholars estimate that J. S. Bach’s Partita in A Minor was written sometime in the 1720s, while Telemann composed Twelve Fantasias for Solo Flute in 1732-33. After the Baroque period, the solo flute genre was absent from the repertoire until Debussy’s Syrinx. Nearly 200 years later, he gave the solo flute a new sound, which, in turn, inspired more composers to write for unaccompanied flute. The 20th Century surge of works written for solo flute is no doubt partially due to the further development of the instrument into its modern day form. However, the increase originates with Debussy’s Syrinx. Upon examination of the solo flute repertoire, it appears that Debussy is the composer most responsible for encouraging the composition of contemporary works for the flute. The research includes primary sources such as the score, the script to the play Psyche, and the abundance of subsequent solo flute compositions. Different online music resources were consulted for background information and musical interpretation.

The article examines the groundbreaking work of the German flutist, oboist, educator, composer and conductor Johann Joachim Quantz (in particular, The Experience of Instructions for Playing the Transverse Flute, Berlin, 1752), which provides a theoretical understanding of important aspects of the instrumental culture of the Baroque era. J.J. Quantz's arguments about the orchestra, formulated in the treatise, not only allow to form ideas about the types of performing groups of the Baroque period, but also reflect the aesthetics of ideas about the optimum of orchestral writing, acoustic, timbre and dramaturgical patterns of orchestral groups and textured layers. Even taking into account the personal creative priorities of the composer-performer, on the examples of concerts for solo woodwinds (two flutes and flute and oboe) from his own creative work you can get an idea of the use of small orchestral composition in the contemporary compositional and performing tradition. musician baroque instruments. It is obvious that the orchestra is interpreted as a means of accompaniment to soloists, taking on leading functions only in short episodes of introductions to individual thematic constructions, orchestral connections in caesuras of solo parts or final cadence constructions of individual parts. The main functions of the orchestra's voices are clearly divided, depending on the drama of the deployment and the ratio of the soloists' parts, accompanying them or duplicating them in the function of ripieno. The accompaniment can be interpreted as basso continuo, as a complementary chord complex of middle voices or as an interval duplication of close instruments in terms of tenure and timbre.

Contemporary retreat of glaciers is well visible in the West Antarctic region. The aim of this study is to identify, map and quantify terrestrial glacial and periglacial landforms developed in front of Windy Glacier (Warszawa Icefield, King George Island, South Shetlands), which recently turned from being tidewater to land-terminating, and on near-by Red Hill. The study is based on an orthophoto map and a DEM elaborated with a use of images obtained during a UAV BVLOS photogrammetric survey in 2016, Google Earth Pro images from 2006 and an orthophoto map from 1978/1979. The geomorphological map obtained includes 31 types of landforms and water bodies, grouped into: (1) glacial depositional landforms, (2) fluvial and fluvioglacial landforms, (3) littoral and lacustrine landforms, (4) solifluction landforms, (5) other mass movement landforms, (6) patterned ground, (7) debris flows, landslides and mudflows, (8) water bodies, (9) other (bedrock, boulders, glacial ice, snow patches, and not recognized surface). Most area is occupied by glacial lagoon, fluvial and fluvioglacial landforms, not recognized surfaces and littoral landforms. Between 2006 and 2016 the glacier deposited a well-developed patch of fluted moraine with small drumlins. We recognize the glacial-periglacial transition zone between 41 and 47 m GPS height above which solifluction landforms and sorted patterned ground dominate. Advantages of UAV and BVLOS missions are highlighted and problems with vectorization of landforms are discussed. Distinction between flutes and small drumlins is shown on length-to-elongation and length-to-width diagrams and critical reference to previous geomorphological mappings on King George Island is presented.

In contemporary discourse, technological time is generally articulated as interface speed, human memory, or user attention. Philosophers of technology such as Bernard Stiegler and Paul Virilio, software studies scholars such as Wendy Chun and Alex Galloway, and sociologists such as Barbara Adam and Manuel Castells all suggest that the time of technology is bound with the cultural, political, and economic structure of contemporary society. What these fields leave relatively undertheorized is how technology is built in relation to concepts of time. This paper supplies an answer, derived from interviews and document data regarding a real-time videoconferencing application named Flume, which runs on Named Data Networking (NDN), a NSF-funded Future Internet Architecture (FIA) project that is currently underway.

Abstract The Barbegal watermill complex, a unique cluster of 16 waterwheels in southern France, was the first known attempt in Europe to set up an industrial-scale complex of machines during the culmination of Roman Civilization in the second century CE. Little is known about the state of technological advance in this period, especially in hydraulics and the contemporary diffusion of knowledge. Since the upper part of the Barbegal mill complex has been destroyed and no traces of the wooden machinery survived, the mode of operation of these mills has long remained elusive. Carbonate incrustations that formed on the woodwork of the mills were used to reconstruct its structure and function, revealing a sophisticated hydraulic setup unique in the history of water mills. The lower mills used an elbow shaped flume to bring water onto overshot millwheels. This flume was specially adapted to the small water basins and serial arrangement of the mills on the slope. Carbonate deposits from ancient water systems are therefore a powerful tool in archaeological reconstructions and provide tantalizing insights into the skills of Roman engineers during a period of history that is the direct predecessor of our modern civilization.

AbstractThis article is inspired by a pseudo Oxford-style debate, which was held in Tel Aviv University, Israel at the International Conference on Virtual Rehabilitation (ICVR) 2019, which is the official conference of the International Society for Virtual Rehabilitation. The debate, between two 2-person teams with a moderator, was organized by the ICVR Program committee to address the question “Will virtual rehabilitation replace clinicians?” It brought together five academics with technical, research, and/or clinical backgrounds—Gerry Fluet, Tal Krasovsky, Anat Lubetzky, Philippe Archambault, W. Geoffrey Wright—to debate the pros and cons of using virtual reality (VR) and related technologies to help assess, diagnose, treat, and track recovery, and more specifically investigate the likelihood that advanced technology will ultimately replace human clinicians. Both teams were assigned a side to defend, whether it represented their own viewpoint or not, and to take whatever positions necessary to make a persuasive argument and win the debate. In this paper we present a recapitulation of the arguments presented by both sides, and further include an in-depth consideration of the question. We attempt to judiciously lay out a number of arguments that fall along a spectrum from moderate to extreme; the most extreme and/or indefensible positions are presented for rhetorical and demonstrative purposes. Although there may not be a clear answer today, this paper raises questions which are related to the basic nature of the rehabilitation profession, and to the current and potential role of technology within it.

Although steeped in Islamic religion and culture, Morocco is a land of varying influences and histories, including those of the native Berbers, the Moors and Jews driven out of Spain, those who follow the pious Sufi culture of Islamic spiritualism, and the Gnawa slaves who were brought into southern Morocco by Arabs. The music, customs, values, and everyday lives of these disparate peoples continue to not only blend with each other’s but also to fuse Moroccan music and culture with those of Europe, Africa, and America. The influence of Moroccan music continues to play a vital role in shaping contemporary music, especially in the study of rhythm. Music that was once heard by voices, flutes, oboes, strings, bagpipes, auxiliary percussion, and drums—symbolic of Moroccan cultural identity--may now be heard on electric guitars, keyboards, and amplified voices in popular and modern music styles that reflect Morocco’s continuing efforts to be active players in the international community.

The loop is one of the primary means of structuration for electronic music from mainstream to avant-garde styles. Indeed, during forums at the recent 2002 AD Analogue 2 Digital event, organised as part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, many practitioners of electronic music gathered together and, often, quizzed each other about the loop: why does everybody seem to be using it and just how useful is it? With very few exceptions, the loop was considered to be an important if not essential tool for electronic music, and it is perhaps easy to understand why if one considers the "one-man band" nature of the majority of purely electronic music. Moreover, the loop is a trope common in many forms of contemporary music such as disco, minimalism, funk and hip-hop, all of which, as David Toop writes, "explor[e] entrancing elaborations and variations on repetition" (92). While Western musical forms have, for many centuries, been characterised by recurring elements (pedal notes, refrains, choruses, variations and so on are all musical tropes that rely on the recurrence of repetitive elements), there is perhaps a difference in the kind of repetition that is deployed in many of these musical forms and that deployed in consumer-driven and much avant-garde electronic music. When looping elements return in many pre-electronic (or non-electronic) compositions they present an elaborated form of the original iteration of that element, whereas it can be argued that the break in hip-hop or the loop employed by electronic music forms a stable basis on which other changing, shifting, modulating and developing elements are laid. (It should not of course be surmised from this that all hip-hop uses breaks nor that all electronic music uses loops.) Rather than presenting an active repetitive element creating difference in itself, the kind of looping employed in much electronic music proposes a banal, Platonic form of repetition in which, as Deleuze states, "the model is supposed to enjoy an originary superior identity [...] whereas the copy is judged in terms of a derived internal resemblance" (126-127). In the terms of our discussion, then, the sampled fragment of music or break (the "original" which some take endless pleasure in trying to identify) constitutes an originary identity which is repeated or looped in a form identical to itself to create an absolute internal resemblance across a contiguous whole. This reading of looping in electronic music finds extension in Jean-Charles François's criticism that electronic music produces only trigger timbre. François argues that in electronic music, the "performer is reduced to a triggering device, and does not participate in any real physical production of the sound" as opposed to the dynamic timbre of "traditional" acoustic instruments which can be varied by the performer in an interpretation of a work ("Fixed Timbre" 113). Trigger timbre, then, signals the exact reproduction (or, rather, a copy with internal resemblance, for an exact reproduction is an impossibility for a number of reasons, some philosophical, some temporal, some physical) of a prior moment, an originary identity, a movement analogous to that created by the looped element in electronic music. The problem with this in regards to musical production as artistic creation is that such modes of structuration are, according to François and Deleuze, eminently un-artistic or un-musical. For François, trigger timbre "strikes our ears like a symbol and threatens the essence of pure music" ("Fixed Timbre" 116), whilst for Deleuze a model employing banal repetition such as the repetition of a decorative motif "is not how artists proceed in reality. They do not juxtapose instances of the figure, but rather each time combine an element of one instance with another element of a following instance" (19). It might then be argued that electronic music is doubly prone to a Platonic mode of production removed from artistry, devoid of the desire with which, for Deleuze, all artistic creation is necessarily injected. To do so, however, is to propose a technologically determinist argument which maintains that electronic music is shaped by the very technology available to the artist, and emphasises the role of the engineer over the artist (even when the engineer and the artist are one and the same person, as is often the case in such music). That such a technologically determinist view might be levelled against electronic music is, nonetheless, perhaps not surprising since whilst most composers of any genre using acoustic instruments essentially have a set of instruments to draw on that has been relatively stable for a number of years (how many years will depend on the genre), it might be suggested that many electronic artists remain within the bounds of their tools' immediate and obvious possibilities because they do not have time fully to master them because the technology behind electronic music is still developing at an exponential rate. Whilst this is in many respects a gross overgeneralisation that neglects composers from both acoustic genres such as Luigi Russolo and Harry Partch who invented new instruments to broaden their sonic palette as well as electronic artists such as Kraftwerk or Aphex Twin who built or radically modified / deconstructed their own instruments, I do not think it entirely unfair given the technophile nature of many electronic artists, eager to keep abreast of the latest developments and software or hardware releases, and believe that it goes some way towards explaining the rate at which "movements" arise and disappear in contemporary electronic music. None of this would be of the least concern, of course, if this did not imply that the music made by many electronic artists is created as much by the hands of the engineer (and by engineer I refer not simply to a recording engineer but anyone involved in the development or programming of the hardware or software used for electronic) as in those of the artist. Even for those artists who serve as their own engineer, then, it is sometimes the case that their productions' bounds of possibility are determined not only by the artist's imagination but also by the very hardware and software used. Electronic music can, then, fall prey to technological determinism, can function in a Platonic manner, relying on a priori principles encoded in its tools and deploying banal repetition, and can be negatively critiqued in the terms of François's argument. This does not imply by any means, however, that it must be so. Indeed, in both her workshop and performance at the 2002AD conference, Kaffe Matthews proposed ways in which this quandary might be broached. Matthews takes her samples not from pre-existing recordings or intricately programmed "timbre objects" ("Fixed Timbre" 114), but from the "live" environmental sounds of the venue in which she is playing or the surrounding area. In this way, Matthews does not merely produce an exact repetition of an historical or prior moment (the sentimental potential of recorded media and electronic music which, according to François, explains their seductive power and thus popularity (François 1990, 114)), rather ensuring that every performance will indeed be an interpretation, a live performance which has no originary identity to refer back to or repeat. To build a complete musical text from fragments such as this, Matthews does rely on the loop, but one of the primary means that she uses to create her loops does not rely on the pattern of banal repetition observed above. Rather, Matthews places microphones around the venue in which she is playing and into which, therefore, her work is being amplified, so that the work itself is looped back into itself, each successive iteration of the loop being altered by the shifting acoustics of the environment into which it is emitted. In this manner, the entire venue is used as the "resonant cavity", the "giant membrane", the "environment", the "atmosphere" that render possible a discursive structure and that, for François, are the preserve of true timbre which cannot be produced by electronic technology ("Writing" 16). This is not, of course, the first time that such loops have been used in experimental music: the notion of the loop is very frequent in the work from the 1960s and 1970s of Steve Reich, who lets series of loops fall into and out of phase with each other, Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros. Perhaps the most significant precursor to Kaffe Matthews's approach, however, is Alvin Lucier's I am Sitting in a Room (1969). For this piece, the performer chooses the room whose musical qualities are to be evoked, then reads a text in that room. The recording is played back through a loudspeaker in the room, the playback itself recorded and amplified again with the original recording, the process being repeated over a number of generations. Lucier's piece and, indeed, all of the pieces employing loops by the aforementioned composers, use analogue tape technology in order to create their loops, however, which is to say that a deliberate manipulation of the hardware that rips it from its normalised and intended use is required for that hardware to create loops. This is not to say that the misuse of technology at one's disposal is particularly revolutionary; indeed, one might claim that it is a very common feature among avant-garde or progressive artists of the past and present in all musical genres using both digital, analogue, electro-acoustic and acoustic instruments — should Oval do that to compact disks? isn't that the wrong direction for a record to spin? did anyone really intend Hendrix to play a guitar like that? did Cage actually know how a piano should be played? does Jim Denley actually know how to play the flute? What this does suggest, however, is that the use of loops in the work of these artists in the 60s and 70s was the result of a willed aesthetic decision and not a mode of construction dictated by the bounds of the immediately possible hardwired into the technology being used. If the loop used as one of the primary means of structuration in electronic music is to escape the technologically determinist arguments seen above, then, its coming into being must similarly be the result of a willed aesthetic decision and not merely a symptom of the technology used to produce it; it must, in other words, be infused with an artistic sensibility. Much electronic music being pumped out of bedrooms and studios at an alarming rate, however, is not infused with this kind of artistic sensibility, a situation which, although I oversimplify once more in saying so, would only appear to be aggravated the closer one moves to the mainstream (hence phenomena such as "the Balearic sound"). By its nature more prone to banal Platonic repetition (because of the primacy of the loop) and the a-dynamism (and, by inference, stultification) of trigger timbre, those sections of the electronic music scene who are content merely to remain within the obvious uses of the music-making technology, whether their démarche is born of a desire to pander to market forces or an inability or unwillingness fully to master the technology offered because of the speed at which it is moving, consequently produce songs which are themselves little more than banal copies of each other. Constructing music around loops within a technological domain that no longer requires hardware manipulation for the creation of loops since the loop is encoded within it, Matthews, however, by integrating into this realm the kind of compositional démarche noted in Lucier, liberates electronic music from these pitfalls. More than this, however, her approach also allows for an improvisational and dynamic aesthetic which is uncommon even in the avant-garde of electronic artists who do extend the possibilities of the technology they use. For the majority of artists who can be included in this group generally rely, when processing samples in real time, on a bank of pre-recorded samples, regardless of how these were created, through the use or misuse of technology. In using the very space in or around where she is performing as a live sample bank and processing those samples in real time as they are looped and transformed by the very setup she has defined, Matthews simultaneously surrenders and reclaims her creation, reinstating an authorial presence into the absence around which Cage's 4'33" is based (his "silent" piece in which the ambient sounds of the audience, venue and surrounding space constitute the only sound matter), seeming, like the performer of 4'33" who merely marks off time in three movements, not to be involved in the physical production of sound that François deems necessary for dynamic musical production ("Fixed Timbre" 113), only to reassert her presence in the text as a physical and dynamic entity. Acknowledgement With thanks to Kaffe Matthews and M/C's reviewers and editors. References Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition. Trans. Paul Patton. London: The Athlone Press, 1994. François, Jean-Charles. "Fixed Timbre, Dynamic Timbre." Perspectives of New Music 28.2 (1990): 112-118. François, Jean-Charles. "Writing without Representation." Perspectives of New Music 30.1 (1992): 6-20. Toop, David. "HIPHOP: Iron Needles of Death and a Piece of Wax." Modulations: A History of Electronic Music: Throbbing Words on Sound. Ed. Peter Shapiro. New York: Caipirinha Productions, 2000: 89-101. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Hainge, Greg. "Platonic Relations" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.4 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0208/platonic.php>. Chicago Style Hainge, Greg, "Platonic Relations" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 4 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0208/platonic.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Hainge, Greg. (2002) Platonic Relations. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(4). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0208/platonic.php> ([your date of access]).

Everyone thinks I named my cat Mango because of his orange eyes but that’s not the case. I named him Mango because the sounds of his purrs and his wheezes and his meows are all various shades of yellow-orange. (Mass 3) Synaesthesia, a condition where stimulus in one sense is perceived in that sense as well as in another, is thought to be a neurological fluke, marked by cross-sensory reactions. Mia, a character in the children’s book A Mango-Shaped Space, has audition colorée or coloured hearing, the most common form of synaesthesia where sounds create dynamic coloured photisms in the visual field. Others with the condition may taste shapes (Cytowic 5), feel colours (Duffy 52), taste sounds (Cytowic 118) or experience a myriad of other sensory combinations. Most non-synaesthetes have never heard of synaesthesia and many treat the condition with disbelief upon learning of it, while synaesthetes are often surprised to hear that others don’t have it. Although there has been a resurgence of interest in synaesthesia recently in psychology, neuroscience and philosophy (Ward and Mattingley 129), there is no widely accepted explanation for how or why synaesthetic perception occurs. However, if we investigate what meaning this particular condition may offer for rethinking not only what constitutes sensory normalcy, but also the ocular-centric bias in cultural studies, especially media studies, synaesthesia may present us with very productive coalitions indeed.Some theorists posit the ultimate role of media of all forms “to transfer sense experiences from one person to another” (Bolter and Grusin 3). Alongside this claim, many “have also maintained that the ultimate function of literature and the arts is to manifest this fusion of the senses” found in synaesthesia (Dann ix). If the most primary of media aims are to fuse and transfer sensory experiences, manifesting these goals would be akin to transferring synaesthetic experience to non-synaesthetes. In some cases, this synaesthetic transfer has been the explicit goal of media forms, from the invention of kaleidoscopes as colour symphonies in 1818 (Dann 66) to the 2002 launch of the video game Rez, the packaging for which reads “Discover a new world. A world of sound, visuals and vibrations. Release your instincts, open your senses and experience synaesthesia” (Rez). Recent innovations such as touch screen devices, advances in 3D film and television technologies and a range of motion-sensing video gaming consoles extend media experience far beyond the audio-visual and as such, present both serious challenges and important opportunities for media and culture scholars to reinvigorate ways of thinking about media experience, sensory embodiment and what might be learned from engaging with synaesthesia. Fleshing out the Field While acknowledging synaesthesia as a specific condition that enhances and complicates the lives of many individuals, I also suggest that synaesthesia is a useful mode of interference into our current ocular-centric notions of culture. Vision and visual phenomena hold a particularly powerful role in producing and negotiating meanings, values and relationships in the contemporary cultural arena and as a result, the eye has become privileged as the “master sense of the modern era” (Jay Scopic 3). Proponents of visual culture claim that the majority of modern life takes place through sight and that “human experience is now more visual and visualized than ever before ... in this swirl of imagery, seeing is much more than believing. It is not just a part of everyday life, it is everyday life” (Mirzoeff 1). In order to enjoy this privilege as the master sense, vision has been disentangled from the muscles and nerves of the eyeball and relocated to the “mind’s eye”, a metaphor that equates a kind of disembodied vision with knowledge. Vision becomes the most non-sensual of the senses, and made to appear “as a negative reference point for the other senses...on the side of detachment, separation” (Connor) or even “as the absence of sensuality” (Haraway). This creates a paradoxical “visual culture” in which the embodied eye is, along with the ear, skin, tongue and nose, strangely absent. If visual culture has been based on the separation of the senses, and in fact, a refutation of embodied senses altogether, what about that which we might encounter and know in the world that is not encompassed by the mind’s eye? By silencing the larger sensory context, what are we missing? What ocular-centric assumptions have we been making? What responsibilities have we ignored?This critique does not wish to do away with the eye, but instead to re-embrace and extend the field of vision to include an understanding of the eye and what it sees within the context of its embodied abilities and limitations. Although the mechanics of the eye make it an important and powerful sensory organ, able to perceive at a distance and provide a wealth of information about our surroundings, it is also prone to failures. Equipped as it is with eyelids and blind spots, reliant upon light and gullible to optical illusions (Jay, Downcast 4), the eye has its weaknesses and these must be addressed along with its abilities. Moreover, by focusing only on what is visual in culture, we are missing plenty of import. The study of visual culture is not unlike studying an electrical storm from afar. The visually impressive jagged flash seems the principal aspect of the storm and quite separate from the rumbling sound that rolls after it. We perceive them and name them as two distinct phenomena; thunder and lightning. However, this separation is a feature only of the distance between where we stand and the storm. Those who have found themselves in the eye of an electrical storm know that the sight of the bolt, the sound of the crash, the static tingling and vibration of the crack and the smell of ozone are mingled. At a remove, the bolt appears separate from the noise only artificially because of the safe distance. The closer we are to the phenomenon, the more completely it envelops us. Although getting up close and personal with an electrical storm may not be as comfortable as viewing it from afar, it does offer the opportunity to better understand the total experience and the thrill of intensities it can engage across the sensory palette. Similarly, the false separation of the visual from the rest of embodied experience may be convenient, but in order to flesh out this field, other embodied senses and sensory coalitions must be reclaimed for theorising practices. The senses as they are traditionally separated are simply put, false categories. Towards SynaestheoryAny inquiry inspired by synaesthesia must hold at its core the idea that the senses cannot be responsibly separated. This notion applies firstly to the separation of senses from one another. Synaesthetic experience and experiment both insist that there is rich cross-fertility between senses in synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes alike. The French verb sentir is instructive here, as it can mean “to smell”, “to taste” or “to feel”, depending on the context it is used in. It can also mean simply “to sense” or “to be aware of”. In fact, the origin of the phrase “common sense” meant exactly that, the point at which the senses meet. There also must be recognition that the senses cannot be separated from cognition or, in the Cartesian sense, that body and mind cannot be divided. An extensive and well-respected study of synaesthesia conducted in the 1920s by Raymond Wheeler and Thomas Cutsforth, non-synaesthetic and synaesthetic researchers respectively, revealed that the condition was not only a quirk of perception, but of conception. Synaesthetic activity, the team deduced “is an essential mechanism in the construction of meaning that functions in the same way as certain unattended processes in non-synaesthetes” (Dann 82). With their synaesthetic imagery impaired, synaesthetes are unable to do even a basic level of thinking or recalling (Dann, Cytowic). In fact, synaesthesia may be a universal process, but in synaesthetes, “a brain process that is normally unconscious becomes bared to consciousness so that synaesthetes know they are synaesthetic while the rest of us do not” (166). Maurice Merleau-Ponty agrees, claiming:Synaesthetic perception is the rule, and we are unaware of it only because scientific knowledge shifts the centre of gravity of experience, so that we unlearn how to see, hear, and generally speaking, feel in order to deduce, from our bodily organisation and the world as the physicist conceives it, what we are to see, hear and feel. (229) With this in mind, neither the mind’s role nor the body’s role in synaesthesia can be isolated, since the condition itself maintains unequivocally that the two are one.The rich and rewarding correlations between senses in synaesthesia prompt us to consider sensory coalitions in other experiences and contexts as well. We are urged to consider flows of sensation seriously as experiences in and of themselves, with or without interpretation and explanation. As well, the debates around synaesthetic experience remind us that in order to speak to phenomena perceived and conceived it is necessary to recognise the specificities, ironies and responsibilities of any embodied experience. Ultimately, synaesthesia helps to highlight the importance of relationships and the complexity of concepts necessary in order to practice a more embodied and articulate theorising. We might call this more inclusive approach “synaestheory”.Synaestheorising MediaDystopia, a series of photographs by artists Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher suggests a contemporary take on Decartes’s declaration that “I will now close my eyes, I will stop my ears, I will turn away my senses from their objects” (86). These photographs consist of digitally altered faces where the subject’s skin has been stretched over the openings of eyes, nose, mouth and ears, creating an interesting image both in process and in product. The product of a media mix that incorporates photography and computer modification, this image suggests the effects of the separation from our senses that these media may imply. The popular notion that media allow us to surpass our bodies and meet without our “meat” tagging along is a trope that Aziz and Cucher expose here with their computer-generated cover-up. By sealing off the senses, they show us how little we now seem to value them in a seemingly virtual, post-embodied world. If “hybrid media require hybrid analyses” (Lunenfeld in Graham 158), in our multimedia, mixed media, “mongrel media” (Dovey 114) environment, we need mongrel theory, synaestheory, to begin to discuss the complexities at hand. The goal here is producing an understanding of both media and sensory intelligences as hybrid. Symptomatic of our simple sense of media is our tendency to refer to media experiences as “audio-visual”: stimuli for the ear, eye or both. However, even if media are engineered to be predominately audio and/or visual, we are not. Synaestheory examines embodied media use, including the sensory information that the media does not claim to concentrate on, but that is still engaged and present in every mediated experience. It also examines embodied media use by paying attention to the pops and clicks of the material human-media interface. It does not assume simple sensory engagement or smooth engagement with media. These bumps, blisters, misfirings and errors are just as crucial a part of embodied media practice as smooth and successful interactions. Most significantly, synaesthesia insists simply that sensation matters. Sensory experiences are material, rich, emotional, memorable and important to the one sensing them, synaesthete or not. This declaration contradicts a legacy of distrust of the sensory in academic discourse that privileges the more intellectual and abstract, usually in the form of the detached text. However, academic texts are sensory too, of course. Sound, feeling, movement and sight are all inseparable from reading and writing, speaking and listening. We might do well to remember these as root sensory situations and by extension, recognise the importance of other sensual forms.Indeed, we have witnessed a rise of media genres that appeal to our senses first with brilliant and detailed visual and audio information, and story or narrative second, if at all. These media are “direct and one-dimensional, about little, other than their ability to commandeer the sight and the senses” (Darley 76). Whereas any attention to the construction of the media product is a disastrous distraction in narrative-centred forms, spectacular media reveals and revels in artifice and encourages the spectator to enjoy the simulation as part of the work’s allure. It is “a pleasure of control, but also of being controlled” (MacTavish 46). Like viewing abstract art, the impact of the piece will be missed if we are obsessed with what the artwork “is about”. Instead, we can reflect on spectacular media’s ability, like that of an abstract artwork, to impact our senses and as such, “renew the present” (Cubitt 32).In this framework, participation in any medium can be enjoyed not only as an interpretative opportunity, but also as an experience of sensory dexterity and relevance with its own pleasures and intelligences; a “being-present”. By focusing our attention on sensory flows, we may be able to perceive aspects of the world or ourselves that we had previously missed. Every one of us–synaesthete or nonsynaesthete–has a unique blueprint of reality, a unique way of coding knowledge that is different from any other on earth [...] By quieting down the habitually louder parts of our mind and turning the dial of our attention to its darker, quieter places, we may hear our personal code’s unique and usually unheard “song”, needing the touch of our attention to turn up its volume. (Duffy 123)This type of presence to oneself has been termed a kind of “perfect immediacy” and is believed to be cultivated through meditation or other sensory-focused experiences such as sex (Bolter and Grusin 260), art (Cubitt 32), drugs (Dann 184) or even physical pain (Gromala 233). Immersive media could also be added to this list, if as Bolter and Grusin suggest, we now “define immediacy as being in the presence of media” (236). In this case, immediacy has become effectively “media-cy.”A related point is the recognition of sensation’s transitory nature. Synaesthetic experiences and sensory experiences are vivid and dynamic. They do not persist. Instead, they flow through us and disappear, despite any attempts to capture them. You cannot stop or relive pure sound, for example (Gross). If you stop it, you silence it. If you relive it, you are experiencing another rendition, different even if almost imperceptibly from the last time you heard it. Media themselves are increasingly transitory and shifting phenomena. As media forms emerge and fall into obsolescence, spawning hybrid forms and spinoffs, the stories and memories safely fixed into any given media become outmoded and ultimately inaccessible very quickly. This trend towards flow over fixation is also informed by an embodied understanding of our own existence. Our sensations flow through us as we flow through the world. Synaesthesia reminds us that all sensation and indeed all sensory beings are dynamic. Despite our rampant lust for statis (Haraway), it is important to theorise with the recognition that bodies, media and sensations all flow through time and space, emerging and disintegrating. Finally, synaesthesia also encourages an always-embodied understanding of ourselves and our interactions with our environment. In media experiences that traditionally rely on vision the body is generally not only denied, but repressed (Balsamo 126). Claims to disembodiment flood the rhetoric around new media as an emancipatory element of mediated experience and somehow, seeing is superimposed on embodied being to negate it. However phenomena such as migraines, sensory release hallucinations, photo-memory, after-images, optical illusions and most importantly here, the “crosstalk” of synaesthesia (Cohen Kadosh et al. 489) all attest to the co-involvement of the body and brain in visual experience. Perhaps useful here for understanding media involvement in light of synaestheory is a philosophy of “mingled bodies” (Connor), where the world and its embodied agents intermingle. There are no discrete divisions, but plenty of translation and transfer. As Sean Cubitt puts it, “the world, after all, touches us at the same moment that we touch it” (37). We need to employ non-particulate metaphors that do away with the dichotomies of mind/body, interior/exterior and real/virtual. A complex embodied entity is not an object or even a series of objects, but embodiment work. “Each sense is in fact a nodal cluster, a clump, confection or bouquet of all the other senses, a mingling of the modalities of mingling [...] the skin encompasses, implies, pockets up all the other sense organs: but in doing so, it stands as a model for the way in which all the senses in their turn also invaginate all the others” (Connor). The danger here is of delving into a nostalgic discussion of a sort of “sensory unity before the fall” (Dann 94). The theory that we are all synaesthetes in some ways can lead to wistfulness for a perfect fusion of our senses, a kind of synaesthetic sublime that we had at one point, but lost. This loss occurs in childhood in some theories, (Maurer and Mondloch) and in our aboriginal histories in others (Dann 101). This longing for “original syn” is often done within a narrative that equates perfect sensory union with a kind of transcendence from the physical world. Dann explains that “during the modern upsurge in interest that has spanned the decades from McLuhan to McKenna, synaesthesia has continued to fulfil a popular longing for metaphors of transcendence” (180). This is problematic, since elevating the sensory to the sublime does no more service to understanding our engagements with the world than ignoring or degrading the sensory. Synaestheory does not tolerate a simplification of synaesthesia or any condition as a ticket to transcendence beyond the body and world that it is necessarily grounded in and responsible to. At the same time, it operates with a scheme of senses that are not a collection of separate parts, but blended; a field of intensities, a corporeal coalition of senses. It likewise refuses to participate in the false separation of body and mind, perception and cognition. More useful and interesting is to begin with metaphors that assume complexity without breaking phenomena into discrete pieces. This is the essence of a new anti-separatist synaestheory, a way of thinking through embodied humans in relationships with media and culture that promises to yield more creative, relevant and ethical theorising than the false isolation of one sense or the irresponsible disregard of the sensorium altogether.ReferencesAziz, Anthony, and Sammy Cucher. 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