Shifts from Serialism in Karlheinz Stockhausen’sElectronic Pieces. Technical Mediationand Production of Hybrids at the WDR Laboratory

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Santiago Johnson

Abstract

During the 1950s Karlheinz Stockhausen adhered to the modernist principles promoted by the Darmstadt School that led to the development of integral serialism. In his pursuit of renovation of the musical language, Stockhausen tried to apply this technique to the composition of electronic works at the WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) laboratory in Cologne. This article inquires, through the concept of technical mediation proposed by Bruno Latour, how the exchange of properties between humans and non-humans inside the laboratory modified the serial project. As a result of this process, Stockhausen composed a serie of works that couldn’t be completely prefigured a priori, a fact that led to the creation of new forms of listening and musical notation. From that, we will seek to characterize Stockhausen's compositional practice from a non-modernist perspective, emphasizing the hybrid and relational character of musical events.

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Author Biography

Santiago Johnson, Universidad de Buenos Aires

Professor and Researcher in Philosophy, specialized in Aesthetics. PhD candidate in Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires, with a UBACyT doctoral scholarship. His work revolves around ontological problems linked to sound and musical phenomena, from a posthuman perspective in dialogue with the new materialisms and the ontological turn. He participates in different interdisciplinary research groups and has collaborated with various artists from the Buenos Aires scene.