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EXQUISITE MIND, EUPHORIC KNOWING: SOUND, LANGUAGE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC AND CONCEPTUAL ART AFTER 1960

Doyle, Kaitlin Cavanaugh
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8758-6344
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case152293207480721

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Music History.
This dissertation considers the relationship between sound, language, and consciousness in the work of four artists associated with experimental music and/or Conceptual art communities after 1960. The first half of the dissertation explores the music of composers Meredith Monk and Pauline Oliveros, who treat and compose sound as a communicative language independent of traditional notions of lexicon and grammar. My discussion of Monk centers on her Dolmen Music (1979), in which she distills lexicon into syllabic sound, embraces the use of sympathetic call and response, and validates the voice as a sophisticated interface. Chapter Two analyzes Oliveros’s treatment of linguistic sounds as complex sonorities and engages with the composer’s models of sonic transmission in two of her earlier works, Sound Patterns (1961) and Sonic Meditations (1974). The second half of the dissertation considers the relationship between sound and written language and writing practice in the work of Yoko Ono and Hanne Darboven. In Chapter Three, I examine Ono’s prose scores presented in her 1964 proto-Conceptual collection, Grapefruit. I argue that Ono enacts a reconceptualization not just of musical performance, but of the experience of sound and listening, and I attempt to illustrate the idiosyncratic and previously unacknowledged contributions of Grapefruit to the history of music. Chapter Four explores the musical compositions of Hanne Darboven, a Conceptual artist and composer known for her extensive collections of handwritten material displayed in books and across gallery walls. My analysis considers the artist’s translation of her visual writing work to musical scores as a meaningful representation of sensory act and conceptual process. To understand and situate this work, I engage with cognitive linguistics, media and communication studies, histories of art, as well as musicology. Ultimately, I offer a vocabulary through which to understand this innovative conceptual work and aim to illuminate the implications of these repertoires for histories of sound, models of intelligence, and theories of communication.
Susan McClary (Advisor)
Francesca Brittan (Committee Member)
Georgia Cowart (Committee Member)
Vera Tobin (Committee Member)
Robert Walser (Committee Member)
155 p.
Art Criticism; Art History; Gender Studies; Multimedia Communications; Music; Womens Studies
experimental music; Conceptual art; sound; performance art

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Doyle, K. C. (2018). EXQUISITE MIND, EUPHORIC KNOWING: SOUND, LANGUAGE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC AND CONCEPTUAL ART AFTER 1960 [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case152293207480721

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Doyle, Kaitlin. EXQUISITE MIND, EUPHORIC KNOWING: SOUND, LANGUAGE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC AND CONCEPTUAL ART AFTER 1960 . 2018. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case152293207480721.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Doyle, Kaitlin. "EXQUISITE MIND, EUPHORIC KNOWING: SOUND, LANGUAGE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC AND CONCEPTUAL ART AFTER 1960 ." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case152293207480721

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case152293207480721
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This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.