(In)Determinacy: incorporating openness in programmed music and performance

Abstract

This portfolio and commentary demonstrates the use of indeterminacy as a method for creating live music and theater performances. The included works draw from Dadaist and Surrealist collage, avant garde theater, contemporary art, and contemporary composition, and use code, networked media, and open performance systems to create scores and environments. These works deconstruct and reconstruct topics of psychology, communication, and motivation. Seeking a balance between control and chaos, fragmentation is used as a method of experimentation, allowing for chance, variation, and feedback between technologies and performers, creating what Umberto Eco termed ‘open works.’