Music Between Sounds: Relational Aesthetics & The Poetics Of Wandelweiser
"In this thesis, compositions by members of the Wandelweiser collective are analyzed through the lens of relational aesthetics. Relational aesthetics, as coined by curator Nicolas Bourriaud, emphasizes the social situations that arise from art; while originally applied to gallery-based art, the text scores by Manfred Werder, Jason Brogan, and others are shown to provoke a wider variety of relations through indeterminacy, the use of 'found text', and an emphasis on the listening process. These compositions are also analyzed in terms of compliance with the 'work-concept" of music, which has steered art music production since the 19th century. The music of Wandelweiser is shown to exist in complex relation to both relational aesthetics and the work-concept, thus complicating their respective aesthetics of 'interesting' and 'beautiful' into a productive tension that may lead to new practices of composition.