Designing the (Re)Context: Stolen Goods (Stocketus)

This paper discusses my composition "Stocketus, stolen goods" from 2018 for ensemble, digital electronics and ‘pile of loudspeakers’. The work was designed to spatially juxtapose acoustic musical instruments and the loudspeakers (and microphones) that are so often used to project performances to the audience. By structuring the composition around the insertion of a descending time delay process (going down from 5 seconds to zero over the duration of the work), a performance of the work explores different sonic interactions between the ensemble and the loudspeakers, for instance, creating echoes, rhythmical interaction, or simple phasing effects. In my work I am interested in how the use of technology operationalizes the per-formance context as a musical element rather than as a frame for a concert. Amplification technology can recon-textualize musical performances and the use of music technology for this work was designed with this recon-textualization in mind. The paper will address both aes-thetic as well as practical considerations, e.g. notation and synchronization of the score, electronics and performers, and finish with ideas for future works.