Category Archives: musicology

“Every something is an echo of nothing” – John Cage

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The Place of Music in 21st Century Education (University of Sidney)

While continuing my professional training and research in the world of Music, I am presently reflecting on John Cage’s quote:

“I believe that the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the use of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard.” – John Cage (1961), “The Future of Music: Credo”, in SILENCE 3-4.

Was John Cage right? If not, do you think he will be right? Are “electrical instruments” as valid and important music-making instruments as acoustic instruments such as a violin, a piano, a guitar, or a trombone?

Pondering on John Cage’s quote, Vygotsky’s theory of “thick” as opposed to “thin” experience suddenly approach my mind. Will electrical instruments be able to guarantee the qualities and characteristics of a “thick experience”, reflecting on the complexity of the human being as opposed to the “thin” concept of sensory experience, while making available the whole spectrum of sounds than can be ever conceived?

Even though my provocation may not appear to be dramatically related to Mr Cage’s theory, I believe the impact of the electronic sound discovery will surely affect human conditions and the way a person experience the musical experience as well as the artist’s performance. The dichotomy between new and old ways of producing sounds and music, may then lead to a wider reflection having social and anthropological implications.

The Italian political philosopher, Giovan Battista Vico (1668-1744) was the first expositor of the fundamentals of social science and of semiotics and became particularly important for a few ideas he introduced into Western philosophy, for his theory that, historically, civilizations cycle through three periods, from one governed by imagination, superstition, and custom to one governed by rational understanding, after which things always cycle around again.

Furthermore, I would argue that present times are shaped by increasing research on Technologies as well as Artificial Intelligence. Their implementation tell and will be telling, very much about our culture, and behaviours. Following Mr Vico’s theories, I believe that technological innovations will be carried on as far as a point of “saturation” will be reached. However, the discoveries will provide us all with a qualitative experience that will stimulate a multitude of human feelings, among which the “nostalgia”. The learning curve will tell a different story and most probably will bounce back the electronics renewing a sense of belonging to the past and the old ways in which instruments were played and designed. Electronic instruments will then cohexist with classical ones, that perhaps will be used only in small groups of communities, yet they won’t abandoned. 

Elena Arzani

www.elenarzani.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58XjuGAla5U

EA versus AE

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“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”

― Albert Einstein

When Albert Einstein expressed those lines, he was totally unaware that many years later, someone born with the same capital letters, would have reflect not only his name, but also his attitude towards life and knowledge, just like a mirror. Indeed, if I were not a creative mind, most probably I’d be a physician inspired by the ancient knowledge and wisdom of the Greek world…

Hello everyone, I am Elena Arzani, your Captain on this cultural journey, and I welcome you onboard!

I am an Italian multiPod creative person, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and Master of Arts in Design Studies, with a PgCert in Academic Practice in Arts, Design, and Communication. I attended the MA in Design Studies at Central St. Martin’s College of Arts and Design, and I’ve been  practicing internationally as Art Director, Photographer and Editor, for over 25 years. More recently I have become Associate Lecturer at University of the Arts London, collaborating with the Master course in Culture, Criticism, and Curation at CSM, and the Master in Graphic Branding and Identity at LCC, London.

After having made a few intervention in several academic courses, embedding the study of music culture within in the UAL course curricula. I was meant to become a PhD researcher this year, further developing my academic inquiry on sound landscapes in Academic Institutes, but plans have gone astray due to the pandemic. I am presently looking for financial support, investors and partners, that may hopefully allow me to pursue my objectives in 2021.

My background in strongly informed by creative communications, new media and contemporary arts, the industry of fashion, publishing houses, music and advertising. In the past I developed a pioneering project on Art in (health) Therapy combined with new technologies. This continues to be a great interest of mine. I publish on exhibitions of modern and contemporary arts, cinema, book and music reviews, and I interview people from the star system.  I am currently working on a book on contemporary photography, while completing my research project in Musicology.

Elena Arzani

About Me and more…

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Being a photographer, my presentation includes several shots that I took either on assignment or while producing my own fine arts. The display of images is aimed to show the different fields I touch upon in my everyday professional practice as Photographer, Art Director, and Editor. My 25 years career experience and my curriculum are strongly informed by the fashion and advertising industry, Publishing Houses, music, contemporary arts and photography.

The reason why I chose to become a Lecturer, it is due to my strong will of “giving something back” to the Educational Institute, that has helped me to become the person, and practitioner I am. The course in Applied Imagination (that back then was named “Design Studies”) has been a turning point in my career, and it has contributed to shape my social identity. At times it’s been hard to show the people, how “transferable skills”, and being “broad” can be a “plus”, rather than “someone hard to place”.

My methodology at work is researched based, I am a problem solver, and I tent to address the process rather than the curriculum. It is the project that tells me, what it is the best media in which can be developed, sometimes it takes shape of a photographic exhibition, some other times perhaps a graphic layout or a written article. Quoting one of my favourite films, I might say that “everything is illuminated”.

Hopefully I’ll be able to inspire the students, providing them with something meaningful, useful, and long lasting reflections, for example, “Reading, engagement and higher education’, Higher Education Research & Development, 38 by Aldridge, D.”. fosters a fruitful reflection around methodologies, and the different approaches in teaching. I personally find Aldridge’s reflections very intriguing, in a way the reminded me of some theories by Albert Einstein, particularly when the “alienation” is considered as an opportunity, or perhaps a challenge, to ignite people’s engagement. The famous scientist says: “Humiliation and mental oppression by ignorant and selfish teachers wreak havoc in the youthful mind that can never be undone and often exert a baleful influence in later life.”

And then adds: “The real difficulty, the difficulty that has frustrated the sages of all times, is this: how can we make our teaching effective to the point that its influence on the emotional life of man can resist the pressure of the elementary psychic forces of the individual? We do not know, of course, if the sages of the past have really posed this question with the same awareness and in the same form; but we know how much they have tried to solve the problem.”

Creativity comes from anguish as the day comes from the dark night. It is in the crisis that inventiveness arises, discoveries and great strategies. Those who overcome the crisis surpass themselves without being ‘overcome’. Who attributes his failures and difficulties to the crisis, violates his own talent and gives more value to problems than to solutions. The real crisis is the crisis of incompetence. The inconvenience of people and nations is laziness in seeking solutions and ways out. Without crisis there are no challenges, without challenges life is a routine, a slow agony. Without crisis there is no merit. It is in the crisis that emerges the best of everyone, because without crisis all the winds are only slight breezes.

To speak of crisis means to increase it, and to be silent in the crisis is to exalt conformism. Instead, we work hard. Let’s finish it once and for all with the only dangerous crisis, which is the tragedy of not wanting to fight to overcome it. ”

Elena Arzani