Cultural identity has thus become mutable and open to choice.
The complex and polymorphous nature of societies is evident not only
in an increased awareness of oversimple ethnic/racial and sexuality/gender separations, but also in an awareness of the inadequacy of analysing cultural phenomena on the basis
of unwieldy monolithic concepts such as ‘mass culture’, ‘high art’, ‘popular culture’ and in the complex notion of consensus itself.
Cultural plurality provides a striking social rationale for an increasingly
interdisciplinary approach to theory and practice in that it draws
attention to the cultural and historical specificity of separations between
‘disciplines’ and of the idea of ‘arts’ as a phenomenon separable
from social/utilitarian or social/ritual function.
An awareness that there are many cultures which shape us and which
we sustain and transform through our participation in them has two
fundamental effects on a composer. One is empowerment, because it
acknowledges the possibility that an individual can help to shape a
culture. The other is to provide a continuously critical context in which
the (often dominant) culture to which the artist or composer belongs is
always juxtaposed with cultures which construct or describe the world
differently.
Cultural pluralism has surfaced musically in many ways and has
resulted both in an immensely broadened field of different (and distinct)
musical possibilities and in an incredible hybridisation of concern and
language. Pluralism (which implies difference and therefore some degree of separateness) and hybridity, although ideologically distinct,
often coexist in musical practice.
Sampling, in addition to functioning as a tool of time manipulation
and repetition, encourages this type of recontextualisation, allowing the
easy manipulation, transformation and juxtaposition of genre or culture.
As ‘morphing’ techniques become more widespread, collisions of
culture and genre increasingly result in complex hybridisation.
- Simon Emmerson and the contributors, 2000
Music, Electronic Media and Culture.
credits
released May 17, 2020
Ganrang / Percussions : performed & recorded by
Ganrang Percussion Group
Purposely scaled-back electronic music, “Intruder” is all about the texture of a few pieces of gear playing off one another. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 26, 2023