(De)Composing Immersion

Clerc Parada, M. (2014)

Doctoral Thesis

This dissertation explores various perspectives on the term immersion, and its relation with, and transformation through, a composer’s practice. Immersion is presented as a key term to interconnect diverse aspects of musical practice and music listening with their various phenomenological and ontological implications. Immersion through music is proposed as a transitional experience that exposes and interrelates multiple layers of reality, questioning critically the tendency to think immersion as an experience within a particular or self-contained space (in music, in a book, in a virtual environment, in thoughts, in water, in a music hall, etc.). My compositions What about Woof? (for five percussionists and video installation), La línea desde el Centro (for twelve guitarists), Eufótica (for six percussionists and tape) and A Bao A Qu (for nine musicians and tape), analyzed and developed through my research trajectory, are the main artistic source to develop the ideas of each chapter of this investigation. The compositional processes described and the reflections about immersion derived from them offer diverse perspectives on the practical and phenomenological aspects of music composition, performance and listening.

• Immersion
• Openness
• Listening
• Being-with
• Reality
• Virtuality
• Spatiality

• All authors: Clerc Parada, M.
• Supervisor: Ruiter, F. de; Barrett, R.
• Co-supervisor: Cobussen, M.A.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA), Humanities, Leiden University
• Date: 2014-11-25