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Tactilism and Tactilist Scoring in Contemporary Music
The Emergence of Tactilist Scoring
The evolution of contemporary music has always been driven by the interplay of ideas across disciplines. In recent years, the concept of tactilism—a multidisciplinary approach that integrates tactile, sculptural, and architectural elements—has emerged as a groundbreaking paradigm for musical notation and interpretation. Tactilist scoring challenges traditional, two-dimensional notation by transforming the score into a three-dimensional, tactile object, bridging the gap between visual art, architecture, and music.
This whitepaper explores how the influences of artists such as Claus Oldenburg, Enrico Castellani, Alberto Burri, Agostino Bonalumi, Jeff Koons, Paolo Scheggi, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Irma Boom inform a new aesthetic that reshapes the relationships between composer, performer, and audience. By incorporating tactile, material, and spatial strategies, tactilist scoring establishes a new compositional archetype that transcends conventional boundaries.
Theoretical Foundations of Tactilist Scoring
Tactilist scoring reimagines the musical score as a sculptural, tactile, and multisensory artifact. Rather than simply encoding musical information, the score becomes an active participant in the performance process, requiring physical interaction and sensory engagement.
Key principles of tactilist scoring include:
- Materiality: The use of unconventional materials—wood, fabric, metal, plastic—transforms scores into physical, tangible objects.
- Spatiality: Scores occupy three-dimensional space, requiring performers to navigate them physically.
- Interactivity: Performers manipulate tactile and spatial elements, making interpretation a dynamic and participatory process.
- Multisensory Engagement: Tactilist scores engage touch, sight, and sometimes even sound, creating a holistic interpretive experience.
Artistic Influences on Tactilist Scoring
Claus Oldenburg: Playful Monumentality
Oldenburg’s soft sculptures and monumental depictions of ordinary objects introduce playfulness and material transformation. His works encourage rethinking the familiar through unexpected forms, textures, and scales.
- Impact on Tactilist Scoring: Scores could incorporate oversized, soft, or pliable materials that performers manipulate to “read” musical information.
- Example: A fabric-based score that performers stretch or compress to modify its notational cues in real time.
Enrico Castellani: Dimensional Surfaces
Castellani’s practice of manipulating canvases to create dynamic textures and reliefs offers a model for embedding three-dimensionality into scores. His works transform static surfaces into active spaces.
- Impact on Tactilist Scoring: Embossed or punctured surfaces in scores can encode rhythmic or dynamic information through tactile exploration.
- Example: A metallic score with raised notations that performers trace with their fingers or tools.
Alberto Burri: Material Transformation
Burri’s use of unconventional materials (burnt wood, burlap, plastic) emphasizes decay, transformation, and process. His work demonstrates the potential of materiality to evoke narrative and emotion.
- Impact on Tactilist Scoring: Scores made from degradable materials (e.g., heat-sensitive paper or reactive fabrics) reflect the temporal nature of music.
- Example: A score that alters over the course of a performance, revealing or obscuring notations as it reacts to the environment.
Agostino Bonalumi: Extroverted Canvases
Bonalumi’s "estroflessioni" push the canvas into the third dimension, emphasizing spatial projection and tactile tension.
- Impact on Tactilist Scoring: Scores could protrude into the performance space, requiring performers to navigate their physical form.
- Example: A score with layered, sculptural elements that demand both visual and tactile interpretation.
Jeff Koons: Reflective Surfaces
Koons’ polished, reflective works challenge perceptions of material and reality. His use of industrial materials introduces hyper-materiality as an aesthetic principle.
- Impact on Tactilist Scoring: Reflective or mirrored scores could distort notational elements, adding layers of visual complexity and performative interaction.
- Example: A mirrored score that forces performers to interpret distorted reflections of notations.
Paolo Scheggi: Apertures and Depth
Scheggi’s layered canvases and cut-outs explore visible and hidden spaces, creating an interplay of depth and surface.
- Impact on Tactilist Scoring: Scores with perforated or layered structures invite performers to interact with multiple notational layers simultaneously.
- Example: A score composed of translucent sheets with overlapping symbols, creating polyphonic visual and tactile relationships.
Donald Judd: Minimalism and Material Precision
Judd’s minimalist sculptures emphasize materiality, repetition, and spatial relationships. His works demonstrate the power of simplicity and precision in creating profound spatial effects.
- Impact on Tactilist Scoring: Scores could adopt modular, minimalist designs that emphasize repetition and structural clarity.
- Example: A modular score where performers rearrange geometric components to create varying musical outcomes.
Dan Flavin: Light as Medium
Flavin’s use of fluorescent light as a sculptural material redefines spatial and perceptual experiences, emphasizing the role of light in shaping form.
- Impact on Tactilist Scoring: Scores might incorporate light-based elements, such as illuminated notations or dynamic lighting that guides interpretation.
- Example: A score where light projections interact with physical notations, creating an interplay of shadow, texture, and sound.
Irma Boom: Experimental Book Design
Boom’s avant-garde book designs push the boundaries of materiality, layout, and tactile interaction, transforming books into sculptural objects.
- Impact on Tactilist Scoring: Scores could borrow from Boom’s design principles, integrating unconventional bindings, textured pages, and interactive elements.
- Example: A score with foldable pages and embedded textures that performers manipulate as part of the interpretive process.
Applications of Tactilist Scoring in Music
Sculptural Scores
- Scores are constructed from materials such as wood, metal, or fabric, with notational elements engraved, painted, or embossed.
- Example: A wooden score with grooves and textures representing different musical parameters.
Reactive Materials
- Scores incorporate materials that change in response to touch, temperature, or light.
- Example: A heat-sensitive score that reveals hidden notations when touched.
Architectural Installations
- Scores become large-scale installations that performers navigate physically.
- Example: A room-sized score with notations etched into walls and floors.
Interactive Layers
- Scores consist of multiple layers of materials (e.g., glass, fabric, or paper) that performers manipulate to access different notational elements.
- Example: A translucent score where symbols on overlapping layers combine to create complex visual relationships.
Conceptual Implications: A New Compositional Archetype
Tactilist scoring challenges traditional hierarchies of composer, performer, and score. It redefines the act of interpretation as a multisensory, participatory process, offering new avenues for creativity and expression.
- Embodiment: Performers engage with the score physically, blurring the line between musical and choreographic performance.
- Materiality: Scores become enduring artifacts, integrating music with visual and tactile art forms.
- Spatiality: The score transforms the performance space, creating immersive environments for both performers and audiences.
Conclusion: The Future of Tactilist Scoring
Tactilism and tactilist scoring represent a transformative aesthetic in contemporary music. By drawing on the practices of Claus Oldenburg, Enrico Castellani, Alberto Burri, Agostino Bonalumi, Jeff Koons, Paolo Scheggi, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Irma Boom, composers can create scores that are not only seen and heard but also felt and inhabited.
This new compositional archetype challenges performers and audiences to engage with music as a multisensory experience, redefining the boundaries of sound, space, and touch. As composers continue to explore the possibilities of tactilism, they pave the way for a future where music is no longer confined to the auditory but resonates across the full spectrum of human perception.
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