Filament

Post-instrumental practice is one of the major innovations in 21st century musical practice, evidenced across a wide range of sonic contexts (Stene 2014, Devenish 2021). Key characteristics include works using instrumental sculpture, instrumental notation, and instrumental infrastructure. Filament explores the first two of these, probing and challenging current praxis and definitions using a practice-led artistic research methodology in a small ensemble context. Interrogation of international approaches to post-instrumental practice is achieved by the development and presentation of a suite of new works blurring the distinction between notation, instrument, sculpture and mallet, including premiere of Josephine Macken’s Vessel Song (using an innovative new form of action notation to simultaneously coordinate performers and sound the instrumental materials).

Contribution to knowledge located in development of post-instrumental works combining instrumental sculpture and instrumental notation (Devenish 2021):
• Vessel Song developed a completely novel and highly innovative form of analogue instrumental notation: 3x spools of ropes with rhythms, phrases and cues hand-woven into them.
• The rope notation also served as ‘mallets’– innovation in analogue notation where the notational material itself produced acoustic sound.
• Frank’s work blurred distinctions between instrument and lighting, function and art. Pedals and buzzers (whose sound is usually concealed) were amplified, used for their inherent percussive qualities and to simultaneously trigger projection lighting and electronics