[ecrea] CFP: Musical Materialities in the Digital Age, Interdisciplinary Conference

Call for Papers

Musical Materialities in the Digital Age

27-28 June 2014, University of Sussex



Keynote Speakers

Will Straw (Professor, Department of Art History and Communications 
Studies, McGill University; Director, McGill Institute for the Study of 
Canada)

Noel Lobley (Ethnomusicologist and Research Associate, Pitt Rivers 
Museum, University of Oxford)



Conference outline

Music, while summoning notions of intangibility, transience and loss, is 
also associated with material objects that serve to ground the musical, 
make the transient permanent and defer loss. Unearthing music’s 
association with materiality reveals a fascinating array of artefacts, 
including instruments, scores, transcribing devices, sound recordings 
and much more. Such artefacts provide vital reference points for 
historical research as well as inviting new creative uses, rediscoveries 
and (re)mediations. They also add to the ever-growing archives of past 
objects, whether stored in ‘physical’ or digital forms. Music’s material 
traces serve as vital ways of mediating memory, whether in private 
collections or public exhibitions. Furthermore, the use of musical 
‘ephemera’ such as record sleeves, programmes, flyers and posters as a 
primary means for putting the popular musical past on display in museums 
and galleries has highlighted the ways in which such objects are not so 
ephemeral after all.



The persistence of musical artefacts and musical materialities following 
the period of their initial use value poses interest questions. What is 
the fate of musical artefacts once they become obsolescent? What becomes 
of music and its objects once relegated to archives? What is the role of 
musical artefacts in helping us to understand the past? What is the 
relationship between the physical and the digital in terms of music’s 
objects? To what extent does a focus on music’s objects challenge the 
idea of music as a social process? Conversely, what role does musical 
materiality play in the maintenance and development of rituals long 
associated with music? What rituals reformulate musical materiality? 
What does the remediation of the musical past via ‘media’ archaeology’ 
have to tell us about present desires, anxieties and needs? What is the 
role of museums, galleries, sound archives and libraries in these processes?



Working from the premise that musical materiality matters, the aim of 
this two-day interdisciplinary conference (welcoming papers from media 
studies, music studies, cultural studies, museum studies, memory studies 
and other cognate disciplines) will be to reflect upon the materialities 
of music objects/technologies in the digital age, with an emphasis on:



* Processes of remediation
* Residual media of ‘dead media’
* Cultural waste
* Media archaeology (and particular manifestations relating to sound and 
music, e.g. ‘vinyl archaeology’)
* The recycling of memory and material culture
* The digital archive
* The future of music creation and consumption
* Nostalgia and ‘retromania’
* Music as ‘thing’ and/or ‘process’
* Commodification



The contexts of reception, production and circulation of digital objects 
as well as existence of residual media and formats (playback devices, 
vinyl records, etc.) could be examined. We would welcome papers focusing 
on theoretical approaches (considering for instance the meanings and 
implications of digitisation), but also papers on particular 
case-studies (for instance on specific formats and devices i.e. MP3s, 
iPods, etc. or specific creative and consumptive practices). A broader 
contextualisation of the historical and technological scapes within 
which the issues of materiality and remediation emerge would also be 
very useful.



The conference organisers welcome individual papers, proposals for 
panels and round table discussions, and proposals for practical 
demonstrations/performances related to the themes of the conference. For 
individual papers, demonstrations and performances, abstracts of no more 
than 300 words should be submitted. Panels and round table proposals 
should include a session overview, participant biographies and 
description of individual contributions. Abstracts and proposals (as 
well as event queries) should be sent to Dr Richard Elliott 
((R.Elliott /at/ sussex.ac.uk)) by 14 March 2014.



Conference organisers

Richard Elliott, University of Sussex

Elodie Roy, Newcastle University







Dr Richard Elliott

Lecturer in Popular Music

School of Media, Film and Music

University of Sussex

Falmer

BN1 9RG



T: 01273 877271

E: (R.Elliott /at/ sussex.ac.uk)


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