Kirsten Speyer Carithers—Hacking New Music: Lessons from the Archive

Postwar experimentalism provides an ideal conceptual playground for blending the history of work with the history of music. From designing groundbreaking notational systems to interrogating the very definition of music itself, creative sound-makers pushed the boundaries of acceptable ways to be musicians. These practices have shaped the development of a theoretical framework that I call “interpretive labor.” Each model in this framework demonstrates a unique but interrelated form of engagement with the work of being a contemporary musician.

In this talk, I share some models of Interpretive Labor, discussing not only how they have functioned in the past, but also how we might apply them to artistic practices today. As we navigate the challenges of precarity, austerity, inequity, and outright hostility toward creative thinking, we may benefit from a bit of the hacker ethos that became, in my view, one of the most fruitful outcomes of this era. With the boss-like Executive calling the shots, the Scientist exploring new ways of engaging with music and its technologies, the Administrator making sure events happen on time and on budget, the Hacker subverting a given system, and the Gamer making a new system entirely, all of these characters, and their characteristics, constitute a powerful system of working methods, which sheds light on creative labor more broadly.