Defying Objecthood: tracing the beginnings of a political aesthetic in my recent work

Through a theoretical framework informed by Deleuze and Guattari, DeLanda, Ingold, Massumi, Sennett, and Warren, this thesis traces the development of a political aesthetic in four pieces of my own work as it emerged through practice. In what ways is it possible to expose, push at, and perhaps even momentarily break the striations of an inherited politico cultural milieu, particularly as they mediate encounters between composers, performers and listeners? What are the experiential consequences for performers and listeners? This body of research challenges the perspectival notion of the impenetrable work as object in Western art music, proposing the notion of a permeable site of exchange in its stead. Drawing on the work of a stylistically divergent range of other composers, the thesis reflects on compositional and notational strategies as they developed through each piece to this end. The research as a whole constitutes the beginning of a compositional and conceptual toolkit ripe for further development.