The [60]Project: an analytical and contextual critique

This paper is concerned with a memetic analysis and contextual critique of
the authors’ composition, The [60]Project. The work, commissioned by the
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, is a celebration of the 60th
anniversary of musique concrète and incorporates sound contributions from
over sixty of the worlds leading sound-artists. As such, it makes the work a ripe
repository for memetic analysis, as it provides a cross-section of contemporary
sonic arts practice. Through such an analysis it will be demonstrated how
techniques of sound production, compositional methodologies, and similar
modes of treating concrète sounds are common to sound artists working
across a wide aesthetic spectrum. The aim is not to argue that the boundaries
between differing genres of music are being blurred, but, rather, to provide a
critique of contemporary digital music culture in which this work and those
sound artists contributing to it are situated. The paper will further question
the notion of authorship of The [60]Project, discuss the nature of collaboration
and where the act of composition actually occurs in digital music.