Spatial relationships, cosmopolitanism and musico-literary miscegenation in the new media work of austraLYSIS

Abstract

This essay focuses on verbal and sonic interactions, and the spatial relationships they create, in the new media work of the Australian sound and multimedia ensemble austraLYSIS, of which the author is a founding member. It discusses three recent works by austraLYSIS: motions (2014) and Film of Sound (2013) created together with US-based video artist Will Luers, and Disappearing (2013) jointly made with Sydney-based sound artist Greg White. The essay explores the ‘glocal’ interaction in the work of austraLYSIS between a cosmopolitan, transnational outlook and a strong sense of Australian culture: it suggests that this is part of a broader posthuman cosmopolitanism characteristic of some new media works. The article proposes a new theoretical framework with which to consider word and sound relationships in the fields of intermedia and multimedia work to which austraLYSIS’s creative output belongs. It analyses the non-hierarchical processes by which words and music are juxtaposed, merged or superimposed in such works to create emergent results, employing the concept of semiotic and perceptual exchange. In particular, the essay argues that such crossings of word and music can facilitate various forms of cultural crossing, resulting in what is conceptualized as ‘musico-literary miscegenation’.