How Do Cellists and Sounds 'Become' With Each Other? Exploring the Entanglements of Artistic Research and Agential Realism

Abstract

Music and bodies ‘become’ through co-creational processes of sound and different human and non-human bodies within social contexts. We conducted in-depth micro-phenomenological interviews with six cellists to understand better the relationship between musicians – traditionally understood as those who produce sounds – and the sounds themselves. This novel method allowed us to zoom in on the moment of the creation of sound. Drawing on Karen Barad’s accounts of intra-action, we theorize within the field of artistic research how sounds, materials, and bodies become with each other and iteratively co-constitute the musician-persona, the sound, and the instruments.