1st Edition
John Zorn’s File Card Works Hypertextual Intermediality in Composition and Analysis
This book is the first study of John Zorn’s ‘file card’ works, with special focus made on the pieces Godard (1985), Spillane (1986), Interzone (2010), and Liber Novus (2010). It explains the unique creative process behind these compositions, contextualizing them in relation to the history of file cards, the ‘open work’ concept, cinematic listening, and uncreative aesthetics. Semiotic, hermeneutic, and ekphrastic analyses draw hypertextual links between the four file card compositions and the worlds of their respective dedicatees: author Mickey Spillane, filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, novelist William S. Burroughs and painter Brion Gysin, and psychiatrist C. G. Jung.
This book will appeal not only to those interested in Zorn’s music, but also to scholars of music semiotics and hermeneutics, intermedia studies, and avant-garde music.
1. The File Card Work and its Model Listener 2. The Hypotexts of Sound Blocks 3. Hypertextual Hermeneutics 4. From Metatext to Hypertext via Uncreativity
Biography
Maurice Windleburn holds a PhD in Musicology from the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research focuses on avant-garde music, music philosophy, and ekphrastic relations between music and other artforms. His work has been published in a number of journals, including Organised Sound, Tempo, and the Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics.
“A meticulously researched study of John Zorn’s file-card compositions, an aspect of Zorn’s output which has previously not been explored in this way. The history of Zorn’s engagement with file card composition in its various stages is explored and his musical materials and processes are explained with great clarity. It will be of interest to readers interested in Zorn’s music, contemporary jazz, classical composition, experimental music, recording studio processes and techniques as well as those interested in music theory, the philosophy of music, musical ontology, hermeneutics and semiotics. It’s also an enjoyable and informative read.”
Edward Campbell, Professor of Music, School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture. King's College, University of Aberdeen, UK
“Deeply researched and profoundly theorized, Maurice Windleburn widens the lens of John Zorn's musical context to place his output within the larger contexts of literature, media theory, philosophy, linguistics, computing, filmmaking, psychoanalysis, and visual art. Through a meticulous and micro-focused examination of one specific body of Zorn's vast and prodigious output, this book charts a path forward for a much needed field of Zorn studies.”
Kenneth Goldsmith, University of Pennsylvania, USA
