Confronting the shadow : a power electronics praxis

Abstract

Confronting the Shadow is a practice-led research project based on composition and recording in the Power Electronics music modality. The submission comprises seven albums and a written thesis. Power Electronics is a confrontational form of music practice situated within the noise music genre. The purpose of the research is to use this modality as a vehicle for exploring relations between noise, the urban space and mental health. As practice-led research, these relations are accounted for in a written thesis that has been structured to support and map the recorded material. The discursive methodology described by Somerville as postmodern emergence is employed to describe how the ideas and arguments made in the thesis component have emerged from the process of creating the portfolio. Key ideas incorporated in this manner throughout the thesis are adapted from the psychoanalytic works of Carl Gustav Jung, in particular his confrontation with the shadow. Jung’s ideas are explored in conjunction with material from musicology (Hegarty, Novak, Keenan, Attali), social policy (Barham, Moon, Kearns & Joseph, Laurance, the Schizophrenia Commission, Rethink Mental Illness), psychogeography (Sinclair, Raban, Vidler, Coverley), psychology (Laing & Esterson), film studies (Balsom & Peleg, Rabiger), and more, to create a nuanced multidisciplinary mapping of the portfolio and its interrogation of noise, the urban space and mental health. Emphasis is placed on the context of deinstitutionalisation – the socio-cultural and political transfer of mental healthcare from institutions to the community in the late 20th century – that transformed the experience of both the urban space and mental illness in this period. The portfolio and its supporting discourse explore the role that different kinds of creative practice such as music and film play in the generation and mediation of ideas and attitudes towards mental illness and its care, and demonstrate how the conclusions drawn from this analysis have informed the continuing development of the practice in consequence.