Fruit of the vine : investigating improvised musical composition as a contradictory tool to un/cover occluded knowledge

Abstract

This project comprises of an archive of liturgically produced recorded improvisations, accompanied by creative esoteric and profane reflections. The archive is hosted on a website (www.fruitotvine.com) where each improvisation can be experienced in a random order. Each performance took place in line with the phases of the moon, with around two performances being undertaken every month. These recorded performances were undertaken solo and in collaboration with others, as well as in various locations from the domestic, to the academic, to the professional, to outdoor rural and urban environments. Each performance, and the project as a whole, is concerned with concepts of change, searching, and the hidden. It is rooted in a belief that there is an ineffable presence of something beyond human consciousness and experience, the threshold of which can almost be outlined in improvised practices, yet it can never be traversed, and this something cannot ever be known or understood. As such, this work is additionally concerned with the striving for impossibilities. The reflections that make up the body of this thesis are structured by the random selection of the website, and cover the banalities of how individual performances were undertaken – what technique or instruments were employed; who the collaborators were; what the location was – as well as dealing with philosophical or occultic topics being explored at the time of recording the works, and creative interpretations of what the sounds present in the music could be perceived to mean.