Joining the Threads
Final Reflections
In this section, I described several methods for creating musical narratives through the abstraction and translation of information across domains. I discussed the human ability for abstraction, emphasizing how we naturally detect and unify patterns across sensory modalities as a fundamental capacity for development and learning. Abstraction, by integrating multisensory information, goes beyond the three cognitive paradigms previously discussed. Therefore, I understand that creative processes concerned with abstraction are essential for deepening and creatively exploring the symbolic, connectionist, and embodied dimensions of cognition.
Compared to humans, computers are relatively limited to unimodal representation of patterns. Therefore, the capacity for abstraction –particularly its role at the core of what we understand as art– places unidimensional computational formalizations significantly behind human artistic capabilities. This limitation becomes especially evident when creative processes rely solely on such approaches. On the other hand, technological advancements have enabled the translation of vast amounts of data across domains and modalities. One important creative method arising from this is sonification, made possible through these new technologies. Sonification has a long history and has been developed by numerous composers over time.
For the composition of the piece I am a Strange Loop, I relied on processes of abstraction, such as symbolic sonification, audification, and parametrical remapping, to create a musical narrative. The piece mainly emerges from the formalization of preexisting musical information into new musical material and structures. Formal systems and aspects related to symbolic cognition emerge on objective processes of translation and structural organization, while other heuristic strategies related to intuition and embodiment emerge when seeking particular sonorities, timbral qualities, or sonic worlds outside those formalizable ones.
Finally, I should note that this piece and its constructive aspects are not intended to supersede previous works or represent a higher degree of evolution or refinement. Rather, the discussion in this section aims to illustrate how some of these more abstract processes operate at the compositional level, offering a potential alternative and serving as a more detailed case study of the emergence and interplay of the three cognitive paradigms discussed earlier. This last point will be explored further in the ‘Conclusions?’ section.
This concludes the discussion on the artistic outcome of the project. What follows transitions into a more personal and introspective reflection.