"Matèria. Revista internacional d’Art", issue 14-15
Monographic title: Intersections between music, word and image
Submission: until 31st January 2019
Coordination: Dra. Magda Polo Pujadas
Presentation
At a time in which interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, etc. are terms at the forefront in many fields, in this 14th issue we want to reflect on how the first concept has been carried out throughout the history of art. We will refer to interdisciplinarity as related to more than one branch of knowledge, whether it is a product or a result, or a methodology or procedure. Likewise, music will be taken as a nerve centre in relation to word and image, treating this research from aesthetics, literary studies and history of art. To make the monograph as open as possible, it will be presented with a chronological amplitude that will go from ancient times to the present.
The influence that music has exerted in plastic arts, literature, dance, cinema, architecture, along with the transformation of techniques, topics used and application of new materials has meant that the collaboration among the different artistic languages has contributed in many occasions to a conception of an artwork that can be explained from several languages. This, in many times, has enriched the discourse of the historian and theoretician of art, bringing them to a more precise, and, in some cases, clarifying, results and deductions of the work.
There are many examples of the history of art in which artists talk about the influence of procedures or elements of other disciplines in their work. A phenomenon like synaesthesia would be a clear example. However, it must be born in mind that, although the term “interdisciplinary” begins to be used in the cradle of the first artistic avant-gardes, in practice it has always been there. Schools such as Bauhaus or Black Mountain College generalised its use among artists, even though it was practically applied at all times.
The idea of total artwork that is caressed so often in the history of art, especially from Romanticism to Wagner’s musical dramas, does not always lead to an interdisciplinary result. When, at the end of the 16th century, Florentine intellectuals and Camerata dei Bardi idealized the Greco-Roman theatre creating a new artistic form, opera, perhaps interdisciplinarity was not consciously present, but there it was.
With this monograph, there is a willingness to contribute to the debate and exchange of theoretical, critical and historiographical studies on the narrow relationship that music has had with art. Therefore, the entire research community is invited to present unpublished studies and recent analysis in the fields mentioned above in order to contribute, both to the update and dissemination of the linkage between music and other arts, as well as to its debate.
In this issue, it is made a public announcement of articles that explore the following thematic lines which can serve as examples:
- Relation between plastic and music. It is possible to deduce many of the features that music has had throughout history – from frescoes, engravings, paintings, etc. – from iconography. Organology has undoubtedly helped in strengthening this relationship and has become a very effective tool.
- Linkage between music and word. Since the birth of vocal music, word has been closely linked with music. The conception of music according to the literary parameters of rhythm, rhyme, etc. has facilitated their analogy with poetry or novel.
- Accompaniment of music in dance. Dance, especially contemporary dance, has transformed its concept of body as a result of the predominance of concrete, electronic and aleatoric music in many choreographies of postmodern dance.
- Application of music in cinema. Programmatic music started a more direct representativeness in the form of audio-visual scenes, which began to be clearly established in soundtracks, musicals, etc.
- Similarity of architecture with music. The mathematical basis of architecture and music have stimulated the confluence of both disciplines, not only in the field of acoustic studies, but also in the formulation of the plans of a building and its correspondence with musical intervals.
Paper submission
Guidelines of the journal available here.
