Thomas Butler | Mapping as a compositional tool

Event details

Speaker: Thomas Butler (University of Edinburgh, Reid School of Music)

Date: 12 February 2020

Time: 3.15 - 5.00pm.  

Venue: Alison House, Lecture Room B (2.01)

**Please note the change to our normal venue**

Abstract

Maps and mapping processes have been central to many of my recent instrumental and electronic compositions. Informed by psychogeographic approaches and a desire to use non-traditional forms of sonification, maps and mapping have featured as part of both my composition method, where archival, speculative and self-made maps form the start of the creative process, and as part of the finished work.

These mapping processes have allowed me to explore different scales and forms of activity through music, from an individual’s physical movements to city-wide systems. In this talk I will contrast four recent works that reference these varying scales of human activity, including: utopian city planning (Elbow Room, 2014); energy infrastructure mapping (Karlsruhe Survey, 2019); the deep-mapping of individual buildings and the electrical activity within them (Aeolian Survey, 2017); and the recorded observations of a solo instrumentalist’s bodily gestures (<Ir>Replaceable You, 2019).

Biography

Thomas Butler is a composer based in Glasgow, Scotland. His work uses found and archival sound, video and physical gesture to explore themes including sustainability, psychogeography, technology, and authority. His work spans live instrumental performance and electronic music and he often collaborates with artists from other disciplines. He is Musical Director of new music group Ensemble Thing and teaches composition at the University of Edinburgh.