Glitch in the system

As a Beethovenfest Fellow, US composer Brittany J. Green is writing a new work for the New York-based collective Alarm Will Sound – exploring the intersection of AI and chance, human and machine.

»Space for the music of the future« – under this motto, the Beethovenfest’s fellowship programme invites artists to develop new perspectives on (classical) music. Brittany J. Green embodies this ethos in a unique way: she explores future technologies in music, draws on Afrofuturist discourses and develops music that she herself describes as »sonic storytelling«.

The term »music of the future« is as rich in associations as it is ambivalent – and linked to notions of linear progress that often suggest that development automatically means improvement. Brittany Green views this with scepticism: »For me, I think it’s important to break the notion of time, music, or culture ›progressing forward‹.« The future is not a predetermined, straight path: »Sometimes future is a way of looking back, reinterrogating, reconfiguring, and reclaiming what once was.« She therefore also understands ›componere‹ in its original sense as a (re)composition of what was and what might be: »In many ways I feel composition offers a space for ›futuring‹« —a space of possibility for actively shaping the future.

In this way, Green explicitly draws on Afrofuturism, an artistic practice that makes Black visions of the future visible and audible. For her, this is a perspective through which to explore »who has been allowed to envision the future and who has not.« She sees her work as an invitation: »In my work, I’m just hoping to open that door, share the edges of my own imagination, and make space for others to do the same.«

The title of Brittany Green’s new composition, which is to be premiered at Beethovenfest, is almost impossible to read or pronounce clearly – this neologism alludes to central ideas in the work.

Key to this is the »gLitch«, which Green understands as »a mode of existence«. A glitch – which, according to the English definition, is simply a malfunction – is, however, far more than that: »an act of agency that a system cannot read – as opposed to a mere random malfunction«. In her music, this manifests itself as small disruptions within an established rhythmic order – to which the composer links a central question of her work: »What happens when I pull the thread of glitches within a work that arises in the compositional process? What new sonic spaces emerge if I follow those threads?«

The title element »dreams« opens up the space towards imagination and science fiction: for Green, dreams are a place where identity, the body and roles can be reimagined – beyond fixed attributions. Specifically, her piece tells the story of Eye, an android in search of an authentic self. Questions of free will, control and empowerment shape not only this story but also the work’s open structure – through the use of artificial intelligence. A code determines the nature and sequence of the musical material played by the instrumentalists of Alarm Will Sound: »The performers are ›glitching‹ themselves, opting in and out of the composed music, creating something different each time« – so that a new version of the piece emerges with every performance.

Through the concept of »invisible BEINGS«, Green explores structural invisibility: that is, marginalised lives that are systematically overlooked and unheard. She aims to make the unheard audible. »The use of beings of human both decenters human as the core of life and also works to distinguish itself from Western notions of human which to be white and cishet male.«  In this posthumanist perspective, the human being is no longer the measure of all things, but rather part of a larger network of forms of life and existence.

Ludwig van Beethoven, the great humanist, remains an important point of reference for Brittany Green: »As a composer, Beethoven pulled threads and followed kernels of thought that led to new ideas and new was of imagining instrumental music. I think his work and approach to music is always a point of reference and always relevant and timely. Even if the art one is making is vastly different aesthetically, there’s much to be learned from what he has offered to music.« What is crucial here, she says, is not stylistic affinity, but attitude – a willingness to continually re-examine not only musical thought but also musical practice.