Abstract What are some of the peculiar aspects of composing for a networked ensemble of musicians performing in two concerts halls thousands of kilometers apart? We address these questions in a study with Malte Giesen, who took part as a composer in the networked music performance project Interwoven Sound Spaces. We analyse his views on themes such as physical presence, composing with interactive textiles worn by the musicians, acoustic space, and aesthetics of networked performance. We further refine our thematic analysis by looking at two broader topics: the agency of the composer over the processes that underpin networked music, and the legibility of such processes in a complex setting involving performers, audiences, and instruments in multiple locations. Reflecting on the composer’s responses, we posit that the radically extended conceptions of space, scale, and reach of networked music performance call for new conceptual and technical affordances involving haptic, aural, and visual sensory modalities.
Visi et al. (Mon,) studied this question.