Music in Social, Cultural, and Medical Context, Tygiel Scientific Publishing, June 2023, pp. 37-47.

Abstract: This chapter (in Polish) examines the themes of memory, amnesia, and dementia in hauntological music. Exemplifying the dynamics of returning- and -being, the neologism of hauntology was assembled by Jacques Derrida in 1993, and has subsequently been disseminated as a genre of artistic practice dealing with ghosts, decay, ruins, nostalgia, temporality, technology, retrofuturism, cultural memory, and archives in fashion, avant-garde exhibitions, photography, record labels, and academic conferences. One of the contemporary examples of hauntological praxis is the oeuvre of James "The Caretaker" Kirby. Shaped by his personal experiences, Kirby's soundtracks deal with our nostalgic yearning for the past and at the same time, haunt us with our inability to remember it by referencing stigmatized medical conditions involving memory loss. By drawing on hauntology in various branches of contemporary scholarship (Derrida, Fisher, Coverley, Reynolds, Stubbs, Lesser), the author analyzes selected electroacoustic miniatures from Kirby's critically acclaimed albums "Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia" (2005), "An Empty Bliss Beyond This World" (2011), and "Everywhere at The End of Time" (2016) to illustrate the wide gamut of compositional techniques used by The Caretaker to symbolize Alzheimer's Disease, amnesia, and dementia.

Keywords: music, hauntology, The Caretaker, memory, amnesia

7th ”Memory, Melancholy, and Nostalgia” International Interdisciplinary Conference, December 2022

Abstract: Coined as a neologism by Jacques Derrida in 1993, hauntology is a deconstructive portmanteau of ‘–ontology’ (to be) and ‘haunt–’ (to return). Since then, it has been widely associated with developing theory and practice focused on time out of joint, signified by temporal paradoxes and overturning of time; our love and retro–futuristic fascination with technology through tele-techno-iconicity; and yearning for the events and alternate realities that failed to fully unfold but which can still be returned as lost futures. These strands inspired hauntology’s popularity during the early noughties, where, as an artistic sub-genre, a plethora of works based around cultural memory, ghosts, ruins, temporal decay and loss, lost futures and nostalgia, technology, retrofuturism, and archives can be found. Examples range from haute couture and fashion (Spectres: When Fashion Turns Back at Victoria and Albert Museum), photography and video exhibitions (Guggenheim’s Haunted), to recording labels (Ghost Box) and music – with the latter established as a remarkable genre in the following years. In such spirit, this conference paper explores the term ‘hauntology’ in both its contemporary usage — that is current in compositional practice (Kirby and Basinski, among others) and academic discourse (in particular, Reynolds and Stubbs) — and as a philosophical and cultural concept (Derrida, Fisher, et al.) to analyze the interface between hauntological music and the triumvirate of memory, melancholy, and nostalgia.

Keywords: music, hauntology, memory, melancholy, nostalgia

1st National Polish Conference on Music in Scientific Reflection, Oct 2022

Abstract: This conference paper examines the themes of memory and its loss in hauntological music. Exemplifying the dynamics of returning- and -being, the neologism of hauntology was assembled by Jacques Derrida in 1993, and has subsequently been disseminated as a genre of artistic practice dealing with ghosts, decay, ruins, nostalgia, temporality, technology, retrofuturism, cultural memory, and archives in fashion, avant-garde exhibitions, photography, record labels, and academic conferences. One of the contemporary examples of hauntological praxis is the oeuvre of James "The Caretaker" Kirby. Shaped by his personal experiences, Kirby's soundtracks deal with our nostalgic yearning for the past and at the same time, haunt us with our inability to remember it by referencing stigmatized medical conditions involving amnesia. By drawing on hauntology in various branches of contemporary scholarship (Derrida, Fisher, Coverley, Reynolds, Stubbs, Lesser), the author analyzes selected electroacoustic miniatures from Kirby's critically acclaimed albums "Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia" (2005), "An Empty Bliss Beyond This World" (2011), and "Everywhere at The End of Time" (2016) to illustrate the wide gamut of compositional techniques used by The Caretaker to illustrate amnesia through sound.

Keywords: music, hauntology, The Caretaker, memory, amnesia

Undergraduate Thesis, New York University, Abu Dhabi, May 2022

Abstract: This artistic practice research draws into focus the relationship between hauntology, as explicated in the work of Jacques Derrida and others, and soundscapes of ruins and decay. Using the term ‘hauntology’ in both its contemporary usage—current in compositional practice (Kirby and Basinski, among others), academic discourse (in particular, Reynolds and Stubbs)—and as a philosophical and cultural concept (Derrida, Fisher, et al.), this work engages in the scholarly debate involving philosophy, musical aesthetics, and literature to investigate the approaches and developments in this domain in theory and practice. By exploring both the conceptual and compositional interface between music, hauntology, and film, this project offers an interdisciplinary perspective on praxis as applied to hauntology, presented through a series of interlinked case studies and sources. It aims to describe, analyze, deconstruct, and disseminate a way of creating two separate but interrelated hauntological soundscapes for two episodes from Akira Kurosawa’s film Dreams (1990).

Keywords: hauntology, praxis, composition, film, philosophy, aesthetics, decay

National Conference on Undergraduate Research, April 2021

Abstract: This study illuminates the problematic implications of musical constructions of ‘femininity' in Claudio Monteverdi's opera L’Orfeo by offering a view that enriches the scholarly discourse on the intersectionality of musicology, feminist theory, disability studies, history, and sociology, prompted by the existing body of interpretative and analytical research concerning the early operatic music. The focus is to enhance the musical analysis by drawing upon the theoretical frameworks provided by the seminal scholarship of Attali, Goodley, Linton, and McClary instead of examining the score in the tonal vacuum. This sociocultural inquiry recontextualizes the confines of musical syntax and illuminates how such constructions of femininity – visible particularly within the music and libretto written for female characters in Monteverdi's Orfeo – can lend themselves to have a perpetually disabling impact on women through their derogatory axes of oppression. All that in turn mirrors society's historical and stereotypical misconceptions concerning its gendered hierarchy, behavioral normalcy, and modes of rhetoric.

Keywords: music analysis, opera, femininity, gender, Claudio Monteverdi

TEDx NYUAD Conference, March 2020

Abstract: This accepted TEDx talk delves into the fundamental causes behind the recent surge in mainstream music copyright lawsuits. While popular songwriters claim ownership of simple and ubiquitous chord patterns in court, their listeners are inundated with increasingly formulaic music. Drawing upon a selection of ongoing legal disputes and analyses of prominent hit songs, the speaker addresses some of problematic tendencies in mainstream songwriting and composition, which could potentially exacerbate the copyright issues for future musicians. Why should we care about these developments as consumers, and how can we responsibly react to the practices of the popular music industry in the hyper-capitalist era of constant commodification of this form of art?

Keywords: music, mainstream, song, lawsuit, copyright, chords