Repurposed Objects, Social Objects: Towards a Social Organology in Technology-based Music
Dylan Burchett · Divergence Press · 2023
epurposed items in technology-based music have long evaded traditional methods of organological classification due to the multiple associations they contain in performance settings. These methods of classification, which privilege the material and sensorial qualities of objects, ignore the greater social, cultural, and historical contexts in which objects exist. Instead of defining repurposed items through static and unchanging categories derived from material and sensorial qualities alone, a social organology, one organized around the symbolic order of objects, would consider the multiple narratives yielded by interactions between an object’s symbolic and material qualities in its discussion of a repurposed item’s properties and functions. A social organology would present a more accurate means to discuss the multiple meanings and functions a repurposed item presents, and would consider how these items inform the cultural, social, and historical aspects of a performance that are not contained within its immediate material or sensorial components.