Visualizing the language: a semiotic look over Cornelius Cardew

• Grant number: 14/12437-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2014
• End date: August 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: Mauricio Funcia de Bonis
• Grantee: Gabriel Francisco Barboza Lemos
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present bibliographic research with analytical and comparative approach about the production of Cornelius Cardew (1936 - 1981), aims at mapping and selecting theoretical material which, through a semiotics point of view, contributes to the enlargement of the possibilities of comprehending the composer's work during the 1960`s period. Therefore, the objective of the research has been restricted to the case analysis of Treatise, a piece that represents the experimentations between Cardew`s body of work in compositional research and his graphic solutions. In order to achieve this purpose, connections will be established between the composer and the sign triadic classification developed by Charles Sanders Peirce, who was a relevant thinker to the development of many studies and practical uses of semiotic and language theory present in interdisciplinary production of the second half of the 20th Century, but an absent figure in Cardew's body of work in a direct fashion. The research also touches language theory and Gestatl theory to sustain the analysis, which is divided in two moments: a) A brief historic research of the development of graphical solutions to non-traditional music notation in the 20th century, focusing on contextualizing a work chosen as part of the notation debates (Treatise, 1967);b) Outline the points of relations between Cornelius Cardew and the semiotics of graphic notation and the semiotics of musical language, in order to better comprehend the functionality of this particular intersemiotics situation.