discourse by david b collins

Discourse is an exploration of spoken communication styles in an increasingly polarized American culture. My work asks citizens to examine how we collectively approach our interactions concerning socially, culturally, and politically divisive topics. Composed for instrumentalists, modular synthesizer, live electronics, fixed media, and dance, Discourse aims to sonically navigate the contrasts between dialog and debate while encouraging the audience to reflect on their own conversational style.

Discourse embodies both the collaborative and competitive aspects of our intercommunication. It employs the sonic characterizations and dichotomies of sparsity and sound clouds, micro and macro textures, rhythmic chaos and unity, and dissonance and lyricism. Interrupting layers of aggressive and unyielding sounds, revealing the careless desire to be right at any emotional cost, will transform into a cohesive interplay of evolving melodic, textural and rhythmic motifs that reflect our potential to collectively learn from each other. Discourse represents these artistic possibilities to illuminate the challenges and opportunities within our contemporary methods of communication.

Composer, performer, and sound artist of electroacoustic and experimental music.