Consequences of the affective turn: Exploring music practices from without and within

Abstract

In this paper I explore the challenges of the “affective turn” and map new avenues of music research in this direction. I discuss four paths of enquiry, in deviation from the semiotic models: the discovery of the non-signified materiality and its potentiality to generate affects, the potentiality of affect to de-signify, the ability of sign machines to catalyse the production of intensities and, finally, the power of social machines to overcode the produced affect through non-discursive mechanisms. I argue that the affective turn in musicology can provide a different structuring of a view from without and a view from within, calling both for finely tuned “close reading” and for the ability of the researcher to grasp the performative context. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177004: Serbian Musical Identities within Local and Global Frameworks: Traditions, Changes, Challenges