Feedback
Translations from the IrRational
Elliott Sharp(Author)
Wesleyan University Press
Published on 4. November 2025
Book
Hardback
252 pages
978-0-8195-0204-9 (ISBN)
Description
Wide-ranging discussion of culture, consciousness, and music from a unique artist's perspective_x000D_
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/>Feedback is a wide-ranging meditation on music, sound, artificial intelligence, consciousness, contemporary culture and politics, and the life of the touring musician. Author Elliott Sharp is considered one of the central figures in NYC's Downtown Scene and is a composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, visual artist, and educator. Starting from a background in the sciences, Sharp found his passion for music as a teen, and it has never abated. His philosophy is informed not just by music and its creation but by continuing studies in physics and genetics and a visceral interest in our modern world and its joys and horrors. In Feedback, Sharp engages in speculative thought about how consciousness might have arisen and what the future holds for humanity with the advent of an Artificial Intelligence that is certainly artificial but might not exactly be intelligent. The "Improviser's Mind" is discussed in the context of post-quantum physics, probability, socio-acoustics, and Butoh dance. Sharp loves to digress into unpredictable areas but ties it all together in an overarching narrative that is both personal and conceptual.
/>_x000D_
/>Feedback is a wide-ranging meditation on music, sound, artificial intelligence, consciousness, contemporary culture and politics, and the life of the touring musician. Author Elliott Sharp is considered one of the central figures in NYC's Downtown Scene and is a composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, visual artist, and educator. Starting from a background in the sciences, Sharp found his passion for music as a teen, and it has never abated. His philosophy is informed not just by music and its creation but by continuing studies in physics and genetics and a visceral interest in our modern world and its joys and horrors. In Feedback, Sharp engages in speculative thought about how consciousness might have arisen and what the future holds for humanity with the advent of an Artificial Intelligence that is certainly artificial but might not exactly be intelligent. The "Improviser's Mind" is discussed in the context of post-quantum physics, probability, socio-acoustics, and Butoh dance. Sharp loves to digress into unpredictable areas but ties it all together in an overarching narrative that is both personal and conceptual.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
15 b&w photos, 5 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
522 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8195-0204-9 (9780819502049)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
11/2025
Wesleyan University Press
€21.49
Available for download
Person
ELLIOTT SHARP is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer. A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City for over 40 years, Sharp has released myriad recordings and he is the author of IrRational Music (2018).
Content
Foreword
1 Introduction
2 An Asymptotist Manifesto
3 Experimental? Music and Sound
4 Applications and Builds
5 Socioacoustics
6 Sakunicki
7 Improviser's Mind
8 Derek Bailey
9 Mind: The Gap
10 The Musical Garden of Toru Takemitsu
11 Nicolas Slonimsky
12 The Implicate Drone
13 Glenn Branca
14 Tim Wright: Street Shamanic
15 Current Strategies for Graphic Notation
16 Future of Mind
17 A Gig's a Gig
18 The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band
19 Peter K. Siegel: Worlds of Music
20 John Fahey on the Decline of the Western World
21 Hubert Sumlin Speaks
22 Pete Cosey: Bridging Worlds
23 Bekerey: Pastry and Politics on the Lower East Side
24 On the Journey That Wasn't
25 Migration and Sanctuary in Bochum
26 Wholly Land
27 On the Road and in New York with Bachir Attar
28 Tarab and Beyond: Beirut, New York, Sharjah, Berlin
29 Incident in Catania - 1999
30 From the Italian Academy to Miami Beach
31 Soviet Jazz
32 China Times
33 Vong Co: Music of Longing
34 Non-Asymptotic
35 Index
1 Introduction
2 An Asymptotist Manifesto
3 Experimental? Music and Sound
4 Applications and Builds
5 Socioacoustics
6 Sakunicki
7 Improviser's Mind
8 Derek Bailey
9 Mind: The Gap
10 The Musical Garden of Toru Takemitsu
11 Nicolas Slonimsky
12 The Implicate Drone
13 Glenn Branca
14 Tim Wright: Street Shamanic
15 Current Strategies for Graphic Notation
16 Future of Mind
17 A Gig's a Gig
18 The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band
19 Peter K. Siegel: Worlds of Music
20 John Fahey on the Decline of the Western World
21 Hubert Sumlin Speaks
22 Pete Cosey: Bridging Worlds
23 Bekerey: Pastry and Politics on the Lower East Side
24 On the Journey That Wasn't
25 Migration and Sanctuary in Bochum
26 Wholly Land
27 On the Road and in New York with Bachir Attar
28 Tarab and Beyond: Beirut, New York, Sharjah, Berlin
29 Incident in Catania - 1999
30 From the Italian Academy to Miami Beach
31 Soviet Jazz
32 China Times
33 Vong Co: Music of Longing
34 Non-Asymptotic
35 Index