Edinburgh Napier University

  By appropriating the images of the schizophrenic and the cyborg from Deleuze and Guattari, and from Donna Haraway respectively, this paper seeks to discuss the relationship between human and computer, composer and performer in a way that undermines and subverts the normal binaries commonly employed, and even implied in the descriptions of these relationships in this paper. “Nine for ones in nine”, despite employing the use of the OpenMusic software in its composition, retains a degree of choice and indeterminacy for the performers; despite employing the use of precise just harmony in its design and intent, the work depends upon the imprecision of human control rather than ceding to the precision of a synthesiser. Given the vast possibilities opened up to composers by the use of computers to calculate and create sound, why then do composers continue to employ performers in the realisation of their designs, and rely on sometimes hundreds of years-old technology to articulate them in real time? The very social and imprecise aspect of the act of performance is key to the messy, compromised, and complicit product that scores such as Nine for ones in nine aim to produce.