Digital Currents of Music

– A digital music project in cooperation with JAS –

Reading Theodor W. Adorno’s writings on music presents a major challenge: it is almost impossible for readers to imagine or hear the large number of musical works and examples he refers to. Reading and listening follow different paths of understanding. Even though music is now widely available in digital form, most readers still struggle to find all the musical pieces Adorno mentions. Without some prior knowledge of the works and their context, this task becomes nearly impossible.

Adorno’s associative and allusive writing style further complicates comprehension. The project Streaming Adorno responds to this challenge by creating a multimedia format that combines Adorno’s texts with matching audio examples. This turns his writings into a new kind of “sound-text” (Tontext), shaped by digital technology.

The project’s subtitle alludes to Adorno’s lesser-known radio theory Current of Music (1938–41), whose title alone refutes the persistent stereotype of Adorno as a technophobic thinker.

The term current carries a dual meaning: temporally, as something present and fleeting; and electrically, as a stream of power. Rather than culturally condemning radio, Adorno saw in it a manifestation of the most advanced stage of the technological productive forces—forces he actively engaged. Key texts from his musical writings (e.g., Beautiful Passages) were conceived or adapted as radio lectures, enabling synchronization between spoken word and musical example.

Under digital conditions, the electric current becomes the data stream, enabling a recursive updating of Adorno’s reception through contemporary technologies. In weaving together text and sound, Streaming Adorno seeks to “radiofy” the act of reading Adorno, liberating his reception from its traditionally elitist hermeticism. The project opens up new ways of moving between reading and listening, between written analysis and musical experience.

Head of the project: Han-Gyeol Lie

Associates: Gabriele Geml and Antonia Hofstätter

The project will start 2024/2025