• Ursula Franklin, Daphne Oram, and the Practices of Music Technology

    Author(s):
    Hannah M. Brown
    Editor(s):
    Kanishka Sikri (see profile)
    Date:
    2022
    Item Type:
    Article
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/mjmr-h207
    Abstract:
    Ursula Franklin’s concept of the “real world of technology” focuses on the ways in which technologies are not simply artifacts, but “practices” which impact all aspects of everyday life, including social relationships and work (Franklin, 1999). In this article, I discuss how the work of cultural production is linked to Franklin’s ideas about labour in a technocratic world. I focus on Daphne Oram, an electronic music composer and inventor who worked at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop from 1957-1959. Oram’s work took place during a period of changing technological labour policies, reification of class and gender-based social norms, and attempts at implementing globally competitive technocratic systems in Britain (Hicks, 2018; Shafer, 2015). The socio-historical context of this era of technological labour development and music creation will inform my analysis of how these techno-cultural relationships operate today. In the current age of global new-mass-media, are music technologies prone to becoming increasingly profit- and efficiency-driven in the same ways they were in the past? Through examining the “practice” of music technologies, I will engage with the ways in which Franklin’s idea of the “real world of technology” applies to cultural production both in this historical example and today.
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    Published as:
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    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    10 months ago
    License:
    Attribution
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