The workshop will explore decision-making processes from artistic and group-dynamic perspectives, with a focus on musical constellations. Historical Western music theories often contextualise polyphonic rules and rely on analogies between art and the realities of life. These interactions of different codes – gestures, proportions, temperament – are also striking in early 20th-century composition theory, where social structures have been preserved in polyphony.

Johann Mattheson, in his 1739 treatise, argues that adhering to harmony shows rhythmic impulsivity rather than a state of rest. Similarly, Moritz Hauptmann's theory of harmony and metrics (1853), based on Hegel's philosophy, posits a dialectical conflict in metrics out of which musical movement arises. Arnold Schönberg recognises an epistemological gap between musical rules and scientific acoustics and postulates that dissonances create greater conflict in polyphonic processes than consonances.

The discussion of escalation processes that Schönberg and others have addressed extends beyond the collapse of tonality around 1910 and is reflected in today's models of thought, be it in discourses on climate change or in reflections on tipping points. Pierre Boulez's theories on smooth and notched spaces demonstrate that structural concentrations and conflicts also remain relevant for contemporary music.

The workshop invites contributions from various artistic disciplines to explore whether signals immanent in processes indicate tipping points in polyphonic practices. The aim is to identify communicable factors in art that may inspire alternative models for understanding non-linear processes in nature and society.

There will be a program with Dana Caspersen from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Places are limited, please register. Other participants from the fields of choreography, music as well as visual and generative art will enrich the discussion with exciting questions.

The event is organized and hosted by Ariane Jeßulat and Jasmina Samssuli from project A04.