Quevillon, Sacred Technologies: Numinous and Grotesque Symbolism of Electronic Music Devices in Instrumental Theater

This artistic research thesis investigates how music performance with electronic music devices, such as the loudspeaker, electric guitar, and amplifier connects to ideas of the sacred. It combines theories from anthropology, religious studies, musicology, and the history of technology with my artistic practice as a composer. In my research, I introduce a new concept of Symbolic Sound-Producing Gestures, inspired by composer Mauricio Kagel's instrumental theater. This concept serves as a compositional tool for shaping symbolic meanings that emerge from the physical interaction between performers and instruments. C. G. Jung's symbolic framework and Antonin Artaud's vision of theatrical gestures as powerful symbolic forces guided my exploration of sacred symbolism in the instruments, sounds, and expanded techniques used in my works. I draw on sociologist Émile Durkheim's sacred/profane dichotomy, Erik Davis's book Techgnosis, and consumer researcher Russell W. Belk's theory of Sacred Consumption to examine the paradoxical entanglement of the sacred and the profane in contemporary consumer culture. In this context, although electronic music devices are inseparable from the profane world of tools and consumption objects, they remain rich in sacred associations because of their long history and diverse cultural manifestations. Moreover, through their capacity to channel vast amounts of energy, they can evoke the emotional intensity of the numinous: awe, dread, and mystery. I analyze three of my artistic works that exemplify how the staging and use of electronic music devices in music performance can articulate the entanglement of the sacred and the profane. These artistic processes ultimately led me to the concept I call Grotesque Numinosity: an aesthetic lens that embraces both awe and absurdity, finding intense experiences where the sacred and the profane fuse in the raw energy of electronic sound.