British Journal of Aesthetics, July 2008.
Christy Mag Uidhir has recently argued (a) that there is no in principle aesthetic difference between a live performance and a recording of that performance, and (b) that the proper aesthetic object is a type which is instantiated by the performance and potentially repeatable when recordings are played back. This paper considers several objections to (a) and finds them lacking. I then consider improvised music, a subject that Mag Uidhir explicitly brackets in his discussion. Improvisation reveals problems with (b), because the performance-event and the performance-type are distinct but equally proper aesthetic objects.
@ARTICLE(Magnus2008b,
AUTHOR = {P.D. Magnus},
TITLE = {Mag Uidhir on Performance},
JOURNAL = {British Journal of Aesthetics},
YEAR = {2008},
VOLUME = {48},
NUMBER = {3},
MONTH = jul,
PAGES = {338--345},
NOTE = {doi:10.1093/aesthj/ayn031}
)