Free jazz, as performed by such artists as John Coltrone and Archie Shepp, is a creative, collaborative art form. This book examines free jazz and develops geometric theories of gestures and distributed identities, also known as swarm intelligence.

Develops geometric theories of gestures and distributed identities, also known as swarm intelligence. This book exemplifies this approach in the framework of free jazz, which is a prototypical creative and collaborative art form.

This is the third volume of the second edition of the now classic book “The Topos of Music”. The authors present gesture theory, including a gesture philosophy for music, the mathematics of gestures, concept architectures and software for musical gesture theory, the multiverse perspective which reveals the relationship between gesture theory and the string theory in theoretical physics, and applications of gesture theory to a number of musical themes, including counterpoint, modulation theory, free jazz, Hindustani music, and vocal gestures.

This book explains music’s comprehensive ontology, its way of existence and processing, as specified in its compact characterization: music embodies meaningful communication and mediates physically between its emotional and mental layers. The book unfolds in a basic discourse in everyday language that is accessible to everybody who wants to understand what this topic is about. Musical ontology is delayed in its fundamental dimensions: its realities, its meaningful communication, and its embodied utterance from musical creators to an interested audience. The authors' approach is applicable to every musical genre and is scientific, the book is suitable for non-musicians and non-scientists alike.

This volume brings together contributions by philosophers, art historians and artists who discuss, interpret and analyse the moving and gesturing body in the arts. Broadly inspired by phenomenology, and taking into account insights from cognitive science, the contribution of the motor body in watching a film, attending a dance or theatre performance, looking at paintings or drawings, and listening to music is explored from a diversity of perspectives. This volume is intended for both the specialist and non-specialist in the fields of art, philosophy and cognitive science, and testifies to the burgeoning interest for the moving and gesturing body, not only in the creation but also in the perception of works of art. Imagination is tied to our capacity to silently resonate with the way a work of art has been or is created.