The Accelerationist International

The Accelerationist International is scored for wind ensemble, with the addition of a pop consort consisting of electric guitar, electric keyboard, electric bass, and drum kit, as well as a narrator and fixed media. The story unfolds in two acts, and it takes place in an alternate timeline in the 1990s, where the Soviet Union never collapsed, and Ronald Reagan has begun his fourth term as President. In the first act, the narrator—a computer software engineer—is picked up by government agents to help the United States as tensions escalate in the ongoing Cold War. He is flown to Japan, the Pacific base of operations for a U.S. and Japanese alliance, against a Sino-Soviet alliance in the East. While he is there, the Cold War turns hot, when it is announced that Ronald Reagan has pre-emptively nuked the Hawaiian Islands to prevent enemy forces from seizing a nuclear arsenal there. The second act takes place at an unspecified time in the future, and it begins with an assessment of the war by the narrator, who is now serving as Secretary of the Press. It is revealed that voices critical of the war, even those in branches of the government, have been silenced. Government funding is slashed from public services and funneled into the war machine. Child labor has returned to maintain economic growth while soldiers are at war. Immigrants and non-whites are persecuted. Any traitorous behavior is to be reported to the State. The drums of war beat on. The title of the piece comes from the Situationist International—an avant-garde collective of artists and intellectuals critical of capitalism in the late 1950s-early 1970s—and the general concept of accelerationism: the idea that the destructive tendencies of capitalism should be intensified to hasten societal collapse from which a new world can be built from the ashes of the old. The music itself was inspired by the vaporwave genre, which is centered around tropes of smooth jazz, elevator music, and the general consumer capitalist aesthetic in the 1980s and 1990s, with the emergence of personal computers and other digital technology.

Name thesis:degree_name

D.M.A (Doctor of Musical Arts)

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Music Composition (UMKC)

Grantor

University of Missouri--Kansas City

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Henry, Dillon Patrick

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rudy, Paul, 1962-

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10355/90338

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mospace.umsystem.edu:10355/90338