Lucas Auradniczek

Lucas Auradniczek, M.A., completed his studies in Applied Musicology at Justus Liebig University (JLU) Giessen in 2024. Since January 2025, he has been a doctoral fellow at the University of Erfurt at the IGS “Resonant Self-World Relations”.

During his studies, he worked as a student assistant for Prof. Dr. Matteo Nanni in Historical Musicology and Dr. Sabine Schneider-Binkl in Music Education. He also worked in the Research Department and at the International Office of the JLU.

Work and research experience at the German Music Council, the Erasmus+ program “Values and Attitudes Education for Inclusive Europe” and in various projects on identity, the voice or the Holocaust in the context of music form his interdisciplinary view of the phenomenon of music in addition to his own artistic activities.

Alienation as a music-aesthetic relationship quality

Since the beginning of bourgeois culture at the latest, the aesthetic and music in particular have often been ascribed a special role in shaping life: As a sphere that opposes the rationalization processes of modernity, it offers an opportunity for self-realization and autonomy in its self-purpose of sensuality and experience.

However, the function of music is and was more complex than that of an “aesthetic oasis”. Rather, music takes on the role of a counterpart with whom a relationship can be entered into, as well as a medium that represents a form of relationship in itself. It can certainly be one of the ethereal, unregulated world, which is perceived as autonomous and thus particularly favors moments of resonance (in Hartmut Rosa's sense). In its current popular manifestation, however, music is deeply intertwined with principles of rationalization - and perhaps has been since the beginning of modernity.

Our creative economy produces signs and emotions for the user, which in turn are interwoven into a complex semiotic network that goes beyond the sphere of music. The position of mass-consumed music (popular music) in society has not only been discussed in the field of music aesthetics since the beginning of modernity. Is it a mirror of an increasingly passive aestheticization or can a critical potential be discerned in it? A rapidly accelerating and interconnected world continues to promote the discourse on the role of the musical-aesthetic for the subject and society.

Within these lines of thought, the dissertation project deals with the concept of alienation and with popular music. Alienation as a relational quality plays an interesting role in the aesthetic context: it is normally considered an undesirable state, but it is also thematized in popular music, both lyrically and musically, and evoked. Already addressed in various writings since the Romantic period, Hartmut Rosa's resonance theory and other theories of world relations currently offer promising points of reference for exploring the interweaving of popular music and alienation.