Avant-garde today : a theoretical model of aesthetic modernity / Harry Lehmann -- Sensory cognition as an autonomous form of critique : reflections on redefining a "critical theory of art" / Ferdinand Zehentreiter -- Medial paradoxes : on methods of artistic production / Dieter Mersch -- What does "critical composition" mean? / Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf -- The dead end as a way out : critical composition : a historical phenomenon? / Rainer Nonnenmann -- A critique of negativism : possibilities and limits of an aesthetic of "musica negativa" / Ernst Helmuth Flammer -- Critical modernism : beyond critical composition and uncritical art / Frank Cox -- Sharpened senses : open, responsible, challenging : composing now / Gerhard Stäbler -- Advanced composition and critical (political) ambition / Günter Mayer -- Critical thought in new Italian music between political commitment and globalization / Nicola Sani -- Aesthetic necrophilia : reification, new music, and the commodification of affectivity / Gordon Downie.