Research Catalogue

A new filigrane sound object (or series of objects) in the making, w.i.p.

This exposition presents a format designed for experiencing and experimenting with writing as a collective practice of weaving textualities from different sources. The format consists of an iterative process to be implemented in a workshop setting. It is based on implementations that have taken place in different contexts in the fields of higher education and research in the arts, and is intented as an invitation to further adopt and adapt the format in transversal settings.

Improvised ambient music making is a multi-dimensional process where the musical and the artistical skills are implemented into a dance between the mind of the performer and the creative use of technology. Both the mind and the machine together create a symbiotic relationship which over a course of a longer improvisational process produces a calming effect on the body and the mind, a sensation which in this artistic research is referred to as ”the slow buzz”. Over an 18-month period from June 2023 to December 2024 I practiced the creation of improvised ambient music by keeping a routine which included mechanical guitar warm ups, a meditation session and a recording session for an improvised ambient music track. This routine laid a solid foundation for my artistic work, generating all in all 360 improvised ambient tracks, which were all listened and analysed along the way. All the know-how and the musical style that emerged from this routine eventually led to the creation of a continuous, flowing form of improvisational live-ambient music. I then rehearsed, filmed, and analysed the resulting ambient music 40 times during the autumn of 2024 in order to gain insight into the mindstates that are affiliated with the creation of improvised ambient music. The final outcome of this artistic research process was then to be presented in the form of a solo concert during the Global Spring Festival, on the 15th of May 2025.

This thesis explores the link between colonialism, diaspora and displacement, analysing how these themes are addressed in contemporary art through the works of artists such as Belkis Ayón, Tania Bruguera, Coco Fusco, Binta Diaw and Dominique White. My research is developed around the concept of non-place (Marc Augé) and the space in-between (Homi Bhabha), understood as fluid territories in which identity is broken down and recomposed, suspended between memory and oblivion, between roots and transit. The analysis examines artistic practices that reinterpret the collective memory of diasporic communities, with a focus on processes of cultural and identity re-appropriation. Belkis Ayón's work reinterprets the Afro-Cuban mythology of the Abakuá as a metaphor for diaspora and marginality, while Tania Bruguera and Coco Fusco deconstruct the colonial gaze through performance and denunciation of power. Binta Diaw and Dominique White use the body, the sea and shipwreck as symbols of identity fragmentation and the construction of new spaces of belonging. The thesis integrates references to Paul Gilroy, Aníbal Quijano, Frantz Fanon and Enrique Dussel, highlighting how art can function as an archive of memories and an instrument of political resistance. Parallel to the theoretical research, my artistic project proposes a series of installations that evoke the non-place of dislocation, a space of transition and rewriting, where matter - sound, sculpture, performance - become bearers of forgotten histories and new possibilities of belonging.

Editorial: Sounding the Contradictions in and of the (Post-)Soviet Realm

Alexander Holm have been developing the artistic research project 'Sworld' on the APD program at RMC in Copenhagen 2021-2024. The project seeks to explore how simultaneous experience of sounds with- and without a visible cause can evoke human experiences of ghosts, absence and lost memories. The project researches and expands on composer and theorist Michel Chion's audio visual concept of Synch Points, examined through a versatile compositional praxis including choreography, text, voice, walks and live performance.