Research Catalogue

Conceived and co-organised by Emma Cocker, Alexander Damianisch, Cordula Daus and Lena Séraphin, this Society of Artistic Research Special Interest Group (SAR SIG) provides contexts for coming together via the exchange of language-based research. The intent is to support developments in the field of expanded language-based practices by inviting attention, time and space for enabling understanding of/and via these practices anew.

Este projeto nasceu de um desconforto antigo, mas só encontrou forma quando o corpo — finalmente — começou a falar. Um corpo que, por anos, foi moldado pela obediência, pela culpa, pela contenção. Um corpo que serviu mais para agradar do que para existir. O Corpo que Nunca Foi não é apenas uma instalação visual. É uma travessia. Cada moldura carrega fragmentos de uma história interrompida, silenciada, violentada — mas que, ao ser contada, transforma-se em matéria de resistência. As peças não são ilustrações da dor. São gestos de enfrentamento. São corpos simbólicos criados a partir de camadas de memória, de experiências vividas, de feridas abertas e cicatrizes mal formadas. Há nelas vestígios de abandono, de fuga, de abuso, de ausência de proteção. Mas há também outra coisa: o impulso de continuar. O projeto parte de histórias profundamente pessoais, mas oferece um espelho onde outras mulheres possam reconhecer as suas próprias trajetórias — sem medo, sem vergonha, sem a culpa herdada de séculos de silêncio. Aqui, a arte não quer consolar. Quer escancarar o que foi escondido, nomear o que foi abafado, e abrir espaço para outras existências possíveis. Mais do que um processo de cura, este projeto é um rito de insurgência contra os mecanismos que perpetuam a dor como destino. Aqui, a matéria ferida se ergue como discurso.

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.

Table of contents JSS issues

In the early years of the Soviet era, the music of two Russian faith traditions was forced into the shadows. Siberian shamans preserved chants and folk knowledge despite intense persecution, and Russian Orthodox monks preserved early forms of plainchant in remote monasteries away from the watchful eye of the government. Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931), herself a member of the richly-historied and often-marginalized Tatar people, became a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian in the 1960s. During the 1970s, she began performing improvisations with her ensemble Astraea, familiarizing herself with many instruments used by Siberian shamans. Her references to shamanism continued to increase among her concert-hall compositions over the following decades. As a new generation began to embrace the freedom to part from state-sponsored atheism during the 1990s and 2000s, shamanic chanting and Russian Orthodox Znamenny chant experienced a renaissance of practice and scholarly interest. Gubaidulina responded with her music: in her 2005 flute concerto …The Deceitful Face of Hope and of Despair, Gubaidulina’s flute soloist takes on the role of chanter. Drawing on Tia DeNora’s research in the sociology of concerto forms, Kofi Agawu’s framework of musical “topics,” and the composer’s own reflections on the concerto metaphor, this article analyzes how Gubaidulina frames the solo flutist as Siberian shaman and Russian Orthodox cantor within subsequent episodes of this concerto. In this way, the soloist “speaks” through the music of these faith traditions that remained underground for much of Gubaidulina’s adult life. …The Deceitful Face of Hope and of Despair is a flute concerto deserving of its title, demonstrating the dynamic potential of works by post-Soviet composers to contend with the sociological tensions that affect any individual whose cultural, ethnic, or spiritual identity has been the target of discriminatory policies.

Maria Vilkovisky is a poetess, musician, artist, and curator born in Almaty, Kazakhstan. She graduated from the Kazakh State Conservatory as a violist, worked in the opera house orchestra, studied at the “Musagethes” literary school for writers in Almaty and at the curatorial summer school in Moscow. She is co-founder of a long-term para-institutional project called Krëlex zentre (together with Ruthia Jenrbekova), and from 2011–2014 she ran an art space in Almaty. She lives and works in Almaty and Vienna. Ruthia Jenrbekova is an artist and researcher from Almaty, Kazakhstan. She holds an MA in ecology and works as an intermedia cultural organizer. She is co-founder of Krëlex zentre together with Maria Vilkovisky. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and lives and works in Almaty and Vienna. Her fields of interest: queer ecology, material semiotics, arts-based methodologies, transfeminism. Krëlex zentre is a paranormal art institution that builds on cultural traditions of intermixed planetary diasporas, develops inclusive aesthetics, and promotes queer cosmo-politics. This interview by poet and Sound Studies scholar Vadim Keylin took place from March to April 2024 via Google Docs and has been edited for clarity. Literature references were added during the editing process.