Research Catalogue

The context of generative processes encapsulates relevant data that influence the behavior of an algorithm including mental domains and 'internal' dimensions of a particular context such as goals and decision making. Of creative importance is how an algorithmic process reacts to the influence of its environment, the enclosing conditions from which it emerges. Given a clearly defined set of resources, a variety of processes can operate within the boundaries imposed by a certain context. Such a shared space can be seen as a composable structure, a space where both composition and generative activity take place. Contributing to the evolving properties of a certain situation, the persistence of state means that an environment behaves according to the previous activity that has occurred within it. Opposed to an amnesic situation, a persistent environment can resume previous developments, adapt to long-term interactions and evolve over time. Based on persistence and gradual change, the temporal unfolding of generative processes has an important impact on the becoming of compositional algorithms and the sound material they create.

Beröringspunkterna mellan språk och musik har intresserat många genom historien och i denna exposition står sambanden mellan muntligt berättande på dialekt och musikalisk interpretation samt komposition stå i fokus. Ann Elkjär är flöjtist och doktorand i musikalisk gestaltning, och i doktorandprojektet utforskas en nyfikenhet på muntligt berättande: Vilka musikaliska element går att hitta i muntligt, dialektalt, berättande och hur kan de omformas till kompositoriska och interpretatoriska redskap? Frågorna utforskas i ett samarbete med tonsättaren Ida Lundén, och expositionen bygger på en analys av videodokumentation av den kollaborativa kompositionsprocessen. Arkivinspelningar av värmländskt berättande utgör ett centralt material, där fragment av äldre berättares röster processas och spelas upp med rullbandspelare i dialog med soloflöjtstämman. Genom rullbandspelarna ges möjligheter att skapa loopar som även återspeglas i flöjtstämman, och på detta vis utforskar verket hur element i muntligt berättande kan omformas till musikaliskt material. English: The intersections between language and music have long intrigued scholars, and this exposition centers on the relationship between oral storytelling in dialect and musical interpretation. Ann Elkjär, flautist and PhD student in musical performance, explores the reflective spaces that emerge in the interstice between language and music. The research questions guiding the PhD project are: What musical elements can be identified in oral storytelling in dialect, and how can these be transformed into compositional and interpretative tools? To investigate these questions, Ann Elkjär collaborates with several composers. This exposition presents the collaborative compositional process between Elkjär and composer Ida Lundén. Archival recordings of storytelling in the Värmland dialect serve as a central material, where fragments of an elderly narrator’s voice are processed and played back via reel-to-reel tape recorders in dialogue with the solo flute part. The use of tape recorders enables the creation of loops, which are mirrored in the flute part, thereby exploring how elements of oral storytelling can be transformed into musical material.

Exploring methods of connecting thinking to space and embodiment in a research that looks at the connection between mental images, language and the body through felt experience.

The digital revolution is boosting innovations across our contemporary social life and culture with a strong impact in performing arts studies, creation and fruition. By exploiting augmented and virtual technologies and their cutting-edge applications, contemporary researchers, performers, composers and artists are spurred to renovate their traditional practices and creations, and overcome the boundaries of real stages towards virtual stages and extended reality (XR), where the physical encounters the digital. The possibility to be projected in the blended scenario of the extended reality (XR) and metaverse determines the avant-garde perspective of imagining music performance in hybrid stages where performers and audiences are involved in immersive and intriguing phygital experiences. This exposition wants to present and discuss what the investigation on augmented and virtual reality in artistic research in music entails, and how and why to create a XR music performance in the metaverse. The focus will be on my personal artistic research experience in the creation of a phygital piano performance "MetaPhase: A contrapuntal dialogue between a pianist and her avatar in the metaverse". Download Accessible PDF

SKVR:n kantelerunot alueittain koottuina ja vanhakantaiseen kanteleperinteeseen linkitettyinä. The SKVR collection (1908–1948, 1997) comprises 34 editions and 89,247 texts of oral Kalevala metre lyrics collected from Karelians, Ingrians, and Finns and published by the Finnish Literature Society. This exhibition features texts from the collection relating to the mythical origins and music of the kantele. The front page provides an overview of the regional characteristics, and the tabs offer texts from each region. The exhibition is in Finnish.

The histories, stories, and names of Chinese railroad workers who dedicated their lives to constructing the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad have remained in the shadows for over a century. Completed in 1869, the railroad was a monumental achievement in America’s ‘Manifest Destiny’ during the nineteenth century. But despite their contributions, the Chinese laborers have not received the recognition they deserve. This project seeks to remember Chinese railroad workers via arts-based research methods (ABR). Archives are not merely repositories of the past but also products of political power. In this light, the project poses a key methodological question: How can art-making critically reconfigure the power of archives and lost history? We seek to ask questions, initiate a dialogue, acknowledge the absence, and give form to the invisible. Building upon the historical recovery work of previous scholars, we reconstruct fragmented pieces through remixed artworks. The current article highlights key artworks that demonstrate the scope and variety of a much larger project (Yu 2025b). We dedicate this work to the Chinese master railroad builders––to the great-grandfathers––whose stories and names demand remembrance.