Research Catalogue

WITHDRAWING THE PERFORMER WITHDRAWING THE PERFORMER is conceptualized and conducted collaboratively by Charlotta Ruth (SE/AT) and Jasmin Schaitl (AT). The starting point are two artistic practices based on methods of mindfulness and game/play; Performances for the Mind and Choreographic Clues. These two individual perspectives on participation emerge from the project leaders’ ongoing artistic research and merge in their common artistic curiosity in the facilitator role and facilitating the creation of immaterial material. Accompanied by neuroscientist and performer Imani Rameses (US/AT) the research asks: How does immaterial material perform within participatory situations? What role does participatory setting play and how does participation differ if situations are communicated as a workshop, a treatment, a practice or a performance? How can neuroscience support how immaterial and participatory art practices are developed and described? What relation exists beyond involvement and how can a participant become the situation rather than being part of a situation? What has to occur in the mind and body for this to happen? Through practice and dialogue conducted with experts in the fields of contemplative sciences, sound art, choreography, game art and somatics, the research explores how input from participants (e.g. memory, thought, emotion) can be placed at the centre of a flexible yet framed performance situation. WITHDRAWING THE PERFORMER was realised in collaboration with the Angewandte Performance Laboratory 2021-2022. In the course of the project, a lecture was given at the Center for Didactics of Art and Interdisciplinary Education, and a public series was realised at Kunsthalle, Wien & Angewandte Performance Lab. Collaborating expert practitioners and dialogue partners are: Philipp Ehmann (AT), Nikolaus Gansterer (AT), Mariella Greil (AT), Dennis Johnson (US/AT), Anne Juren (FR/AT), Krõõt Juurak (EE/AT), Imani Rameses (US/AT), Christian Schröder (AT), Lucie Strecker (DE/AT).

The subjective experience of time pressure in today’s efficiency- and performance-oriented society is fuelled by a paradox: acceleration is omnipresent due to economic and technological demands, while at the same time complexity and self-responsibility require more time for decisions. This exposition examines individual and institutional ways of dealing with discrepant time demands. Where and how do different age groups experience divergent time regimes that occur simultaneously? Which techniques do individuals and institutions use or invent to synchronize different time perceptions, rhythms, and activities? How can artistic research create asynchronicity and make it experienceable through filmic means? And, finally, to what extent can filmic thinking produce ways of knowing that convey (as yet) unverbalized perceptions of time? Methodologically, this research combines analytical and artistic approaches in an essayistic procedure comprising cinematic practice and writing. On the one hand, it explores different aspects of divergent perceptions of time in a series of case studies under the leitmotif of “asynchronous determinations of time.” Situated in both immaterial and care work, in which bodily and affective temporalities are highly important, these empirical investigations consider the role of lifetime (age, biography, memory) and temporal modes (tempos; imperatives, indicatives, subjunctives). On the other hand, this study develops specific artistic procedures for focusing perception by means of narration, fragmentation, montage, visual and linguistic interventions, extractions and interweavings. Since simultaneous non-simultaneities (tend to) overwhelm subjective experience, the procedures adopted in this research contribute to new forms of filmic thinking and images of thought. They should be understood as an incentive to empathize with different understandings of time.

This public space project is taking place in my local community Sv. Filip i Jakov at the Dalmatian coast in Croatia. It is embedded in artistic research, conducted through the Masters of choreography programme COMMA at Codarts University of the Arts and Fontys Academy of the Arts. Following up my artistic research on the interrelation of space and the human inner world I am investigating what impact a surrounding, in particular the environment of the public space we live in, has on our thinking, feeling, acting, living and ways of being. The purpose of this project is raising awareness about the importance how we shape our common living spaces. In this practice-based research process I am using methods and tools from artistic and academic practices as reflective writing, observation, content analysis, site-specific movement explorations, choreographic tools, interdisciplinary framework, as well as informal methods like dwelling, experiencing and socializing. The outcome of this process is a multilayered context being transferred into an artistic concept. In an unexpected way the artistic creation turned out to be a tool for comprehending not only content and context, but substantially knowing and understanding myself. The results are disseminated as an exhibition with historic and artistic photographies, a site-specific performance, a social event with the local community in the public space of my home village and this written paper.

Petromusicality. On the Sonic Culture of (Plastic) Material and Beyond explores the fossil fuel-based history of music media, focusing on vinyl records and their environmental impact. This Audio Paper examines historical production processes, material consumption, and the resurgence of vinyl culture. Through artistic research projects and expert perspectives, it discusses the political and ethical dimensions of sound reproduction. By highlighting sustainable alternatives and exploring the connections between extraction, mass production, and materiality, the study encourages a deeper engagement with the physical aspects of sound and their global implications.

This essay postulates a novel notion of the sound image that – rather than conceiving it as an artefact, a visual surrogate or an exclusively mental entity – defines it as an instance of a process or an operation, unfolding within material circuits, technical infrastructures, and collective protocols. Based upon the image theory developed by Gilbert Simondon in his book Imagination and Invention, this notion enables an account of the variable nature of the audible in a post-anthropocentric context as intrinsic to the forms in which sensorial engagement takes places in singular material constellations.

This video essay discusses how contemporary artists might directly address some of the philosophical and political challenges of a material approach to instrumentality through creative practice. I present and discuss the practical approaches taken by musicians who create and collaborate with instruments as a central part of their work: Khabat Abas and Sam Underwood. In examining their creative practice both creating and working with musical instruments, I examine how these artists navigate the agential and material aspects of the instruments and systems they create, in parallel with the conceptual ideas that they bring to and derive from such systems.