Metamorphosis - Ethics and Aesthetics are One - from a Neuroscientific Perspective II
(2025)
Erika Matsunami
This research is an advanced research of Metamorphosis - Ethics and Aesthetics are One - from a Neuroscientific Perspective in 2024. I explore post feminist theory from a new perspective in the 21st century. Thereby I deal with spatiality between virtual reality and physical space theoretically and practically.
Wittgenstein's "Ethics and Aesthetics are one" is the starting point of this research. "In the Notebooks, Wittgenstein states that 'the world and life are one', so perhaps the following can be said. Just as the aesthetic object is the single thing seen as if it were a whole world, so the ethical object, or life, is the multiplicity of the world seen as a single object". (Diané Collinson, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 25, Issue 3, SUMMER 1985, pages 266-272)
Art transcends boundaries of race, nationality and gender. It is a creative act of unifying in the context of humanity, from the subject to the various topics, by asking questions. This point is the lack of "reality" (dealing with reality) from a sociological perspective. But it is impossible to define humanity and reality based on sociological statistics alone–is my perspective of Wittgenstein's "Ethics and Aesthetics are one". Thereby, I examine 'world and life' from the 21st century perspective.
Transforming with the Artistic Palette
(2025)
Karin Emilia Hellqvist
Transforming with the Artistic Palette
‘Transforming with the Artistic Palette’ is my PhD project in artistic research, a practice-led exploration of performer creativity, agency and collaborative composition, carried out at the Norwegian Academy of Music in the years 2018–2024.
The central idea of the project is the conceptualization of the artistic palette. The artistic palette comprises the skills and abilities I use in creative work (skillabilities). It develops with the creative work I engage in and is active in imaginative as well as evaluative processes. The artistic palette has been explored in collaborative work with five composers as well as in an own composition. I have explored it as a multidimensional concept, comprising embodied, contextual, relational and intuitive dimensions. By engaging with the artistic palette, new sonic materials and work methods have been created and I have shared compositional processes as a co-composer. It is a poetic and dynamic concept that keep developing with my experiences. By using my artistic palette in shared work, I have explored and expanded my creativity as a performer of contemporary classical music.
The five composers involved in the project come from a diverse background of styles, aesthetics and compositional approaches, as minimalistic music, improvisation and music theatre. Some of the creative partnerships build on previous work together. The works created in the project are Gradients (2023) by Karin Hellqvist and Henrik Strindberg, Solastalgia (2022) by Carola Bauckholt and Karin Hellqvist, One and the Other (Speculative Polskas for Karin) (2021–22) by Liza Lim with Karin Hellqvist, Eiksmarka Omland (2024) by Christian Wallumrød and Karin Hellqvist, Pango (2021–24) by Karin Hellqvist and Chain of Triggers (2024) by Manos Tsangaris and Karin Hellqvist.
Through the artistic processes undertaken in this project, I have experienced a transformation of my performer’s role into an increasingly creative one. From seeing myself as a faithful performer of works, I have come to view myself as a creating artist involved in the whole lifecycle of the works I perform and co-compose. By exploring the artistic palette in shared work, thoughts about connection, identity, responsibility, empowerment, complementarity, taste, ownership and transformation has come to the fore in my practice. Those topics are discussed across the works created in the project.
The methodology of the project is rooted in the specific forms of collaborative composition it comprises; engaging in improvisation, developing technological skills, accessing embodied performance materials, engaging in interdisciplinary work with a printed publication and developing connection through cyclical patterns of work where materials are circulated between participants. A curatorial process of selecting material for research has along with text writing, peer-review and publication processes been important research methods of the project.
The structure of this reflection is a compilation of six case studies wrapped with an introduction and a closing discussion. The reflection has been created over the course of the project and includes four already published articles. The project is situated in a broad artistic- and research field with connections to other collaborating performers and composers, artist researchers who develop their performance practices, historical composer-performer collaborations and the rich artistic contexts of the involved artists. I draw on theories of collaborative composition (Taylor, Lim, Östersjö, John-Steiner), Werktreue (Goehr), embodied knowledge (Merleau-Ponty, Lüneburg), eco-anxiety (Albrecht) and identity (Hargreaves, Markus & Nurius).
After the public defense in January 2025, a PDF document of the article Solastalgia - Toward new collaborative models in an interdisciplinary context has been added.