Research Catalogue

Unstable Systems Instability can be a creative force in art, design, and architecture. Artists, designers, and scholars work both with and against systems that are ever-changing, fragile, or unpredictable. Whether dealing with technological systems, ecosystems, social structures, or sensory experiences, instability is often a prerequisite for creation. Instability opens pathways for new ideas and processes, reshaping how we approach and redesign the systems that shape our lives. It can also refer to the creative act itself—one that does not follow predetermined trajectories or established norms. Art, design, and architecture serve as tools to disrupt stable systems and/or shed new light on systems that appear stable but in reality, they are not. No system is truly stable, and when we resist that instability, it becomes a problem. Instability is perhaps the only certainty we can rely on. Hugarflug 2025, the annual conference on artistic research, will take place on September 11–12. It will serve as a platform for research that engages with instability across various systems—from technological advancements such as AI and interactive systems to issues related to politics, society, and the environment. We will explore how instability functions as a tool for generating new possibilities while also fueling unrest and transformation within society and academia. The Iceland University of the Arts invites proposals of all kinds, including presentations of ongoing or completed research by our faculty, students, and collaborators.

In this exposition I’m showing you my journey for these past two years of investigating my artistic practice through the meeting of identity and aesthetics. Due to my Iranian background, I have felt a need and curiosity to bring together my Iranian and European identities. This project is a dialogue between myself and music, encompassing sounds, arrangements, physical presence, materiality, technology, context, and politics. By politics I mean; history, cultural appropriation, diversity, colonisation, beliefs, and the current needs of the western culture. A project involving confrontations with habits, default parameters, and elements within digital audio workspaces, thereby incorporating scales.

Digital overview of artistic works by musician Jordan Sand

Abstract The E(c)lect(r)ic Guitar in The Mechanical Forest is my investigation into how to expand my improvisational palette as an electric guitarist, by working with compositional techniques and concepts used in composed contemporary western art music. In my work, I have focused on incorporating movement, microtonality, as well as multimedia composition techniques and application of technology, both in the performance as well as in the creative process. A key focus of my artistic practice has been exploration of the transcorporeal nature of my relationship with the guitar. This has resulted in creative work which has grown from a deep focus on the materiality of the guitar and the visual, tactile (touch) and kinetic (movement) aspects of sound production. Research Questions 1 How can I use compositional techniques and concepts from contemporary composed western art music to expand my palette as an improvising guitarist? 2 How can I transfer musical techniques and concepts, which often are used in a strictly predetermined environment, to a musical situation where improvisation is an important element in the performance. 3 How can I reconfigure/extend the electric guitar, and how can the reconfigured/extended guitar reshape the way I create and perform music?

Digital dokumentasjon av utstillingen Minnekommisjonen

The Bachelors’s Programme in Dance Pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts, Sweden, have gone through a major restructuring leading to an updated program, on demand by students and staff. This exposition gives you an overview of the process of changing the program during the years 2020 - 2023. It guides you through the phases of the change project, highlights documents governing and forming the changes made, and links to research that were conducted during the project period and that deepened the knowledge created through the change process. Our first step was to listen into the field’s concerns and ideas about dance education today. We scanned the field for signals of change and created a collaborative map of dance pedagogical practices in contemporary times. From this map we derived design principles and scenarios for a new BA in Dance Pedagogy. After a workshop series with students of the department, it was decided that the new program should be based on the hybrid research methodology A/R/Tography. A new educational plan and course plans were created for the new BA. Courses corresponding to the positions as artist, researcher, and teacher of A/R/Tography were developed for the program, and dance genre specific courses were also created. All new courses of the program combines theory and practice, and students are prepared for a changing and complex work life combining artistic, teaching and researching practice. This exposition is part of the peer-reviewed article: Østern, T. P., Reppen, C., O’Connell, S., & Daneberg, M. (2025). Choreographer/researcher/teacher: Developing a/r/tography as an approach to dance pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts in a professional learning community of teachers. Nordic Journal of Art & Research, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.7577/ar.5460