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.

theory practice theorize practice practice theory ... By using any of these words I am establishing an order of importance among them. My body cannot vocalize two of them at the same time. How in the world can this terrible order of things be abolished? How can we relate to a possible merge of the dichotomy theory/practice through language?

The theory & practice affair: this is piece "16" from the series "x out of 5448643200", and it is an arrangement of 16 possible combinations among 5448643200 available of the letters {p, r, a, c, t, i, c, e, t, h, e, o, r, y}. These letters make the word 'practicetheory', and also the word 'theorypractic'e. In fact, none of these two words exist, and yet are identifiable 'theory' and 'practice' as constitutive halves within them. Discourse not only describes the world but actually produces the world. We, as researchers and as artists - and particularly as artist-researchers - are in permanent tension with the two blocks, theory and practice, and despite our struggles to merge both, we are, through language, every time referring to one after the other. One after the other, in a hierarchy. We cannot speak the two words at the same time and, unless we invent a new word to refer to the crossbreed of the two, we are condemned to this limiting dichotomy. "x out of 5448643200" presents the hypothesis of billions of possibilities to re-write the productive merging of theory and practice. "16" shows sixteen of them (Thanks to Steve Norton and Robert Stevenson for collaboration)

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