Research Catalogue

This artistic research investigates the timbre of the violin in Ottoman music from the perspective of a musician outside the tradition. Its goal is not only to understand how this distinctive sound is created but also to experience how cultural, historical, and stylistic influences shape it. Approaching the tradition as both learner and artist, I learn from master musicians, immerse myself in traditional musical environments, and engage in reflective creative practice. I explore how violinists trained in Western classical music can enter this tradition respectfully, embody its nuances, and remain true to its core. Using four guiding frameworks—tacit knowledge, meşk - oral transmission, cultural immersion, and instrument modification—I document a journey of listening, learning, and transformation. This process integrates literature review, conceptual framing, artistic methodology, and reflective analysis, turning the violin into a space where diverse musical traditions engage in meaningful dialogue. Key outcomes of this study show that timbre in Ottoman violin playing is not fixed but culturally constructed and personally shaped. Timbre is deeply contextual, influenced by cultural models like the human voice and traditional instruments, and expressed through subtle choices in vibrato, ornamentation, bowing, and instrument setup. The expressive identity of Ottoman music relies on sensitivity and subtlety, with small variations significantly affecting the emotional and modal character of the music. Learning in this tradition depends heavily on embodied, tacit knowledge passed down orally through the meşk system, where core concepts such as makam nuance and microtonality are absorbed through long-term listening, singing, and playing alongside masters. Deep listening and cultural immersion were essential for developing stylistic understanding, revealing nuances that notation alone cannot capture.

Conceived and co-organised by Emma Cocker, Alexander Damianisch, Cordula Daus and Lena Séraphin, this Society of Artistic Research Special Interest Group (SAR SIG) provides contexts for coming together via the exchange of language-based research. The intent is to support developments in the field of expanded language-based practices by inviting attention, time and space for enabling understanding of/and via these practices anew.

Jenny Sunesson (b. 1973) is a Swedish artist predominantly working with sound. Her practice ranges from field recording and live collages to conceptual sound art and video. Sunesson uses her own life as a stage for her dark, tragic and sometimes comical re-contextualised work where real and invented characters and derogated stereotypes, collaborate in the alternate story of hierarchies and normative power structures in society.

Music is bound to space; music happens in a space. There cannot be music without space, still, the vast majority of music throughout history has been mainly focused on "what happens when" rather than "what happens when and where.” Today, with the advent of Virtual Reality, Dolby Atmos, binaural recording, and surround systems musicians and listeners are developing a more refined sensitivity and creativity toward sound localisation and spatialisation. Space is gradually attaining greater significance in the way we perceive and conceptualise music. Moreover, the introduction of headphones into the audio market substantially affected the way we perceive music today. The present work describes the creative process and the results of two electronic music pieces for speakers and headphones which were composed for exploring the perceptual thresholds in which musical materials are perceived as connected or disconnected from each other. I hope this work ignites curiosity in the reader, inspires creation, and motivates reflection on the meaning of space, connection, and isolation. DISCLAIMER: The webpage takes some seconds to fully load.

VARIA, the fourth issue of HUB — Journal of Research in Art, Design and Society is a compilation of insightful views on different subjects that drive us through expositions where the true interests and concerns and research of those who enjoy sharing their points of view to build an understanding of the meanings of contemporary art on a global level are presented. This edition presents a constellation of voices, gestures, and research paths that intersect across diverse geographies, temporalities, and concerns.

The essays and expositions in this issue of HUB delve into the concept of Metabolic Media, exploring the interconnections between biological, technological, cultural, and ecological systems. Together, they offer a rich tapestry of perspectives, illuminating how processes of exchange, transformation, and interaction underpin the idea of media as metabolic and metabolising. Through this metabolic mosaic, this special issue of HUB presents a dynamic and interconnected view of metabolic media, celebrating how media processes reflect and influence the metabolic flows of life itself. Each contribution invites readers to rethink how artistic, scientific, and technological practices can illuminate the entangled systems that sustain and shape our shared existence. Against a background of shifting, strained or even pathological metabolic relations across scales, forms, zones and bodies, these reflections and interventions intersect with media techniques and technologies as traditionally conceived and emergent, immanent and immediate metabolic flows systems and processes.