Mi(my)crotonal Piano
(2025)
author(s): Sanae Yoshida
published in: Norwegian Academy of Music
I explain "microtones" as the sounds between the piano keys, making it universally understandable. This widespread understanding through "piano keys" demonstrates how the 12-tone equal temperament (12-TET) has become standardized as the dominant system.
When 12-TET was introduced, it created a hierarchy where diverse sounds were forced into a rigid system. Other sounds were marginalized and coded into one of the twelve tones, physically embedded in the piano's keyboard. As a result, pianists became subordinate to these physically embedded conditions of the piano.
In this project, I attempted to dismantle this organizational principle. By deterritorializing these fixed tones and liberating the peripheral sounds now called "microtones," I explored not just the piano's timbral possibilities, but also the interactions that emerge in these spaces - between sounds, between people, between cultures...
Through collaborations with over 30 composers, I discovered that microtones exist in the "ma" (space) between standardized tones, representing voices that don't fit into established systems. What began as an exploration of piano timbre evolved into an investigation of humanity itself, generating new meanings through ongoing dialogues and discoveries.
Abstracts of artistic projects by Michael Croft published in the Research Catalogue (2021 – 2025)
(2025)
author(s): Mike Croft
published in: Research Catalogue
A document of abstracts of artistic projects published by the author in the Research Catalogue between 2021 and 2025
Imaginary Conversation with Marinus de Jong
(2025)
author(s): Nicholas Cornia
published in: Research Catalogue
This article is emulating fictional informal notes that the author would have taken during his research. The handwritten annotations of Marinus de Jong (1891-1984), and his artistic and pedagogical legacy, have formed an interesting case study within the Flemish Archive for Annotated Music (FAAM) at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp. The “making of” the documentary Imaginary Conversation with Marinus de Jong, recorded together with pianist Anna Alvizou, is presented in a playfully manner.
NY FUGE - visualization of soundscapes
(2025)
author(s): Charlotte Pannicke
published in: University of Stavanger
NY FUGE – visualisering af soundscapes refers to an area where artistic expression in the form of hand drawing evolves, questions itself, changes and renews itself. The project is an exploration of the relationship between sound and image at the center of artistic expression. - Questioning how knowledge arises, is used, reused and changes in unknown contexts.
I work with graphic translation of acoustic areas via hand drawing in two selected sound- scapes with Hi-Fi and Lo-Fi contrasting qualities in a remote and an urban soundscape.
Parallel to the artistic development, I explore underlying / inherent processes of artistic work in my case. I am questioning the way in which the present and past experience interact and what role intuition, imagination, reflection-in-action and, not least, the knowledge of the body play in the artistic space of action.
I am focusing on the active act in the present moment, where I draw, where my artistic expression takes shape and manifests itself. In the project, I seek to move closer to an understanding of how artistic knowledge is developed during creative work processes.
Sample page Sonic Inspiration Guide
(2025)
author(s): Michiel M. S. Huijsman
published in: Research Catalogue
This page gives a first impression of the content, functionality and design of the upcoming online publication ‘Sonic Inspiration Guide’. The guide will be published in Dutch in October 2025 and in English shortly after to make it available to an international audience.
Nurturing as an active Stance of Care and Resistance
(2025)
author(s): Asrafun Nahar Ruhin
published in: Research Catalogue
- Research document of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2025
- Master Artistic Research
This research begins with memories of monsoon rains in my hometown, stray dogs disappearing after municipal “relocations,” and the recurring ache of loss. These personal moments ground a broader inquiry into nurturing as an active form of care and resistance. Positioned within artistic practice, nurturing emerges not as passive sentiment but as embodied engagement with both human and more-than-human worlds.
Structured through three interconnected acts—re-assembling, re-cognition, and refusal—the work examines how care often collapses under human-centered hegemony yet persists as a regenerative force in creative practice. Reflecting on feminist theorists such as María Puig de la Bellacasa and Gloria Anzaldúa, the study critiques the violence of anthropocentric agencies, where more-than-human beings are used as utility or resources. Through case studies of Dominique White’s shipwreck forms, Maksud Ali Mondal’s installations, and my own ritual work with termite mounds, this research explores how material practices can restore hidden labor, amplify muted voices, and resist extractive narratives.
This research embraces diverse complexity, uncertainty, and situated approaches above linear solutions. It focuses on practices like Bengali women’s ephemeral crafts and collective practices like the Gram Art Project to center marginalized ways of knowing. In doing so, it reimagines art as an ethico-political negotiation. It is an act of attunement to grief, land, and layered histories.
Rather than offering closure, this research stays with the trouble. Nurturing becomes a subtle, subversive, and ongoing dialogue within existing dominant hegemony. It allows working with exploited things, collective grief, and discluded concerns. In an era of clichéd ecological concern, nurturing is not a static ethic, but a resistance lies within contentious mundane rituals that fertilize a ruined soil.
