Spring at Geassemahjohka
(2024)
author(s): Maarit Mäkelä, Priska Falin
published in: Research Catalogue
The video is part of artistic research that explores a dialogue between human, non-human, and forces of the land in Utsjoki, Finland. In this artistic research, walking is used as a method to connect with the environment. During the walks, small amounts of soil – sand, stones, and clay – is gathered and processed further in a studio. Some soil is transformed to slips and used when painting hand-built vases made from the gathered clay. The fired vases are placed temporarily in local rivers. The result is a series of three vase experiments done in a dialogue between human, soil, water, and the forces of the land.
The video presents the third vase experiment, where the vase is built from the local clay. The motifs of the painting are the nationally endangered animals: arctic fox, fell owl and glacial salmon. In the River Teno catchment, small juvenile salmon often spend some of their first years of life in tiny tributaries, which they enter from their birth place, the spawning areas in the main stem of the river. One of these nursery streams being Geassemahjohka. The vase is positioned in Geassemahjohka, which is running to the main stem of the River Teno some 70 km upstream from the estuary. Via the experiment we speculate: can act of crafting vase be conceived as act of caring, the vase being thus a symbolic shelter for the salmon?
Engaging the Audience: a Matter beyond Music?
(2024)
author(s): Gustavo Abela Cruz
published in: KC Research Portal
Despite knowing that music and emotions have a lot to do with each other, sometimes it is hard to articulate which relationship they have. Since the emotional impact seems to be one of the biggest appeals for an audience, do we, the musicians (specifically the performers), pay and draw enough attention to it? After reviewing the relevant literature about the processing of emotions, I came across the philosophical approaches of emotions in and through music by Peter Kivy, Jerrold Levinson, and Stephen Davies, proposals that could serve as inspirations for an audience and for performers.
Then, I decided to carry out a series of experimental sessions to test the impact of these three approaches, as well as the performer's role, and components that could also affect a performance, such as set-ups, musical manipulations, or what I have called 'extramusical' items or elements. In addition to my research question “How can a performer affect or manipulate the emotional engagement of an audience?”, I sought to explore another inquiry. Is engaging more with the public nowadays strictly a musical matter?
The Relevance of Point of Audition in Television Sound: Rethinking a Problematic Term
(2024)
author(s): Svein Høier
connected to: Norwegian University of Science and Technology
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
There are good reasons to consider point of audition (POA) as a problematic term when writing about sound. This essay addresses the different challenges one meets when using the term and discusses different alternatives for future use of this terminology within the field of television sound. The motivation for rethinking the term is the analytical and descriptive problems raised when writing about recent trends in television sound in drama, sports, news, documentaries and other television genres. The argumentation refers to the flexible and creative uses of television sound today and discusses how various production examples can be better accounted for by refining the term point of audition. All in all, four categories of point of audition are suggested for analysis: observational, active, individual and personal POAs.
Cloak of Longing - Dr Mikey Georgeson
(2024)
author(s): Konfessor Kimey Peckpo
published in: Research Catalogue
The Cloak of Longing has been involved in conference keynote, public and university pastoral occasions. At the heart of my research practice is a desire to liberate capacities of expressivity via a processual use intuitive material vitality. This contingent radical empiricism regards the communication model's need for pre-given therefore-ness as potentially occluding of capacities to work with matter flow – a characteristic of a cosmos of nonhuman agency inside which a performative intra-relational understanding emerges.
Silenced Womb
(2024)
author(s): Petra Kroon
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022
Master Photography & Society
In Silenced Womb Petra Kroon ( @fotosvanpetrakroon) examines the age-old taboo on menopause. What does it mean to be systematically silenced for centuries? What effect does it have on how you are represented? How you are treated? And how do you behave? She explores these questions from three perspectives: the medical world, society and photography. She investigates what this in/visibility looks like and analyses what it does to her and to her allies. Since she wants to lift this taboo on menopause, she also makes some suggestions for a different representation.
Karhun katseella laulan
(2024)
author(s): Tuomas Rounakari
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
In this artistic doctoral research I think of art as a language that both portrays a mythical worldview and participates in the activities it contains. Contemplating myths through the performing arts is one of the oldest functions of art. Myths have not only been presented, but a dialogical relationship has been sought with the mythical entities. Achieving this requires the ability to alter ones state of consciousness from the performer. The altered states can range in intensity from a mild mood change to a profound trance state in which the perception of self, time and place alters thoroughly.
Through the altered states of consciousness, the musician either allows or directly initiates a dialogue between the more-than-human. In the thesis, I call this as mythical dialogue. Mythical dialogue has a reciprocal effect on the interpretation, alteration and improvisation produced by the musician at the time of performance. The thesis is an autoetnographic treatment of mythical dialogue from a musician's perspective, and shares this perspective for a broader study of tradition.
My research included four field trips to Siberia, to the land of Khanty, Mansi and Forest-Nenets. The trips were mainly artistic collaborations in which I carried out data collection and did the thematic interview with Maria Kuzminitsna Voldina included in the thesis. My main fieldwork method was to first play Khanty folk songs on the violin for the Khanty themselves, after which I asked them to tell me more about the songs and to comment on the way I played my versions of them. Playing the songs to each other in turn created a genuinely interactive and egalitarian way of learning. The field trips were complemented by archival research of songs containing mythical dialogue, as well as performing these songs as a musician. The main archival materials were songs from the bear feast ceremonies of the Khanty, Mansi, Karelians and Finns.
My artistic doctorate degree consists of five unique performances and this written thesis with video recordings. The first doctoral concert Shamanviolin (2013) was based on songs recorded by Kai Donner on wax cylinders during his travels in Siberia between 1912 and 1914. The second doctoral concert Shamanviolin with Ailloš (2014) explored the possibility of playing in trance state with an ensemble. The third artistic component was the Bear Feast performance (2016) which combined ceremony, music, poetry, theatre, social games and dances, and dining. The fourth artistic component was the documentary theatre play Arctic Odyssey (2017) produced by the theatre group Ruska Ensemble in collaboration with the Finnish National Theatre and Nunatta Isiginnaartitsisarfia in Greenland. The fifth artistic component was my solo album Bear Awakener (2022) based on the phonograph collection of Artturi Kannisto.
The Bear Feast performance is treated as a case study in the thesis. The performance succeeded in creating meaningful experiences of mythical dialogue for both the performing ensemble and the audience. Working with mythical themes through art creates an opportunity to address the slowly changing mental patterns of our culture in a communal way. By engaging in mythical dialogue we can still create similar experiences to those our ancestors had in a very different society. Because myths represent a slowly changing collective tradition, they can strengthen the identity of individuals and communities with far-reaching effects on wellbeing.
Keywords: Mythical dialogue, altered states of consciousness, trance, transcendence, myth, more-than-human, animism, bear feast ceremony
