A Future In The Past
(2024)
author(s): Theodore Parker
published in: Research Catalogue
A Future In the Past is a research project engaging with the application of methods from Historically Informed Performance and Media Archeology towards problems found in the practice of Live Electronic music. In doing so the project sought to expose lost discourses in the medium as viewed from the performer’s perspective. Three pieces by composer Udo Kasemets were chosen as case studies. All compositions were originally written and performed prior to the 1990’s boom in digital processing. Each case study explores themes related to Liveness, Audience Interaction, and Hyper Instruments. In developing the historical context for each work several strategies were undertaken. Kasemets’ archives were reviewed at the University of Toronto, performers of the original pieces were interviewed, and investigations into period specific instruments were conducted. Additionally, Kasemets’ own published writings were used to reference his aesthetic ambitions as well as for comparison with his contemporaries. Rehearsals were carried out with The Estonian Electronic Music Ensemble, where the historical data and performer experiences were combined to create an individual interpretation for each composition. These interpretations were then presented to an audience and alongside contemporary issues currently debated in Live Electronics
The Institute of Constrained Chaos
(2024)
author(s): Tijs Ham
published in: Research Catalogue
This supportive narrative is connected to the graduation project 'The Institute of Constrained Chaos' (TIOCC) which investigates the use of chaotic processes in order to enhance musical expression of a live electronics performance. Inspired by the chaotic, expressive, musical power of overblown brass instruments, the project aims to develop a live electronics performance that utilizes a combination of new and existing hardware and software such as no-input mixing, circuit bending, digital signal processing and sensor based controlling to create an instrument that navigates the musical edges between order and chaos. The project has resulted in a ten minute improvised performance in collaboration with Bart van Gemert, a drummer, as part of a concert series organized and executed by a group of HKU graduate students operating under the name 'Custom Made Music' (CMM). Through many tryout concerts and several iterations of the instrument it can be concluded that the use of chaotic processes can enrich the expressive musicality of a live electronics performance.
The Unfinished Instrument
(2024)
author(s): Tijs Ham
published in: Research Catalogue
This essay is a poetic musing on the unfinished nature of chaotic instruments. These instruments are seen as flexible or displaying pliancy. Each time the instrument is played, it changes again, leading to a situation of perpetual discovery.
The Art of Design: Seeing The Bigger Picture
(2024)
author(s): Kathryn Jane Moore
published in: Research Catalogue
Using words and images referencing nature and culture, this research investigates the process and impact of creating spatial visions for ‘seeing the bigger picture’ in order to inform the transformation of regions. The researcher’s work explores radical mapping as an analytical and artistic tool, which has led to the development of a sequence of case-studies, exhibitions, richly illustrated presentations, publications, new policies, mentoring, student collaboration and an infrastructure of stakeholder engagement. Across this powerful and varied range of outcomes the research has situated a new cohesive and integrated landscape-led approach which transforms the physical materiality, ideas, memories and visions of the future in order to shape the experience we have of place as the social, physical and cultural context of our lives.
This research crosses professional and disciplinary boundaries using artistic, landscape and geographical expertise to re-evaluate the assumptions underlying practice-based research inquiry and the relationship between landscape and philosophy. It represents a significant shifting of methodology, away from the dominant scientific/social science paradigm, towards an approach that is deliberately more ambiguous and interpretative. The methods require an understanding of perception as intelligence and define landscape as the relationship a community has with its territory. The research thus seeks to address whether ideas can transform a region, and if so, how?
The research has led to an extraordinary number of high-profile outcomes spanning academic and public arenas. This includes peer reviewed papers, numerous exhibitions and developmental publications. In addition, it has informed the policy and ‘landscape-architecture’ thinking used by HS2 in the development of its pioneering West Midlands National Park, which underpins the West Midlands Combined Authority’s current sustainability agenda; directed long-term socioeconomic and environmental regeneration in the Black Country; and informed a UNESCO International declaration. Details of the research and publications are in the Research Catalogue exposition.
Sound Scraps and Resources of Ethnographic Writing
(2024)
author(s): Julie Métais
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Ethnographic work generally involves making sound recordings (recorded interviews, field recordings, or archival documents), whether or not the research includes a sonic dimension. But the sonic corpus of ethnographical research does not stop there; it also includes recorded "notepads," recordings related to daily life, telephone messages, etc. A large part of these sound data is discarded at the time of analysis and writing. What if it were otherwise? Relying on my research on cultural expressions of political conflicts in Oaxaca (Mexico), I propose a reflective approach to an initially discarded corpus of sounds, in order to reevaluate my listening and recording position as an anthropologist.
Epitafios y requetés
(2024)
author(s): Imanol Abad Martinez
published in: Research Catalogue
Este proyecto de tesis parte de la noción del requeté, cuestionando si éste podría ser un término subversivo a la hora de tratar la masculinidad en el arte. Para ello deberemos abordar primeramente la noción de lo masculino. Una vez activado dicho término haremos una exploración de lo biopolítico partiendo de autores como M. Foucault, F. Nietzsche o P. B. Preciado. Finalmente trataremos el término requeté no solo desde su contexto, sino desde su potencialidad en la actualidad, buscando así los límites de su performatividad.
