"ART THOU PAYING ATTENTION?" - PRESENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY IN THE PERFORMING ARTS
(2023)
author(s): Camilla Damkjaer
published in: Research Catalogue, Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
This essay is reflection on the research project “ Presence and sustainability in the Performing arts” conducted by Camilla Damkjaer and Johanna Garpe at Stockholm University of the Arts 2021-2023.
The project started from the idea that the premise of the performing arts is to capture people’s attention. At the same time our attention is under pressure through experience economy, digitalisation and work-life conditions. We wanted to explore ways of creating sustainable relations to attention within this field. The purpose was of the project was therefore to develop a more sustainable relation to attention within the performing arts, in the meeting with meditative practices.
How do I grow and develop as a musician in the Western musical environment?
(2023)
author(s): Fan-Qi Wu
published in: Research Catalogue
This research mainly analyses and discusses the process of cultural adaptation and cross-genre/culture integration- how the pipa was fused and adapted into Western ensemble settings through different projects as case studies. Besides, this study uses Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to analyze the changes in the author's mindset as a traditional musician and to explore the challenges and self-identity of being a minority in the larger community.
Furthermore, this study also discusses how the author consciously and unconsciously blends her cultural heritage with Western musical influences, which later helps her to develop her own musical language and voice.
Embodied Bits
(2023)
author(s): Pedro Latas
published in: KC Research Portal
The Master research “Embodied Bits” concerns how trans-human, post-digital and post-internet ideas relate to my Queer experience. It is, in a nutshell, an ongoing research on how the technological world has spilled over into the biological world and how Queer folks are front and centre when it comes to taking advantage of technological developments in order to realise their identities.
The research question is “How do we perform ourselves in the digital realm?”. Though it started as a research on the practicalities and aesthetics of internet/networked-based performances it quickly opened a Pandora’s Box of social inquiry and analysis. Performing ourselves means performing ethnicity, gender, sexuality, cultural identity... There is an inevitability in drawing a direct connection between these topics and how do we, as singular and, paradoxically, plural human beings within ourselves engage with modern day technology. Through technology we are able to build ourselves, to draft new identities, to build again if they no longer suit our needs.
As an artistic research, “Embodied Bits” looks into how digital media has influenced human experience and focuses on the experiences of non-normative bodies and identities, in which I include my own. These topics are interlaced with my own compositional and performative work, always informed and inspired by the previously mentioned ideas and historical context.
Personal and Academic Blurred Spaces Hinged on Synchronous Gravities in Nature: Conceptual Musings from Events of (Re-)configurations during COVID-19 Pandemic
(2023)
author(s): Haris Adhikari
published in: Research Catalogue
This paper inquires into a two-fold issue: (i) blurred personal and academic spaces during the pandemic and their impact, and (ii) nature’s role in them. As a transformative arts-based research (TABR) within an experimental framework deploying concepts of liminality, Derrida’s ‘teleiopoiesis’, and an adapted outlook of experiential interconnectedness or consciousness of Advaita Vedanta, the paper forwards pedagogically useful findings and implications as these: (i) blurred spaces as bizarre or third space entities that were both stressful and productive, (ii) increased exposures to nature and eco-spirituality, followed by heightened realizations of nature’s place in life, learning and being during the pandemic, (iii) heterotopic university as a space or place that effectuated a surge in self-internalization of learning via intense involvement, (iv) compassionate/ empathic living as a door to self-improvement and joy, (v) formations of new habits and routines as coping strategies in the difficult times, and (v) newly formed wholesome habits and synchronous gravities in nature as great contributors to increased reflective or creative productivity during the pandemic. Additionally, yet more importantly, it highlights the instrumentality of human senses as lower rungs in realizing the interconnectedness or consciousness that experiential Advaita proffers, and this it does by communicating the need for individually unique, radically nonlinear, and adventurously inter-/ trans-disciplinary celebrations of the phenomenon. Besides, it celebrates interrelated questions and curiosities throughout.
Music Education Through Autobiographical Digital Storytelling (METADS) at the 14th SAR International Conference on Artistic Research
(2023)
author(s): Jeffrey Cobbold
published in: Research Catalogue
METADS stands for “Music Education Through Autobiographical Digital Storytelling”. It’s a special initiative for furthering interdisciplinary arts thinking and production that is inspired by music. METADS’ history started in 2017 with Jeffrey Cobbold’s musically rich digital audio sermon album focused on his autobiographical story as a music educator. Included in the sermon are observational digital stories of various music students, which offer approaches to confronting fear through various modes of truth-telling.
In 2020 METADS was mastered by audio engineer Johnny O, who also sang on the song "JOURNAL PROMPT" on the METADS album. The album’s cover art was created by graphic designer Lauren Meyer. In 2021 METADS expanded into a visual art project through Cobbold’s invitation to Meyer to create visualizations for the digital audio sermon album into a comprehensive visual guide/coloring book. Meyer’s involvement in METADS has furthered its progression toward interdisciplinary arts thinking and production inspired by music and storytelling.
For the 14th SAR International Conference on Artistic Research, METADS makes an urgent appeal for music educators and musicians to tend to the stewardship of their relationships in music through the creation of their own autobiographical digital stories, offering them as artistic research in this sensitive area of our musical lives. This is an effort to improve professional practice through investigation of relational fears and the expression of rare relational truths that are often concealed or neglected. METADS also seeks to appeal to the non-musician at the conference who engages in personal storytelling inspired by music or other mediums with a concern for the moral fabric of their creative relationships.
The Usage of recordings from other musicians as a source of information by students of Classical Music
(2023)
author(s): Pedro Domínguez Conde
published in: KC Research Portal
The main purpouse of this research is to find out how do students of classical department use recordings as a source of information for their daily practice and what kind of information they seek in those recordings that is helpfull for them. To get this a survey of ten question was disigned and shared through many methods on the students of the Koninklijik Conservatorium in The Hague. 24 students from varied specialities and courses answered the survey, and the collected data will be analysed
