Composing Composing Instruments
(2024)
author(s): Tijs Ham
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition aims to provide insights into my artistic practice and research 'Tipping Points', working within the field of live electronics and focusing on the exploration of tipping points in chaotic processes. The activities associated with my practice are profoundly interdisciplinary and include designing and buildinginstruments, composing artistic works for these instruments, and performing with them. Each of these aspects are interlaced and equally important in the development of new artistic works. The preface details my process in the production of new artistic works. Then the text details my thoughts on the term comprovisation and how it informs my approaches to the development of my work. Then the focus shifts to describe how my use of chaotic processes turns instruments into actant technologies which has important consequences on both my performance practice and instrument design. These insights are then illustrated through reflections on my work Multiple Minds, concluding that the instrument itself is actively composing, while at the same time, the act of designing and building an instrument can be viewed as composing.
Designing Agency
(2023)
author(s): Johanna Drucker
published in: HUB - Journal of Research in Art, Design and Society
As AI systems proliferate, questions about their emergent capacities focus on intelligence, sentience, and control. But the issue of agency, the capacity for action with consequences, brings other design issues into play. Agency takes many forms including mechanical, incidental, probabilistic, and intentional, but is largely assessed on the basis of behaviors. The challenge of designing agency can be met by considering what must be programmed into a system to provide it with the capacity for action, but the distinction between the appearance of agency (simulacral) and actual agency (intentional) is difficult to test. This paper discusses some of the connections between agency and debates in physics about determinism and probability as they relate to the question of human capacities for intentional action and concludes with a discussion of the difficulties of conceptualizing agency without falling into Romantic models of disruptive behavior. No easy answers arise in regard to the problem of designing intentional agency in a way that can be either tested or constrained.
Ohni Ziül, kei Versager: Objects, Goals and Failure, a Swiss residency
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Rose Magee
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Ohni Ziül, kei Versager: Objects, Goals, and Failure explores the creative potential of failure and material agency through a four-month artist residency at Altes Spital, Solothurn, Switzerland. Initiated by the unexpected breaking of hand-blown glass objects during transit, the project reframes failure as a catalyst for empathy, interconnectedness, and transformation.
Set in a former hospital, the residency provided a fitting context for investigating the relationships between humans and objects. By engaging with glass and beeswax, materials that embody both fragility and resilience, I embraced material unpredictability, allowing forms and textures to emerge organically. Collaborative workshops further examined failure, imperfection, and materiality as carriers of memory and emotion, fostering empathy for both human and non-human entities.
Inspired by thinkers like Jane Bennett and Daniel Miller, the project challenges human-centered views of objecthood, recognizing the agency of materials and their capacity to mediate reflection and connection. Drawing on concepts like wabi-sabi and “thing-power,” the work celebrates the beauty of imperfection and the ambiguity that emerges when control is relinquished.
Recurring themes of encounter, empathy, and mediation underscore this practice, proposing that failure is not an endpoint but a means of discovery and growth. By embracing ambiguity and resisting the impulse to fully understand or master, the project advocates for a more interconnected and empathetic engagement with the world.