creative (mis)understandings - Methodologies of Inspiration
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Johannes Kretz, Wei-Ya Lin, Samu Gryllus, Zheng Kuo, Ye Hui, Wang Ming, Daliah Hindler
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This project aims to develop transcultural approaches of inspiration (which we regard as mutually appreciated intentional and reciprocal artistic influence based on solidarity) by combining approaches from contemporary music composition and improvisation with ethnomusicological and sociological research. We encourage creative (mis)understandings emerging from the interaction between research and artistic practice, and between European art music, folk and non-western styles, in particular from indigenous minorities in Taiwan. Both comprehension and incomprehension yield serendipity and inspiration for new research questions, innovative artistic creation, and applied follow-ups among non-western communities.
The project departs from two premises: first, that contemporary western art music as a practice often tends to resort to certain degrees of elitism; and second, that non-western musical knowledge is often either ignored or merely exploited when it comes to compositional inspiration. We do not regard inspiration as unidirectional, an “input” like recording or downloading material for artistic use. Instead, we foster artistic interaction by promoting dialogical and distributed knowledge production in musical encounters. Developing interdisciplinary and transcultural methodologies of musical creation will contribute on the one hand towards opening up the—rightly or wrongly supposed—“ivory tower of contemporary composition”, and on the other hand will contribute towards the recognition of the artistic value of non-western musical practices. By highlighting the reciprocal nature of inspiration, creative (mis)understandings will result in socially relevant and innovative methodologies for creating and disseminating music with meaning.
The methods applied in the proposed project will start out from ethnographic evidence that people living in non-western or traditional societies often use methods of knowledge production within the sonic domain which are commonly unaddressed or even unknown among western contemporary music composers (aside from exotist or orientalistic appropriations of “the other”).
The project is designed in four stages: field research and interaction with indigenous communities in Taiwan with a focus on the Tao people on Lanyu Island, collaborative workshops in Vienna, an artistic research and training phase with invited indigenous Taiwanese coaches in Vienna, and feeding back to the field in Taiwan. During all these stages, exchange and coordination between composers, music makers, scholars and source community experts will be essential in order to reflect not only on the creative process, but also to analyse and support strong interaction between creation and society. Re-interaction with source communities as well as audience participation in the widest sense will help to increase the social relevance of the artistic results.
The University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW) will host the project. The contributors are Johannes Kretz (project leader) and Wei-Ya Lin (project co-leader, senior investigator) with their team of seven composers, ten artistic research partners from Taiwan and six artistic and academic consultants with extensive experience in the relevant fields.
On Klänge - Space, Time and Body
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Erika Matsunami
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
ON KLÄNGE - SPACE, TIME AND BODY
This artistic research project entitled "Variations'' by Erika Matsunami was started to explore a multi-layered open score, "Corona" (1962) for pianist(s) by Toru Takemitsu in 2020, which became a starting point of Takemitsu oeuvres. Thereby, I developed the different ideas of three variations from the aspect of the 21st century. The research question is: "Is music rather phenomenal than to express?"
The starting point of this artistic research is a new interpretation "Corona-STEMS-GALAXYOMEGA" (May 2020) by Lukas Huisman who is a pianist and holds a PhD in the performing arts/piano in classic-modern music. (It is the same as the artistic master in the classical sense for teaching. He is not a performer, he can practically study the piano (artistic material) techniques at the academic level, and he can teach his techniques as his original in Toru Takemitsu. He is the PhD master of classic modern in piano for education.) He started to embody "Corona" (1962) by Takemitsu together with the composer and sound artist Patrick Housen. Huisman and Housen are called Graphology duo. (Graphology duo is a musical performative duo formed by Patrick Housen with live electronics and Lukas Huisman on piano.)
With "Variations", I attempt to address the question of immateriality in the arts and the academic meaning (Sinne) on immateriality in artistic research. I question the context from the critical aspect of neuroscience, and ask whether "immateriality" – the aesthetic value in the arts – is or is not in today’s technology? How can "immateriality" in the arts be judged today with the technology in aesthetics? (The approach of Kant in today's aesthetics as well as philosophy, without the study of neuroscience, this subject could not be researched.)
Takemitsu's aim of the study in his multi-layered open score "Corona" (1962) is not only for the general piano piece, it was also started in his musical composition study under Cage.
In "Variations", I have been working and researching the origin of Toru Takemitsu's ideas.
I collaborate(d) with Housen as a visual artist for a sound installation in this artistic project. This resulted in the artistic research project "Variation I", which relates to this artistic research on "Klänge - Space, Time and Body". I, as a visual artist, have been exploring the subject of time and space in "Corona" (1962) for pianist(s) by Toru Takemitsu for the exploration of a new interpretation; it was the starting point of "Variations" which consists of three parts of artistic research.
My practical contribution is a performance in the site-specific installation for "Variation I" - ("Corona without Pianist for 4-ch discrete sound installation - an invisible sense ‘who is left to drift in the loneliness of the remaining scent’" in 2020. Thus, the theoretical exploration is in terms of ongoing artistic research in the philosophy of sound. The aim of this artistic research "On Klänge - Space, Time and Body" is toward the new multi-layered open score "Variation I, II and III". In 2020, it was simultaneously the subject of "Corona-STEMS-GALAXYOMEGA" by the Patrick Housen and Lukas Huisman duo, and "Corona without Pianist for 4-ch discrete sound installation - an invisible sense ‘who is left to drift in the loneliness of the remaining scent’" by Erika Matsunami.
Variation II consists of a collaboration with the composer Valerio Sannicandro (PhD in Musicology) and deals with the subject of the spontaneous within the topic of DNA from the biological aspect. Therefore, joint artistic research will explore the philosophy of sound from the aspect of musicology and aesthetics in 2021.
(In the works)
Global Music: Recasting and Rethinking the Popular as Global
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Carlos Roos
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
The present dissertation revolves around popular music as a global phenomenon. The research focuses on the form and meaning of its musical structures and their rapport with everyday experience1 at the dawn of the 21st century. In what follows, I argue that the ontological key to popular music lies in the dialectic between formal attributes and societal dynamics, between musical text and cultural context. To that end, this inquiry unfolds at the intersection of cultural musicology and media studies.
Research by Carlos Roos