Collaborative Dramaturgies in Filmmaking
(2023)
author(s): Hannaleena Hauru
published in: Research Catalogue
In this thesis, I make a personal reflection on how the dramaturgical concept of the feature film “Parvet” was created. The aim of the project is to build dramaturgical tools that would benefit voices that are currently marginalized in Finnish film and television. The “Parvet” film focuses on experiences as a racialized or indigenous person, and as a non-binary trans person in Finland in 2023 and deals also with the representation of people with learning disabilities, while most crew members in the production, including me, are white, non-disabled and cis-gendered. The central questions in the thesis are:
• How did using feminist decolonial theories and my previous experiences in collaborative filmmaking inspire the methodological framework for the concept of "Parvet"?
• How can autobiographical minority experiences be adapted to fiction film by providing agency to the performers by rearranging artistic decision-making power between the auteur-director, the performers, and the designers in the crew?
• How does "Parvet" navigate the complex interplay of collaborative filmmaking within a project centered on minority topics while operating in an environment and industry dominated by structural whiteness?
Creating “Parvet” took place in 2022–2023. The film is directed by Hannaleena Hauru and Katja Gauriloff and produced by Emilia Haukka. The production is a collaboration between Aamu Film Company and Uniarts Helsinki's Theatre Academy. “Parvet” will premiere in 2024. The thesis was written in the Summer–Autumn of 2023, while “Parvet” has still been in post-production.
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.
NEPTUNE PROJECT: Transforming Personal Narrative Into Political Statement in an Autobiographical Play
(2023)
author(s): Vera Boitcova
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
This thesis explores the ways in which personal narratives in dramaturgy can be read as political statements on the example of creating and staging my autobiographical queer play Neptune over the course of two years (March 2021-March 2023). My research questions include:
- What circumstances can evoke a creative desire to transform personal into political through art mediums? To what extent performance art can be effective as a tool to convey political messages?
- How to convey political messages through personal narratives in dramaturgy\playwriting? What makes a narrative political and what can be defined as a political narrative? What does ‘being political’ mean specifically for a queer artist\dramaturge?
- What methodology, aesthetical, directorial and acting choices can be made to further enhance and underline political message of a documentary narrative, specifically in queer context?
These questions will be examined in a detailed account of writing my own autobiographical play Neptune in the year of war and strengthening of oppression in Russia, and subsequent staging of this play. My play had three distinct layers: meta-level (where the narrator talked about her recent political experiences in the year 2022), memory level (subjective memories of a lost love), and fictional level (different characters acting in thematically-relevant vignettes). Therefore, I want my thesis to be reflective of the same structure: it will have three main chapters - Meta, Memory, and Fiction – with the overall reflection at the end.
Overall aim of this thesis is to trace the process of creating an autobiographical play from its creative conception (and reasons behind it) to turning it into a theatre production, and by doing so, to examine if it succeeded in its initial goal of conveying a certain political message, and if so, how this result was achieved.
Reclamation : Exposing Coal Seams and Appalachian Fatalism with Digital Apparatuses
(2020)
author(s): Ernie Roby-Tomic
published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
The mountainous geography of Appalachia has been shaped by the coal industry since the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era of the United States. Mountaintop Removal (MTR) is a controversial and highly destructive surface-mining method flattening the mountains of Appalachian since the 1970s. The rise in massive energy consumption correlated to consumer electronics, automation, and technocratic neoliberalism have irrevocably flattened the surface and culture of Appalachia.
Reclamation is the final act in MTR mining in which the mine operator is obligated to ecologically restore the land. Where MTR sites were once hidden away, and even photographing them is considered an act of trespassing, today I can bear witness to the destruction of the mountain topology by connecting to Google's Earth (not to be confused with earth-Earth). Despite the remote locations and inaccessibility of the sites, the data is particularly rich due to the economical advantages of mapping the region for the coal industry.
In this exposition, I make my own reclamation as one in the generation born after the boom of coal production and its inevitable decline. I am reclaiming the 3D geospatial data of MTR and mining disaster sites, extracted from the servers of Google Earth. I recontextualize these geospatial assets to compose a visual prosopography of those surfaces.
The slippery trail: The mollusc as a metaphor for creative practice
(2015)
author(s): Karen Savage
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition documents several years of process-driven practice-as-research. The work explores themes of womanhood, embodiment, and autobiography.
Throughout the exposition I argue that the embodiment of process is key to understanding practice-as-research. I propose that practice-as-research projects don't always begin with a ‘final output’ in mind. Instead, the practice of practice-as-research should be reconsidered throughout its development; it should use its potential for liminality. It is the demonstration of a ‘living process’ – living in process. However, what becomes key within the practice is a clear articulation of process, and how the research is recorded as part of that process. In this work, 'writing about practice' and performative practices are integrated, enabling a dialogue between various creative responses as well as offering access points to the research in a variety of forms.
This exposition explores ways in which we live in process through a presentation of text, visual essays, and short film and video pieces.
The work develops from creative artefacts and critical text into a piece of responsive writing, 'A Play of Characters'. This playtext reconsiders some of the influences in the work and explores the imagery of the whole project in a performative context.
The notion of embodiment and a 'living body of work' is developed further through the use of metaphor, in particular the metaphor of the mollusc. I use this to consider how practice evolves alongside process, 'housing' both the work and the process in both material form (the shell) and trace (the snail trail).
Different combinations of this work have been presented as performance installations, both at the University of Portsmouth, as part of my PhD examination in 2010, and at the University of Lincoln, as part of the Gnarlfest in 2014. However, by the very nature of 'living in process' this is a work that continues to evolve and 'live' in different forms. The purpose of this exposition is to explore the work in an accessible online form – one that offers alternative platforms and sequences, creating different possibilities and readings of the practice.