Performing with Sonic Tools. An approach to designing and analysing new instruments
(2023)
author(s): Gaute Barlindhaug
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
In recent decades, digital technology has accelerated the development of new musical instruments, not only establishing new techniques for creating sound but also enabling new performance practices. From the perspective of the performer, this has significantly broadened their possibility to express themselves, but through earlier experimentations it has become clear to me that audiences have problem comprehend such use of new musical instruments. In a traditional setting, when an artist performs with an instrument the audience can build on their cumulative experience and knowledge to evaluate the skill of an artist. With new experimental instruments such a strategy to understand a performance is not possible. This text describes my work with the dance performance Sound of Silence, and the creation of a device called the Looping Camera. Base on previous experience from using sensor technology in musical performances combined with theories and about the listeners position, we tried find a new approach to the creation of new sound producing devises that could overcome earlier problems with audience comprehension. With our work we tried to create a device that, even if it was largely unfamiliar for the audience, could establish a sense of meaning for the audience by including references to non-musical media technology. This performance also resulted in the developing of an analytical concept, that of “sonic tools”, that is meant to draw attention to the aesthetics of new an unfamiliar instrument through liberating such tools from the dichotomy of musical vs- nonmusical sounds.
Digitally Produced Jewellery: Tactile Qualities of a Digital Touch
(2019)
author(s): Sofia Hallik, Darja Popolitova
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
The importance of tactile contact between the artist and their jewellery has increased over the last decade. More and more artists now implement digital technologies into their work process. This raises questions about the notion of tactility, something that is usually associated as something tangible or given to touch. The authors show that there is a different sensorial mode of engagement with jewellery presented on the screen: during the 3D modelling process or 3D printing. This article aims to investigate the intangible qualities of tactility in the field of digital crafts, while focusing on the material, technical, performative, and psychological aspects. The outcomes include a set of tactile qualities evoked by screen-oriented labour and machinery production: resolution sensitivity, thin-skinned data, psycho-performative realism; and fingerprints, incompleteness and glitch.
Blind maps and blue dots: the blurring of the producer–user divide in the production of visual information
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Joost Grootens
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
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This dissertation of Joost Grootens explores the question of what contemporary mapmaking practices can reveal about the ever-evolving field of graphic design.
The shift towards digital modes of production has fundamentally changed the field of graphic design, to the extent that a clear distinction between the producers and users of visual information no longer exists. The evaluation of graphic design’s recent developments is too strongly focused on what happened to the persona of the graphic designer. In this research an alternative model is introduced that focuses on the technologies that have shaped the field.
Graphic design and cartography have different origins and concerns, but their contemporary practices have much in common. In this research, cartography is considered a testing ground to understand the transformations of graphic design. Adopting notions from post-representational cartography, three mapmaking practices of amateurs and technology companies were selected to survey, analyse and test that transformation.
The dissertation contains of a series of visualizations that embody an alternative documentation of the research. The development of alternative and complementary languages is considered to be an essential aspect of artistic research. This parallel visual documentation of the research questions the discursive text, and all the prejudices and histories contained within it.