ÖR - AS ongoing loop
(2025)
author(s): Aðalheiður Sigursveinsdóttir
published in: Research Catalogue, Iceland University of the Arts
AS this is my final project about my final project at the University of the Arts in Iceland, it serves as a reflection on my own artistic process. AS I am completing my MA in Performing Arts, this moment signifies an ending, yet I feel I am still in the midst of processing it.
AS I set out to create a documentary play rooted in personal experience, aiming to bring realism to the stage. AS I allowed myself throughout the process to repeatedly ask: what am I truly confronting? AS I came to realize that, in the beginning, I was not being honest with myself. AS I tended to lean toward abstraction, to fix things, to escape into dreams rather than meet myself with clarity. AS I was not truthful to my own state of being.
AS a way to hold myself accountable, ÖR ultimately became a kind of encounter, with a meeting within a Program of Honesty. AS if ÖR blends inner and outer realities, flowing in a hybrid form of lived and performed experience.
AS are my initials, it echos in my writings. AS an ongoing loop.
The Pteropoetics of Birdstrike
(2020)
author(s): Jacob Smith
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
“The Pteropoetics of Birdstrike” is a work of multimedia scholarship consisting of a curatorial essay and a twenty-five minute audio piece. Working at the intersection of Sound Studies, Environmental Humanities, and Mobility Studies, the project examines the phenomenon of birdstrike: when birds collide with aircraft. The physical and radiophonic spaces of the airport create a contact zone of human and avian aeromobilities, with birdstrikes as vivid dramas of that shared space. I consider the implications of birdstrike through a critical essay that curates an audio composition that works through the selection and juxtaposition of found sound material. That material consists of recordings of air traffic control conversions during birdstrike incidents, recorded interviews with a pioneer in the field of forensic ornithology, and several poetry recitations. The recitations include the iconic “aerial image” of a skylark’s flight-song, paired with recordings of the actual bird. The result of the whole is to redirect a tradition of aerial imagination towards a new “pteropoetics” that understands the sky as a habitat shared with others.