When GPT Digested the Medium Hélène Smith
(2024)
author(s): Katerina Undo
published in: HUB - Journal of Research in Art, Design and Society
Exploring synergies between the study of the medium Hélène Smith at the turn of the 20th century and contemporary notions of subjectivity, artificiality and intelligence in the age of AI, the question of locating intelligence will not be a question with a binary answer in this paper. It will be shifted to multiple sites in an assimilative assemblage, exploring how identification might work from a rather metabolic side of the conversation. Weaving a thinking continuum on the evolving human-machine complexes beyond circular debates, Hélène Smith's ambiguous Martian writings are fed into GPT; an act intended as a metaphor and method for overcoming our binary contradiction of intelligence as either “natural” or “artificial”, ultimately generating new subjectivities, fluid variables or even contradictory insights. In this context, a meditation with speculative moments is attempted through human-machine inter-written texts, enacted through inter-twined speeches that reciprocally represent and interpret their own transitive nature.
Seminar – Of Artistic Research: considered through hybrid writing and visual practice
(2023)
author(s): Mike Croft
published in: i2ADS - Research Institute in Art, Design and Society
The exposition involves the adaptation of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's logical square, to convey an idea of artistic research practice considered from the perspective of the human subject's position in its midst. As part of the discussion the author has used some evidence of a previous lecture presentation, integrating such material with that of a newer project concerning the visualization of a nightmare image of a phantom in a portal. The tools of the research are a hybrid form of writing that embroils fictional and academic modes as a language-based practice, and visual artistic practice. The author takes Lacan's idea of the confounding of any logical argument by automatic obfuscation of it by unconscious process, and imagines that he has an other to him as a subjective second voice. The question of voices is central to the research; the suggestion that one does speak to oneself in various ways simultaneously that may be fashioned as distinct and separate. It is argued that the research aspect of artistic practice involves just a section of Lacan's logical square, particularly concerning contingency. This orientation may call to question one's tendency to reason and find meaning from the necessary locus of inquiry from the vantage-point of the language-based Symbolic – of Lacan's three psychic structuring registers Imaginary, Symbolic, Real. The element of fiction provides a literary inclination whereby, while the artistic research speaks about itself as research and references a visual practice, the exposition could also be considered a language-based practice in its own right.
Responsibility towards the Void
(2022)
author(s): Mike Croft
connected to: i2ADS - Research Institute in Art, Design and Society
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
The question of responsibility is explored through drawing, specifically relating to a so-termed void space that ranges over a builder's yard and its immediate environment. The research is formatted as dated journal entries to show its chronological development, with the proviso that later stages may eclipse earlier stages, depending on their relevance. This looping, as it were, mimics the fact that the void space is best defined by the occasional circling of swifts, an observation that becomes a metaphor for how to try to articulate the space pictorially. Responsibility is referenced through theories of each of Levinas, Lacan and Foucault in relation to the Other, the latter of which is taken as the theoretical equivalent of void, but no less concerning responsibility. The author has drawn the site in such terms as locate the void in both the space that the site defines and a gap in the drawing process. This artistic effort is analogous demonstration of responsibility to that which is suggested by the theory. Responsibility is considered from the perspective of the personal and individual, automatically present in artistic commitment, in this case finding some explanation in theoretical thinking of the abstract notion of Other. The formatting of the process of attending to this theme and motif as research leads to a situation where drawing, as such, is but the predominantly visual tool alongside art writing, academic research, and graphic layout that provides live links to video clips and two explanatory texts.
Do we create enough space for mistakes within the film system?
(2022)
author(s): Carina Randloev
published in: International Center for Knowledge in the Arts (Denmark)
Do we need to make more mistakes to keep the film language alive as cinema window no 1, in a time of high performance streaming platforms? Can we use the open process approach from visual art to do so?
In this exposition I will unfold thematic aspects related to: the audience, the film funding system, open processes, the production value, the space in between (art and film, documentary and fiction), something about language, the mistake, experiments, the ugly, and expectations on format.
The exposition is the result of six months of preliminary Artistic Research conducted at The National Film School of Denmark.
Future Earth Scream Now - The Solresol Birdsong Translator
(2021)
author(s): Jim Lloyd
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
In this exposition, we describe a ‘speculative fabulation’ on communication with birds. A device was built that ‘listens’ to birdsong and translates this into human speech utilising the obscure musical language Solresol (François Sudre, 1866). Birdsong is analysed and converted into musical notes (one octave in the scale of C Major: do-re-me-fa-sol-la-ti). These seven notes are grouped to form four-note ‘words’ that are looked-up in the Solresol-English dictionary. Each note also has a rainbow colour assigned to it. In a variety of configurations, the device can output the birdsong, notes, music, translated words, and colours. Text and MIDI (music) files can both be saved for further output or processing. The software can run in a variety of modes and on a variety of hardware, including PC and Raspberry Pi. It can make use of both live and recorded birdsong. The device and software are described, as well as several examples of its outputs, such as ‘auto-poetry’ and music. The presentation of the work and modes of engagement are described. The contextual significance is discussed in relation to claims about the practice as artistic research.
Studies on Fantasmical Anatomies
(2021)
author(s): Anne Juren
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
Studies on Fantasmical Anatomies is an ongoing transdisciplinary artistic research, which encompasses the spectrum of experiences and practices that I have developed as a choreographer, dancer and Feldenkrais practitioner. By drawing on various fields of knowledge – anatomy, psychoanalysis, feminist and queer theories, poetry and somatic practices – the research expands choreography towards disparate discourses, practices and treatments of the body. Based on Feldenkrais’ speculative use of language, imagination and touch, I have developed several body-orientated practices situated at the intersection of the therapeutic and the choreographic, the somatic and the poetic.
The research is articulated through three transversal movements. The first movement is the expansion and distortion of the Feldenkrais Method® from its initial somato-therapeutic goals into a poetic and speculative way of addressing the body. Secondly, I propose experiences of diffraction, "blind gaze" and dissociation as a strategy for troubling the dominant regime of vision. The third movement consists of the co-regulation of bodies and dynamic relationships between the individual and the collective.
Combining fantasy, the fantasme and phantasmagoria, I invented the word “fantasmical” to emphasize how the ability to imagine may create phantom limbs that are as concrete as pieces of bone. Studies of Fantasmical Anatomies are simultaneously a set of practices, methods and places where the corps fantasmé is tangible.
What is the word
(2021)
author(s): Renee Jonker
published in: KC Research Portal
What than is music? – Music is language.’ Composer Anton Webern was quite outspoken in 1932 : 'A human being wants to express thoughts in this language, but not a thought that can be transferred into an idea, but only into another musical thought.’ Almost sixty years later composer Wolfgang Rihm isn’t sure whether music is a language but states in his speech 'Was ‘sagt’ Musik/ What does music ‘say’?:’ if music is saying something, than the first what is addressed to us is: speak! Music wants to make us speak. That’s what music says!’
That raises the question whether music can be referential or carry meaning just as language can. A question that has made many speak and filled libraries of studies. Cognitive psychologist Aniruddh D. Patel writes in 2008: ‘A natural place to turn for help in defining musical meaning is the work of music theorists and philosophers of aesthetics’. After summing up a dozen publications on the topic since Webern made his statement, Patel reports: ‘No consensus has emerged from these writings for a definition of musical meaning.’
There is a lot of evidence in linguistics that qualities attributed to musicality contribute to language being the carrier of meaning. So what about the other way around? Can language help to understand what is experienced as meaningful in music?
Language itself is an indicator that qualities inherent to language are often given to music. In German the word Interpret is used for instrumentalists performing music. The Dutch language has the word zeggingskracht that attributes power to music. 'Zegging-’ stems from the verb zeggen (to say), ‘kracht’ means power. Zeggingskracht was one of the three criteria to assess the work of composers by the Fund for the Creation of Music (Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst ) in The Netherlands. When the power to speak is inhibited and people stammer or lose their speech suffering from aphasia, it has been said that “only music, can do the calling.” And it’s almost a cliché to say that music can express what can’t be given words.
Music is not a language but often sounds like one. What do musicians that are ‘speaking’ that music have to say about meaning in music, singing, performing or creating what composer Louis Andriessen describes as ‘talkative’ music? Or the stammering that composer György Kurtág calls his mother language? How do musicians give words to those moments when their music does the talking?
What is the word is the last text that Samuel Beckett completed at the end of his life when through a stroke he periodically suffered from the disability to finds words, commonly diagnosed as aphasia. The Irish author inspired many to explore the zeggingskracht of music. Precise as he was, Beckett left out a question mark in the title, both in the original French version of Comment dire and in his English translation. That the title of Samuel Beckett’s last text is not posing a question but may provide us with an answer, is the hypothesis of this research.
‘[…] Biology of One Body’s work’: A video collage of seconds counted while drawing + 2-minutes’ playback layered a number of times
(2021)
author(s): Mike Croft
published in: i2ADS - Research Institute in Art, Design and Society
A three-minute video, including title and credits, concerns a second re-working, in effect layer three, of a drawing that references incidental observation of the inside of a glass jar and additional materiality, such as an action camera worn in front of the eyes and how the jar is attached to the drawing’s surface to enable the process’s video recording. The audio concerns the counting of seconds while drawing and the prolonged intonation of the word RAUM, German for space. Each of these vocal elements directs and impacts on the drawing procedures, the latter of which are implemented with pencils designed for marking on non-porous surfaces such as plastic and glass, and erasure of such pencils on laminated white cardboard. The video fades in and out of the drawing at each of its three stages, two of which were from times prior to making the video, the last of the stages of which was up to the time of beginning the video. The video is also interspersed with scrolling typed indication of the various correspondences between the counting of time and phrases of spoken monologue, the latter of which has been divided into two audio layers through having been recorded onto both the camera’s microphone and an external voice recorder. At 1: 47mins of the video the content fades to a muted simple scroll-through animation of the completed drawing of the previous video content played back a number of times, which had been responded to through the layering of the drawing the same number of times across nine pieces of handmade paper, 51 x 36cm, in plastic-based pencils and acrylic paint. The video encapsulates the above-mentioned individual facets as a single entity that provides some comment on the diverse nature of time in the context of its experience in and as drawing.
Keywords: drawing; time; monologue; language; intonation
Music as an artificial language - an annotated collection of early music sources mentioning the relationship between instrumental music, singing, and speaking, questioning their relevance for today’s performers
(2016)
author(s): Isabella Mercuri
published in: KC Research Portal
Name
Isabella Mercuri
Main Subject
Recorder
Research supervisors
Inês de Avena Braga and Frédérique Thouvenot
Title of Research
Music as an artificial language - an annotated collection of early music sources mentioning the relationship between instrumental music, singing, and speaking, questioning their relevance for today’s performers
Research Question
What do treatises of the Renaissance and Baroque period mention about the relationship between instrumental music, singing, and speaking and how can I use those indications in my playing?
Summary of Results
The collection of sources from the beginning of the sixteenth century until the middle of the eighteenth century showed that the indications given by the authors are often very similar to each other, although being written in a completely different time and environment. The following three main ideas appear in several treatises and were therefore examined more in detail:
- Imitation of the human voice or of a specific instrument
- Following a speech and using the means of rhetoric
- Underlying instrumental music with text
The practical application of those three ideas led to an enrichment of my palette of sound colours, to an improvement in making clear phrasings and gave me some inspiration to find the appropriate affections to communicate to the listeners.
This research paper and the included collection of sources might also be a starting point for further research exploring for instance more in detail one of the three main ideas mentioned above.
Biography
Isabella Mercuri was born in Switzerland, where she started studying the recorder with Kees Boeke and Matthias Weilenmann and completed her Bachelor of Arts in Music at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in 2013. She then moved to the Netherlands to continue her studies with Daniël Brüggen at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, where she also studies the baroque oboe with Frank de Bruine.
Isabella Mercuri is active as a recorder teacher for children and adults and regularly performs in different chamber music settings in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Serbia and Spain.
Victor Feldman, from Piano to Vibraphone
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Demetrio Schintu
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
How Victor Feldman, prolific pianist and vibraphone player of the jazz/hardbop scene in the second half of the twntieth-century, managed to transfer his concept of piano playing to the vibraphone.
The similarities and applications of motives, transcriptions and language learning.
Imagined Voices : a poetics of Music-Text-Film
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Yannis Kyriakides
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
'Imagined Voices', a research by Yannis Kyriakides, deals with a form of composition, music with on-screen text, in which the dynamic between sound, words and visuals is explored. The research explores the ideas around these 'music-text-films', and attempts to explain how meaning is constructed in the interplay between the different layers of media.
Issues that initially arose out of the research, were directly related to the question of 'voice': Who is narrating? And where is the voice located? These questions became more pertinent after noticing a phenomenon occurring during performances of these works: that when we read text synchronised to music, we become very aware of an inner voice silently reading along. This effect of hearing one's own voice in the music, was a discovery that had many consequences for the ways in which the ideas about listening and the role of multimedia could function within music.
In the creative work of the research, that has resulted in over thirty works of 'music-text-film' the media are set up to highlight ways of listening that puts emphasis on the role of the listener/spectator. A state of limbo is created between the narrative voice of the text and the implied voice of the music, due to the absence of a conventional focal point to pin it on - an actor or a singer. The thesis suggests that because of this vacancy and the way the projected word takes the place of the sung or spoken voice, the inner voice of the audience becomes activated. This then becomes a vital immersive dimension in the performance, as the inner voices of the audience find their place within the fabric of the music.
Hinterlands - Between Worlds exhibition
(last edited: 2021)
author(s): Jim Harold, Susan Brind
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
'Hinterlands' for the exhibition 'Between Worlds'
Renmin University of China, Beijing, 2015
The installation, ‘Hinterlands’, comprises two related elements: a wall painting with vinyl text; and four unframed photographic digital prints arranged on adjacent walls.
The wall texts are taken from a mixture of diary notes and descriptions of photographic images made by the artists, Brind & Harold, over a number of years whilst on research journeys. The texts are not chronologically ordered but, instead, are intended to be read as a series of text-images. Through typographic layout and proximity, the texts become interrelated whilst not being the direct traces of a linear journey or journeys. Rather, they tell of the small moments of travel and experience (un-photographable in some cases) that act as the truer registers of a journey; whether that journey is outwardly bound or inwardly focused. As a result the work seeks to allow these events and the phrases used to account for them to become liminal spaces - thresholds or hinterlands - through which the viewer's own imagination may engage with the artists’.
The photographs of desert space, details of the desert floor taken in the Egyptian a Desert, are similarly intended as the traces of real events and locations, while providing ambiguous spaces of reading and meaning.
Do we need to make more mistakes to keep the film language alive as cinema window no 1, in a time of high performance streaming platforms? Can we use the open process approach from visual art to do so? In this exposition I will unfold thematic aspects related to: the audience, the film funding system, open processes, the production value, the space in between (art and film, documentary and fiction), something about language, the mistake, experiments, the ugly, and expectations on format. The exposition is the result of six months of preliminary Artistic Research conducted at The National Film School of Denmark.open exposition comments (0)