Karhun katseella laulan
(2024)
author(s): Tuomas Rounakari
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
In this artistic doctoral research I think of art as a language that both portrays a mythical worldview and participates in the activities it contains. Contemplating myths through the performing arts is one of the oldest functions of art. Myths have not only been presented, but a dialogical relationship has been sought with the mythical entities. Achieving this requires the ability to alter ones state of consciousness from the performer. The altered states can range in intensity from a mild mood change to a profound trance state in which the perception of self, time and place alters thoroughly.
Through the altered states of consciousness, the musician either allows or directly initiates a dialogue between the more-than-human. In the thesis, I call this as mythical dialogue. Mythical dialogue has a reciprocal effect on the interpretation, alteration and improvisation produced by the musician at the time of performance. The thesis is an autoetnographic treatment of mythical dialogue from a musician's perspective, and shares this perspective for a broader study of tradition.
My research included four field trips to Siberia, to the land of Khanty, Mansi and Forest-Nenets. The trips were mainly artistic collaborations in which I carried out data collection and did the thematic interview with Maria Kuzminitsna Voldina included in the thesis. My main fieldwork method was to first play Khanty folk songs on the violin for the Khanty themselves, after which I asked them to tell me more about the songs and to comment on the way I played my versions of them. Playing the songs to each other in turn created a genuinely interactive and egalitarian way of learning. The field trips were complemented by archival research of songs containing mythical dialogue, as well as performing these songs as a musician. The main archival materials were songs from the bear feast ceremonies of the Khanty, Mansi, Karelians and Finns.
My artistic doctorate degree consists of five unique performances and this written thesis with video recordings. The first doctoral concert Shamanviolin (2013) was based on songs recorded by Kai Donner on wax cylinders during his travels in Siberia between 1912 and 1914. The second doctoral concert Shamanviolin with Ailloš (2014) explored the possibility of playing in trance state with an ensemble. The third artistic component was the Bear Feast performance (2016) which combined ceremony, music, poetry, theatre, social games and dances, and dining. The fourth artistic component was the documentary theatre play Arctic Odyssey (2017) produced by the theatre group Ruska Ensemble in collaboration with the Finnish National Theatre and Nunatta Isiginnaartitsisarfia in Greenland. The fifth artistic component was my solo album Bear Awakener (2022) based on the phonograph collection of Artturi Kannisto.
The Bear Feast performance is treated as a case study in the thesis. The performance succeeded in creating meaningful experiences of mythical dialogue for both the performing ensemble and the audience. Working with mythical themes through art creates an opportunity to address the slowly changing mental patterns of our culture in a communal way. By engaging in mythical dialogue we can still create similar experiences to those our ancestors had in a very different society. Because myths represent a slowly changing collective tradition, they can strengthen the identity of individuals and communities with far-reaching effects on wellbeing.
Keywords: Mythical dialogue, altered states of consciousness, trance, transcendence, myth, more-than-human, animism, bear feast ceremony
Epiphanies of an Invisible weave
(2024)
author(s): Jenny Sunesson
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
Epiphanies of an Invisible weave
essay
by Jenny Sunesson, 2022
edited in 2023
Translated by Steven Cuzner
Preface (2023)
Epiphanies of an Invisible weave is an essay written during the processes of two different, yet overlapping, projects; the research project FACT stage one, and the solar driven, sound art project UNDER.
The essay explores the specific capacities and possibilities of sound and listening through the specific mode of field recording, which is the sonic modality that I have exploring for more than 20 years.
The essay aims to shed some light on the site-related, political, and hidden potentials of sound as it examines the possibilities of (re)-learning through listening in relation to both human and more-than-human explorations and possible “epiphanies”, imagining openings beyond stereotypical knowing.
/Jenny Sunesson
Image copyright: Ida Lindgren
Seeding Actions
(2022)
author(s): Polina Golovátina-Mora, Sunniva Skjøstad Hovde, Tone Pernille Østern
connected to: Norwegian University of Science and Technology
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
The exposition shares the collaborative multispecies journey and addresses the issue of art, art-based research and of art-based research publishing. The three processes are seeing as intra-activity between multiple species, materials, media. It does not have a goal as destination but is driven by curiosity and care for and with each other. This ever-expanding becoming creates ever new world and possibilities and so the new knowing-being. The exposition is a map that combines different tracing and it is up to the reader to follow any direction they prefer at the moment.
NEITHER FISH NOR FOWL / VERKEN FUGL ELLER FISK
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Lise Hovik
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This exposition is a documentary project on the artistic research project Neither Fish nor Fowl. The research project consists of theater making, film making, workshops, performances and writing, and explores the wondrous worlds of becoming in theatre for early years. Together with my theater company Teater Fot, I have been investigating the significance of affect as philosophical, emotional, and material inspiration in the creative process, and in relation to young children in Theater for Early Years. Neither Fish nor Fowl was conducted as a performance project from April 2017 to March 2020. During this period, the research process was documented in RC, presenting methods, writings, and reflections along the way. The pre-production performance (for babies 0-2) was shown at the festival Olavsfestdagene in Trondheim, Norway, summer 2017 and at Trondheim Kunsthall autumn 2017. The full production, Begynnelser (for 3-5 years), was presented in april 2018 in co-production with the venue Teaterhuset Avant Garden in Trondheim. Baby Becomings (0-2 years), was presented at festivals and for kindergartens in Trondheim autumn 2018, and the final version Himmel & Hav / Sky & Sea was presented at Rosendal Teater in in March 2020, touring kindergartens for one week.
Animalium (2019) was a a kind of spin-off with film making, workshops, visiting exhibition spaces and eventually article writing with an exposition in VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research #2 on the theme Estrangement.
In 2020-22 Animalium has become a new research project, looking at post humanist approaches to different sites such as kindergarten spaces, libraries and art exhibition spaces. We are developing new performance strategies with deepening our improvisational and listening skills into a more-than-human sympoietic intra-playfulness. Trying to perform these concepts, we might understand more of what they actually mean to our artistic practice.
We All Eat From Each Other: The act of feeding in more-than-human entanglements
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Nesie Wang
This exposition is in review and its share status is: visible to all.
This thesis is an attempt to unfold multifaceted discussions in multispecies entanglements, focusing on the fundamental act of feeding—a process that extends beyond mere sustenance to become a critical interaction within the web of life. It interlaces a rich array of perspectives, combining academic research, artistic inquiry, and personal reflections to illuminate the diverse implications of feeding.
Mosses Again a Source of Wonder, Room 18
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Jessica Emsley
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This marks the first of an anticipated sequence of iterative sharing of work within my PhD project, the methodology of which explores barefoot walking , analogue recording techniques, and a curation of indexical documents generated throughout.
Unspeakable Dialogues: Writ in Rock
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Rolf Hughes
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Positioning the locus of writing beyond the human, this presentation questions our anthropocentrism by drawing on the notion that traces of worlds in motion create recognisable details (forms of writing) that can be read if we pay them the appropriate care and attention. Such issues are essential in our greater literacy for ecological thinking, and actions capable of engendering life-promoting practices. How we may read the writing of the more-than-human realm is not just essential for our own understanding but a communications issue in search of a better relating to a changing reality. Raising questions about the recognition of the “other,” the attention paid to atypical subjects and an ethics of care for those we do not easily understand, are subjects for broader discussion with respect to artistic research in assessing and deciding what kind of writing works and is valuable in artistic research undertakings. Writing is thus conceived as an ethical undertaking rather than a purely formal concern. Our chosen forms of writing direct questions to the critical objectives of artistic research that is ecologically focussed, de-centring the human subject, and inviting new engagements through writing that can be presented in artistic research contexts and publications.
This video was presented at the CARPA 7 conference (2021) on "Elastic Writing" (for theme 2: Dis[guised] Writing).
H A V
(last edited: 2021)
author(s): Elin Tanding Sørensen
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
HAV evokes the spatiality of the undersea landscape together with the colours and lifeforms within this hidden, fluid realm. HAV has many co-creators: barnacles and marine biologists, porcelain, sugar kelp, saltwater, ceramicists, crabs, clay, annelids and many more.
HAV was orchestrated by artist and landscape architect Elin T. Sørensen as part of her doctoral project “Multispecies Neighborhoods in Urban Sea Areas,” the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, NMBU.
Curated by Annike Flo and staged at the Norwegian BioArt Arena NOBA Vitenparken Campus Ås 2020.
Image: Barnacle (Semibalanus balanoides). Scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrograph acquired at the Imaging Centre NMBU by Lene Cecilie Hermansen with Zeiss EVO50 EP. Sørensen © BONO 2020.
Epiphanies of an Invisible weave essay by Jenny Sunesson, 2022 edited in 2023 Translated by Steven Cuzner Preface (2023) Epiphanies of an Invisible weave is an essay written during the processes of two different, yet overlapping, projects; the research project FACT stage one, and the solar driven, sound art project UNDER. The essay explores the specific capacities and possibilities of sound and listening through the specific mode of field recording, which is the sonic modality that I have exploring for more than 20 years. The essay aims to shed some light on the site-related, political, and hidden potentials of sound as it examines the possibilities of (re)-learning through listening in relation to both human and more-than-human explorations and possible “epiphanies”, imagining openings beyond stereotypical knowing. /Jenny Sunesson Image copyright: Ida Lindgrenopen exposition comments (0)
The exposition shares the collaborative multispecies journey and addresses the issue of art, art-based research and of art-based research publishing. The three processes are seeing as intra-activity between multiple species, materials, media. It does not have a goal as destination but is driven by curiosity and care for and with each other. This ever-expanding becoming creates ever new world and possibilities and so the new knowing-being. The exposition is a map that combines different tracing and it is up to the reader to follow any direction they prefer at the moment.open exposition comments (0)
This thesis is an attempt to unfold multifaceted discussions in multispecies entanglements, focusing on the fundamental act of feeding—a process that extends beyond mere sustenance to become a critical interaction within the web of life. It interlaces a rich array of perspectives, combining academic research, artistic inquiry, and personal reflections to illuminate the diverse implications of feeding.open exposition comments (0)
This marks the first of an anticipated sequence of iterative sharing of work within my PhD project, the methodology of which explores barefoot walking , analogue recording techniques, and a curation of indexical documents generated throughout.open exposition comments (0)
HAV evokes the spatiality of the undersea landscape together with the colours and lifeforms within this hidden, fluid realm. HAV has many co-creators: barnacles and marine biologists, porcelain, sugar kelp, saltwater, ceramicists, crabs, clay, annelids and many more. HAV was orchestrated by artist and landscape architect Elin T. Sørensen as part of her doctoral project “Multispecies Neighborhoods in Urban Sea Areas,” the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, NMBU. Curated by Annike Flo and staged at the Norwegian BioArt Arena NOBA Vitenparken Campus Ås 2020. Image: Barnacle (Semibalanus balanoides). Scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrograph acquired at the Imaging Centre NMBU by Lene Cecilie Hermansen with Zeiss EVO50 EP. Sørensen © BONO 2020.open exposition comments (0)