Engaging with site-specific design through experiential learning and case-based learning
(2021)
author(s): Andrea Moneta
published in: Research Catalogue
The exposition presents findings and outputs from a trans-disciplinary research project involving students and tutors of level 5 BA Architecture and Theatre design courses of NTU.
The process of reading, understanding and interpreting the inner character and performative attributes of architecture, and in-depth exploration and expression of spatial practice, are essential aspects for any design intervention on existing buildings for site-specific performance, but they are not enough used for architectural design. The originality of the action research lies in its trans-disciplinary approach and methodology derived from theatre and performance design, aimed at helping Architecture students to engage with the character of architectural spaces as a propaedeutic step of their design. The final goal was not just the resolution of a specific didactic need, but also the realisation of a resource for educators and practitioners, so to fill a gap in the literature of site-specific design methodology. The academic literature regarding site-specific performance, in fact, is more oriented in depicting its historical background, describing past and current practice, than summoning up its methodologies and applications.
For this research Moneta designed and planned a series of multidisciplinary learning activities (perception lab, mapping, dramaturgy of the place) using a constructivist approach, within a collaborative design project with level 5 BA Architecture and Theatre design students, involving the exploration of an historical building in Worksop (UK). The research utilised a combination of Active Learning approach, based on Kolb's Experiential Learning and Case-based learning (CBL); a final questionnaire measured the impact of the research: 87.4% of students agreed that this new methodology helped them to design for site-specific places. Moneta summoned the research in a resource for colleagues in the form of a Poster that explained its methodology, identifying nodal points and learning activities to improve design for site-specific in BA level design courses. The research was peer-reviewed as part of PGCAP final assessment, and the Poster was exhibited at TILT showcase 2019.
Voicelanding - Exploring the scenographic potential of acoustic sound in site-sensitive performance
(2021)
author(s): Mareike Nele Dobewall
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
This practical artistic research project explores how the performance of acoustic sound in dialogue with site can create a sonic scenography, experienced by an audience from within the sonic structures.
Six art projects were carried out in the context of this research. Their form varies due to the site-sensitive approach that is employed: the space and the participating musicians are both the source and the frame for the resulting spatial sound performances.
During workshops the collaborating musicians are introduced to site-sensitive methods. They learn full-body listening, spatial sounding, and space-care. The musicians learn to co-create with the space. In a collaborative process, spatial sound compositions are created using the site-specific sonic material that is elicited from the dialogue between the performers and the space. The relation to the audience plays an important role in the sharing of the performance space and the experience of the sonic scenographies. Therefore, active audience encounter is considered during the creative process towards the performance and it is further explored during each performance.
As sound is invisible and ephemeral it is a vulnerable material to engage with when creating scenographies. In this research its instability has revealed itself as an indispensable quality of a scenography that aims to connect the elements of a shared space and make their relations perceivable.
There is a tendency to make ‘reliable’ material scenographies and to sustain spatial sound through audio systems while attempting to overcome the challenges a site brings to performance. This approach to performance, scenography, and spatial sound composition, however, limits the relation between acoustic sound and site. In my sonic scenographies the performers are dependent on the dialogue with the space in order to create sonic structures that can be experienced by an audience. The attention needed for this collaboration is space-care. It includes care for all entities in the space, and especially the audience. The ephemeral quality of acoustic sound creates an active sonic scenography that performs together with the musicians, and engages multimodal listening.
The resulting spatial sound performance includes the placement and movement of sonic expressions that are specific for each instrument-site relation. In the created performance, as the audience can ‘roam through’ it, they can experience a sonic scenography that unfolds around them. In the interaction of performers and audience in these shared spaces (architectural space and sonic space) a social space can develop that allows for an ephemeral community to emerge.
FAUXTHENTICATION – Art, Academia and Authorship (or the site-specifics of the Academic Artist)
(2020)
author(s): Bogdan Szyber
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
Fauxthentication – Art, Academia & Authorship (or the site-specifics of the academic artist) investigates the means of production of the art that can be created within the boundaries of artistic research.
It explores the factors that constitute its value system, who or what can produce these signs of value, and for what reasons.
The project examines the conditions that expose the flaws of the increasingly standardised higher education industry, which artistic research today is a part of, through the use of institutional critique, critical interventions and site-specific case studies.
In a series of performative stagings, Fauxthentication probes the pressures inherent to academic excellence, leading to the grey economy of the higher education industry, that supports and capitalizes on academic fraud, all performed by a global digital proletariat.
Artistic research is habitually linked to an academised and thus bureaucratised art practice.
This project draws critical attention to the risk of it creating its own branch of artistic research art, or ”edu-art”, as well as its own category of artistic research theory; thus prone to becoming self-referential and codified, coagulating into a new ‘ism’ for the initiated. ‘Edu-art-ism’ grapples with artistic quality assessment, systematically addressing solely the theoretical framing of the work.
The Fauxthentication project acknowledges the complexity of the conditions of artistic research by proposing, through its series of explorative stagings, a challenging new way of viewing and hence transforming the very field that it is a part of.
TALKING TREES
(last edited: 2017)
author(s): Annette Arlander
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This exposition is presenting (and archiving) a work in progress consisting of site-specific sound installations or audio plays created for particular trees. The work is inspired by the ancient Celtic beth-luis-nion tree alphabet.