Research Catalogue

an international database for artistic research

• 2024. ACPA ACPA 2024

• Between air and electricity : microphones and loudspeakers as musical instruments (last edited: 2023) author(s): Cathy van Eck connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
  This research of Cathy van Eck takes the artistic use of the devices that bring sound waves into electricity and back as its central focus point; they are commonly called microphones and loudspeakers. These devices have become essential for many forms of music making. Through the same pair of loudspeakers, people listen to diverse music and sound, such as violin sonatas, rock songs or simply the latest news. Accordingly, microphones and loudspeakers are often designed to remain transparent; that is, "inaudible" in the final sound result. From the 1950s on, microphones and loudspeakers started to play a crucial role not only in the mere reproduction of sound, but also in the creation of music. Composers and musicians often described these new possibilities of using microphones and loudspeakers as musical instruments. This resulted not only in many pieces and performances that used microphones and loudspeakers in unusual ways but also in many new possibilities for musical composition. Confronted with microphones and loudspeakers through my own practice as a composer using electro-acoustic media, Van Eck investigated how microphones and loudspeakers could become musical instruments. This resulted in 28 compositions and a text about historical, theoretical, and practical aspects of the subject. To obtain a clear picture of the possibilities of microphones and loudspeakers in music, Van Ec develops four approaches in my dissertation. Three of them focus on the transparent use (reproducing, supporting and generating). The fourth approach focuses on the use of microphone and loudspeakers in an opaque way; that is, as musical instruments. Van Eck calls this the interacting approach, since the music should, in contrast to the other approaches, not be transmitted through microphones and loudspeakers, but formed, coloured, and changed by these devices. The fourth approach was the starting point for 28 compositions, in which Van Eck investigates in what ways one could interact or "play" microphones and loudspeakers. This resulted in a categorisation of three interaction parameters: movement, material and space. Van Eck looked at how these interaction parameters might be recognised in the work of other musicians and composers, as well as how the interaction with microphones and loudspeakers influenced compositional form, the performance situation, and the relationship between musician and musical instrument. This resulted in a theory and praxis in which Van Eck elaborates upon unique features of music, composed with microphones and loudspeakers. Several chapters of this dissertation have been adapted and made into the book ‘Between Air and Electricity : Microphones and Loudspeakers as Musical Instruments’ which has been published at Bloomsbury Open Access DOI 10.5040/9781501327636
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• Shifting identities : the musician as theatrical perfomer (last edited: 2023) author(s): Falk Hübner connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
  The artistic PhD research "Shifting Identities", by Falk Hübner, investigates the musicians' professional identity and how this identity might shift when musicians start acting as theatrical performers. In most of the theatrical situations where musicians "perform", their profession is extended by additional tasks such as walking on stage or reciting text. As an alternative strategy to extension, this research introduces and focuses on reduction, which means the abstracting away of specific qualities or abilities of the musician's profession. The audience watches musicians not doing certain things that usually belong to their profession. Both the expansive and the reductive approaches are concepts of working theatrically with musicians. They are different, perhaps even contradictory strategies, but both bear the ability to enrich the musician's professional identity with a more theatrical appearance. In order to build an understanding of what is extended or reduced when the identity shifts from a musician to a theatrical (musician-)performer a dynamic model is developed which builds strongly on what musicians actually do, a model that categorises the musician's professional activities into internal, external and contextual elements.
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• Grenzen van het hoorbare: over de meerstemmigheid van het lichaam (last edited: 2023) author(s): Mark van Tongeren  connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
  In our culture, vocal harmonics fuction as independent musical elements since only a few decades. Thresholds of the audible explores the changing relationship between singers, listeners and harmonics. As a research method a series of compositions (Nulpunten/’Zeropoints’) has been developed, which attempt to make a fresh approach to overtone singing and to the sonic source material of the human body. They spark off further investigations of reality and illusion of our auditory world. Using his experiences with Tibetan monks and Sardinian brotherhoods and the ‘transverbal’ oeuvre of Michael Vetter, Mark van Tongeren develops his notion ‘multiphony of the body’. The last word, according to him, must be given to readers/listeners, who are challenged to shift their thresholds of the audible with the cd It starts here and the performance Incognito ergo sum.
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• Laborinth II : denken als experiment : 472 'meditaties' over de noodzaak van het creatief denken en experimenteren in het uitvoeren van complexe muziek van 1962 tot heden (last edited: 2023) author(s): Arne Deforce connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
  This research of Arne Deforce is only available in Dutch. Boek I : Het hier voorliggende proefschrift Laborinth Π Boek II : De ‘Laborinth-art-box’, een speciaal op 15 exemplaren gemaakt collectors item, met daarin de boeken 1 en 3, de originele partituren van Brian Ferneyhoughs Time and Motion Study II, John Cages Etudes Boreales met begeleidende vingervellen met de publicatie van de vingerzettingen, werkverslagen, het citaten boek ‘De partituur van het denken’, drie cd’s met de integrale opname van de cellowerken van Giacinto Scelsi, Morton Feldman en Iannis Xenakis verschenen bij het label Aeon, een Laborinth Π-affiche, het programmaboekje van de Laborinth Π-cellomarathon. De ‘laborinth-art-box’ werd gemaakt naar een ontwerp van Arne Deforce in gepolierd plexiglas, 34 x 47, 6,5 cm. Boek III : De partituur met alle vingerzettingen en annotaties van het nieuwe werk Life-form voor cello en elektronica van Richard Barrett dat speciaal werd gecomponeerd voor de artistieke presentatie van het proefschrift. De artistieke presentatie bestaat uit: (1) de creatie van het nieuwe cellowerk Life-from van Richard Barrett in opdracht van het Concertgebouw Brugge, Centre Pousseur Liège, November Music s’Hertogenbosch, Akademie de Kunsten Universiteit Leiden. Première 10 november 2012, Festival November Music, Hervomde Kerk te s’Hertogenbosh, en 11 november Festival Surround, Concertgebouw Brugge. (2) een cello marathon van drie concerten op één dag met werken van James Dillon, John Cage, Jonathan Harvey, Raphael Cendo, Iannis Xenakis, Helmut Lachenmann, Iannis Xenakis, Richard Barrett. 12 november Kees Vanbaarenzaal, Conservatorium Den Haag.
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• Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger (ca. 1581 – 1651) : Betrachtungen zu seinem Leben und Umfeld, seiner Vokalmusik und seinem praktischen Material zum Basso continuo-Spiel (last edited: 2023) author(s): Anne Marie Dragosits  connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
  The thesis of Anne Marie Dragosits presents a new perspective on Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger (ca.1580-1651), who is nowadays only famous for his works for theorbo and lute, his remarkable output of vocal music of all genres being still mostly neglected from musicologists and performers. The thesis aims to change the perception of the composer via three different angles: A reconstruction of his life and career with a substantial amount of new biographical information builds one pillar of the book, whereas in the second part his vocal works are approached and contextualized as prototypes of radical „stile novo“ in Roman characteristic. The last third is dedicated to questions about basso continuo and Roman performance practice in Kapsperger’s lifetime, dealing also with the composers’ own material on continuo as fount of inspiration for continuo players of all instruments. Important notice from the author: Further research after finishing the PhD has unearthed important new archival material. Some of my hypotheses have been strongly confirmed, but some chapters of the biographical part of this thesis are not valid any more. Please find an updated version of Kapsperger’s biography here: https://www.lim.it/en/essay/5964-giovanni-girolamo-kapsperger-9788855430470.html Vienna, the 14th of November 2020 Anne Marie Dragosits
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• Harmonic duality : from interval ratios and pitch distance to spectra and sensory dissonance (last edited: 2023) author(s): Juan Sebastian Lach Lau connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
  Dissonance curves are the starting point for an investigation into a psychoacoustically informed harmony. Its main hypothesis is that harmony consists of two independent but intertwined aspects operating simultaneously, namely proportionality and linear pitch distance. The former aspect is related to intervallic characters, the latter to ‘high’, ‘low’, ‘bright’ and ‘dark’, therefore to timbre. This research of Juan Sebastian Lach Lau derives from the development of tools for algorithmic composition which extract pitch materials from sound signals, analyzing them according to their timbral and harmonic properties, putting them into motion through diverse rhythmic and textural procedures. The tools and the reflections derived from their use offer fertile ideas for the generation of instrumental scores, electroacoustic soundscapes and interactive live-electronic systems.
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