Research Catalogue

an international database for artistic research

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  Talking Transformations: Home on the Move (2022) author(s): Ricarda Vidal, Manuela Perteghella published in: Research Catalogue
  This exposition comprises an online version of a travelling exhibition which was curated by Manuela Perteghella and Ricarda Vidal in 2018/19 as a direct outcome of our collaborative Arts-Council-funded project "Talking Transformations: Home on the Move". The online exhibition charts the journeys of two poems about "home" around Europe and the transformations they underwent as they were translated through different languages and into film. Initiated as a response to Brexit, the poetic journeys focused on the EU countries most important to migration into and out of the UK—for migration to the UK, Romania and Poland; for migration from the UK, France and Spain. The online exhibition invites viewers to listen to the poets and translators recite their literary versions and to watch the artists' filmic interpretations. It also includes recordings of translations made by Ricarda and Manuela in response to the the multiple versions of the initial source poems. The exposition concludes with a section dedicated to reflections about the project by some of the people who took part in it.
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• The Search for Resonance (2022) author(s): Per Martinsen connected to: Norwegian Artistic Research Programme published in: Research Catalogue
  ABSTRACT V.1 - "THE SEARCH FOR RESONANCE" - OCTOBER 2018 «The Search for Resonance» by Per Martinsen, Research Fellow, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Faculty of Fine Arts In my project I want to investigate correspondences between frequency and geometry in order to build an “alphabet” that can be used as a platform for creating new musical and audiovisual works. I will use cymatic visualization techniques to look for patterns that stand out in their clarity and geometrical symmetry, and use the frequency data that cause these visual occurrences to create a musical scale that corresponds to these geometrical attributes. I will also map out the geometrical data to build a corresponding library, so that I can experiment with using these data to compose works from a visual viewpoint, and I also want to experiment with live sound in spaces that correspond with the geometrical data from the cymatic works to see how this can be used in a creative context. Having a background in an artistic practice that has focused mainly on very “physical” use of sound, i.e. rhythmic music usually played at loud amplitudes and with a strong focus on low frequencies, I want to explore how sound interacts with matter in a more profound way, in order to understand my medium better. My aim is to see if I can develop new tools for manipulating matter through the use of sound both in my own artistic practice, but also for my peers within the field and others interested in the subject. BACKGROUND The first known significant body of work on cymatic visualization of sound was developed through experiments carried out by Ernst Chladni (1756-1827). The term cymatics was later coined by Hans Jenny (1904-1972), and later György Kepes of Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MiT carried out some further research into the field, resulting in the development of a new thermodynamic technique using burning gas inside metal tubes as a new form of visualization of sound. Later developments in the field have been conducted by German photographer and researcher Alexander Lauterwasser, who studied the effects of sound on water, and by Ron Rocco, who used sound to manipulate pattern shifts in mercury via the use of lasers. Artists currently working in this field include, New Zealand- born musician Nigel Stanford, who extensively uses visual manifestation of sound in his music and video work ABSTRACT REV. II - “THE SEARCH FOR RESONANCE” - AUGUST 2019   A recurring dream:   I find myself inside a concert venue. Sometimes this is an actual venue that I have visited, or played at, sometimes not. To the right side of the stage, there is a backdoor. I enter, and find myself in a corridor leading to an empty room. The room is heated, has no windows, and feels claustrophobic. There is a small, open door in the wall on the left side of the room. Leaning through the door, I see a ladder leading further downwards, to another room underground.  I climb down the ladder, and find myself in an even smaller, warmer, and more claustrophobic space. There is a small table and two chairs in the middle of this room, and I can sense that someone have just been sitting in one of the chairs. I somehow just sense this, and sometimes there are traces like a recently smoked cigarette lying in an ashtray sat on the table, or crumbs left on the table by someone who just ate their lunch there. At the end of this room, a sound studio is rigged up against the wall. A mixing desk, with a speaker on each side. I walk over to the speakers, and look behind them, as if to find another layer, but find that there is nothing there.   As I set out last year with my project «The Search for Resonance», I stated that I wanted to «investigate correspondences between frequency and geometry in order to build an audiovisual “alphabet” that could be used as a platform for creating new musical and audiovisual works» - a very concrete task of creating a tool for myself and others, based on rather pre-conceived conclusions of what I am about to find.   Now, after one year of delving into the material, I have realised that what I actually have set out to look for rather could be rephrased «The essence of Sound?», or «How (and why) does sound manifest in the physical universe?», or even «What am I doing here?»   This realisation has moved my focus from investigating the laws of physics governing the behaviour of soundwaves into far more fundamental existential questions of philosophy and purely metaphysical territories.    It has also moved my perspective away from that of an non-academic self-taught artist glancing into the workings of current day scientific paradigms of “hard science”, back to far more personal and highly subjective experience-based areas of investigation, areas that I, like any sentient being who have ever questioned their conscious existence in this world, am as much an expert (or a fool) as anyone else.   This return to the world of pure artistic subjectivity I find both liberating and challenging, as the confusing (and somehow unclear) concept of artistic research being both academic and non-academic in its approach made me feel unable to move forward and do what I do best: the work of an independent artist.   All this leaves me more open-ended than when I started out, although I intuitively seem to stick to my habitual ways of working, which is to seek out to constantly develop my methods and aesthetics when it comes to work with sound, music and other channels of expression, update myself on news within the world of physics and other hard sciences, and keep on investigating the vast material available on metaphysical philosophies.   The only question that arises is: In what way, if any, does this concern anyone other than myself? ABSTRACT REV. III - “THE SEARCH FOR RESONANCE” - OCTOBER 2020 When I set out working with my project, I stated that I wanted to «investigate correspondences between frequency and geometry in order to build an audiovisual “alphabet” that could be used as a platform for creating new musical and audiovisual works». How scientific of me. Now, halfway into the project, I have learned that these kind of pre-conceived conclusions of what I am about to find, and how I can apply it to my work, is as far from artistic research as you can get. But it’s not that far from how I’ve always worked, to be honest. Things always seem to just emerge, the moment you start working. What emerged about a year into my project, was an expanded understanding of the word “Resonance”, especially in relation to artistic processes. Questions like: “How to create resonance?”, “Who does it resonate with?” or “Who creates the resonance?”, became more important than an artist only looking at the physical resonating qualities of sound. Not that the physical resonating qualities of sound are not included in the project anymore. They’ve just been given their own space. Investigated through the eyes and experiences of another me. One investigator turned out to be far from enough. So I have tried to split myself, as through a prism. Into three primary colours. To maintain three different perspectives. This way of projecting different self-images has made me able to look at the subject matter through new lenses - some more familiar than others. But all refreshing in their fictitious freedom. Getting others to do the hard work is always a smart workaround. So now I mostly write, and let the characters make their music through me.
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• Ph.d. (2022) author(s): Honey B. Beckerlee published in: Research Catalogue
  Honey Biba Beckerlees practice based PhD Digital Matters situates itself in the paradox between, on the one hand, the culturally wide spread assumption that cyberspace is bodyless and the internet is immaterial, while on the other hand the overconsumption of energy and the extraction, distribution and transformation of massive land masses in the consumption of raw materials in digital technologies, which end up as great amounts of toxic electronic waste and recently has given us an outlook to the depletion of several chemical elements. The project seeks to find new understandings of - and ways of relating to the digital, by drawing on post-human and more-than-human perspectives on the technology. Inspired by feminist versions of quantum mechanics and (new) materialism, that question classic distinctions between mind/body, immaterial/physical and ultimately what can be considered living and not living, this practice-based research project seeks to make art works that take the body and the plastic resources back into the center of an understanding of the technology. Through a method of intra-action inspired by Karen Barad, the project aims to make artistic experiments that facilitate new materials, forms of expression and processes with digital raw materials. From a notion of distributed agency the project asks: What new ways of cognitive comprehension lies in taking into consideration the entanglements between people and technology by tracing how chemical elements travel from nature into computers and humans? How is our understanding of an extremely temporary technology if we consider it in a perspective of deep time through the journey of minerals over thousands of years? Can one develop a new sensibility towards digital technology through art, that takes finitude into consideration?
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• Scoring political movement and its exhaustion (2022) author(s): olia sosnovskaya published in: Research Catalogue
  The paper studies revolutionary event and its temporality through the concept of a movement score.
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  I'll make a sweater out of this, I swear (2022) author(s): Hubert Thériault published in: Research Catalogue
  This exhibition is a collection of the past work leading to Hubert's latest movement research: “I’ll make a sweater out of this, I swear”. His researches are centered around entanglement and the diffraction of Quebec’s colonial history as well as the navigation in familial lineage. This exhibition shows the process of unbecoming and of mixing and knitting oneself with others’ tread.
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• White/acoustic infrastructure: a crucial tool for the transition to an environmentally sustainable future in urban areas: The case of Paris La Defense, a modern district in dissonance (2022) author(s): Sara El Samman published in: Research Catalogue
  The national lockdown due to COVID-19 abruptly cut down on human activity in cities, and enabled urban dwellers to notice nature’s comeback through birdsong: It has shown that today’s urban environment is in acoustic imbalance. My research aims to provide an overview on how soundscapes fit into the landscape design process, and to explore the notion of white/sonic infrastructure in order to give a tangible tool for landscape architects to read landscapes with their ears and design acoustically sensible places for all living beings. Sound informs the design process not simply by reducing unwanted noise but by encouraging a sound-considered city design approach. This adopted strategy would entail the extraction and reinterpretation of sonic cues as blueprints for the reshaping of the space and the transformation of the soundscape experience for users and nature alike. The paper applies all of its findings on Paris La Defense, the biggest business district in Europe, who’s current morphology, within the ring of noise that is the “Boulevard circulaire”, dissociates it from its territory creating acoustic and physical discontinuities. A study of the flows that animate the site along with its morphology helped me extract the multiple sonotopes (sonic biotopes) that shape the acoustic space of the district. Sound maps were created and a white infrastructure strategy was furthermore developed. The article develops an elaborate method that could help translate a soundscape vision into concrete landscape design actions and proposes an approach to sonic continuities on large and local scales. White infrastructure affords the additional dimension necessary to conceive the landscape and to create space for the non-human, for the human, and for the dialogue between them. The notion of eco-acoustic design contributes to shaping a non-anthropocentric city that is considerate of all living things and therefore is crucial to designing ecological urban ecosystems.
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