Research Catalogue

an international database for artistic research

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  Documenting Non-Sonic Music (2023) author(s): Paul Norman, Andy Ingamells, Michael Wolters published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
  How to document music with non-sonic elements? Or: How to document all the performative qualities of a piece of music that can’t be heard? Beginning with this question our group of researchers, filmmakers and dramaturgs from Birmingham (UK), Frankfurt (Germany) and Fredrikstad (Norway) met between 2019 and 2021 to develop initial ideas and questions, then test them.
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  A–Z Display Units (After Kiesler & Krischanitz) 2015–2020 (2020) author(s): Gavin Wade published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
  Art is not exhibited. Art Exhibits – Gavin Wade, 2012. Wade’s practise and research challenges the nature and understanding of art’s primary function as an exhibition. His work expands the artist-curator role through his development of new systems of display. These draw on historical precedents creating sculptural mediations between artists, curators, and publics. He proposes transformative artworks as social systems and temporal experiences, always requiring collaboration with others. Drawing from studies of ‘useful art’, ‘artist and engineering’, ‘support structures’ (Condorelli and Wade, 2009) and referencing Artist Placement Group’s concept ‘context is half the work’, his output informs understandings of ‘when artists curate’ (Green, 2018) and the ‘transhistorical museum’ (Demeester, 2018). Wade’s remodelling and extending of a series of ‘Display Units’ use a process of ‘upcycling’, a term Wade uses to describe his method. In 2015 Wade started developing artworks upcycled from the ‘L and T–Type Display Units’ (Frederick Kiesler,1924) and referencing the ‘Vienna Secession Mobile Wall System’ (Adolf Krischanitz,1986). Wade’s synthesizing method is generating a new A–Z alphabet Display Unit system as part of the process of re-imagining curatorial activities as a form of art practice. His Upcycle This Book (2017), nominated for the European Prix Bob Calle du livre d’artiste, presents 26 texts on this work and 12 Display Unit drawings. Wade created Display Units for ‘Display Show’(2015), exhibited in Dublin, Birmingham and Netherlands – funded by ACE/British Council International Artists Development Award. Christopher Williams (USA), Eilis McDonald (IRE) and Leeds Weirdo Club (UK) were collaborating artists. Wade worked with Frans Hals Museum collection to create ‘Z is for ZOO’ (2017) exploring the transhistorical potential of his ‘Z-Type’ and ‘T-Type’ Display Units, artworks purchased by the museum. His writing for ‘Display Show’ provided the provocation for ‘That Art Exhibits’: EARN Conference, Brussels (2016). Wade was the invited keynote speaker.
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  Johannes Brahms: Historically-Informed Recording of the Piano Quartets (2020) author(s): Anthony JOHN THWAITES published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
  This Exposition presents a Double CD of Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quartets, recorded on period instruments in Vienna by The Primrose Piano Quartet for the Meridian label (CDE84650/1-2, 2019). The recording is presented in fully streamable MP3 format alongside a PDF of the CD booklet proof. Accompanying the recording is an essay which documents the research questions, methodology and processes underpinning the work. Preparation, rehearsal, recording and editing are discussed as a process of interpretative investigation. Historically-Informed Performance Practice with respect to Brahms is a thriving academic discipline within which we have endeavoured to offer the most radically innovative post-war commercial recording of the piano quartets.
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  The ‘elsewhereness’ of post-genre: utilising playfulness of cross-genre references as a compositional device (2020) author(s): Joe Cutler published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
  This set of three works individually and collectively examine the ‘elsewhereness’ of post-genre composition. Through this research, I seek to develop a hybrid compositional aesthetic through the absorption, integration and referencing of a highly personal set of ‘influences’, many from outside the sphere of classical music. A fundamental concern is the examination of the role of ‘compositional play’ or ‘playfulness’ in unifying a multi-faceted compositional language. This is often manifested through intertextuality and the juxtaposition of diverse elements that are made to function at a structural or conceptual level. Through practice-based research, I obfuscate notions of genre, performance practice and content. Using the referencing of other musics as a compositional tool, I identify playfulness as a filter through which models of influence are transformed into something personal in an attempt to define what post-genre means to a 21st century composer. On a meta-structural level, reference becomes a parameter in its own right.
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  She plays angel music (where people might die) (2020) author(s): Michael Wolters, Paul Norman published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
  She plays angel music (where people might die) Post-Internet Music as a comment on the absorption of knowledge This exposition articulates the research within the artistic work She Plays Angel Music (where people might die), a 60-minute concert-installation for 5-25 female harpists. The research was triggered by highly questionable and incomplete information on the history of harp composition found on Wikipedia. While it is generally accepted that Wikipedia is not a reliable source in academia, it still a powerful source of knowledge amongst the general public. Thus, the incomplete display on the site promotes a) the historic and continuing discrimination of women from music composition in the classical music world and b) the continuing rejection of contemporary music in favour of music by dead composers in the classical music world. This exposition takes the reader through the compositional steps that were performed in order to create a post-internet work that attempts to highlight political situations by gathering publicly available information into a controversial context.
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  Reconstructing Verses by Henry Loosemore and John Coprario (2020) author(s): Helen Roberts published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
  This exposition comprises a package of outputs from practice-led research around two unique pieces of instrumental music with winds from early seventeenth-century England. Along with the first critical performance edition and a world premiere recording of these two pieces, I present a detailed discussion of the investigation which informed the editorial process, focussing on three historical artefacts: MS Drexel 5469, the fragmentary source of the music in question; the Christ Church cornetts, two original instruments that may historically have been associated with performance of this type of repertoire; and the St Teilo organ, an instrument reconstructed after Tudor archaeological evidence and representative of the style of instrument in use when MS Drexel 5469 was compiled. I examine each artefact in turn, establishing the wider historical context of each and assessing the connections between all three. This process has not only shed new light on two pieces overlooked by historical performers until now, but raised important questions surrounding the performance of early-seventeenth century liturgical music in general.
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