Research Catalogue

Material strategies explores ways of practicing materiality in relation to artistic processes of creation. It responds and aims to contribute to questions related to sustainability and the antropocene, identity and subject formations, and appropriation and cultural exchange. With reference to object oriented philosophy and new materialism as an ethical ground, the proposed research project will investigate voice and body as material in relation to spaces, architecture and objects. How can we as artists to a greater extent listen to the agency of the material and let it shape our artistic work? How do human ideas, emotions, visions and memories come into play when the artistic strategy calls for less power and control over the material? How are performative and material practices articulating the embodied nature of memory? The project will further develop pedagogical areas that are fundamental to the teaching practices at NTA. Professor in Dramaturgy and Performance Camilla Eeg-Tverbakk will lead the project reflecting her recent PhD project Theatre-ting, toward a materialist practice of staging documents, which deals with object oriented philosophy as a framework for investigating dramaturgical practice and the ethics connected to staging documents. Other involved staff members are: Assistant professor Øystein Elle, Professor in scenography Jakob Oredsson, Assistant professor Electa Behrens, and research fellow Ingvild Holm. We arranged a two days international seminar at VEGA scene in Oslo on 28. February and 1. March 2019.A two weeks practical workshop, culminating in a public presentation and discussion happens between 29. April and 10. May 2019.

In the sphere of contemporary composition and performance, the material for composers and musicians is not only sound, but extends to different forms of visuality, objects, movements and language. The Extended Composition project poses some fundamental questions: what new strategies for composition and performance will have to be developed to master the multitude of sign systems emergent from music’s expanded material array? What new significance is emerging from the layers in an extended composition of sound, language and movements, and how do we evaluate it? This presentation contains reflections and presentations of three artistic works done in collaboration between composers, musicians, dancers and other artists. The project group has been Henrik Hellstenius, Tanja Orning, Christian Blom, Ellen Ugelvik and Camilla Eeg-Tverbakk.