Åsa Unander-Scharin

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Sweden °1963
research interests: choreography, music, artistic research, robotic art, digital musical instruments, opera, opensoundcontrol, extended techniques
affiliation: Luleå university of technology/ Music and dance
en

Åsa Unander-Scharin (PhD, Prof.) is an artist-researcher in the intersection of opera, dance, music, interactive technology and robotics. In 2008 her doctoral thesis: Human mechanics and soulful machines was published. She holds a position as professor of music performance at Luleå university of technology, and years 2013-15 she was member of The Committee for Artistic Research at The Swedish Research Council.

Artistic work: www.operamecatronica.com

LTU website: www.ltu.se/staff/a/asauna-1.12342

research

research expositions (collaborated)

  • From dialectal archives to music material (last edited: 2023) author(s): A M Elkjär, Åsa Unander-Scharin This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
    Ann Elkjär, Musikhögskolan Ingesund PhD student LTU Thinking about dialects, my experience is always a feeling of loss: As a child I spoke in Fryksdalsmål, a dialect from the region of Värmland. The dialect is renowned for its singing, musical qualities, which is sometimes stated as one of the reasons for the very strong oral storytelling tradition within Värmland. Today, as a professional flautist living in Gothenburg, some of my dialectal speech disappeared over the years. However, I do believe that my playing and musicianship is influenced by the dialect and story-telling from Värmland in several ways. With this exposition-draft, I would like to address the question on how dialectal speech can create new musical material. This exposition-draft presents a collaboration between me and composer Ida Lundén. In a series of workshops starting in August 2022, we set out to explore how historical analogue voice recordings of Swedish story-tellers and their dialect, in so many ways marked by time and the archival touch, have the capacity to bring forth new musical material, and thus, create new micro-stories. Furthermore, the overarching aim with this exposition is to discuss how performer-composer collaboration through artistic research may provide novel perspectives on the use of archival audio recordings, and by that bringing them to life. The collaboration is an ongoing project, where the new work by Ida Lundén will be premiered at Atalante, Göteborg, the 24th of February 2024. After the premier concert, a possible exposition for VIS will be completed with video documentation from the concert as well as the full analysis and results of the project.
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Exposition: Working With a Witches’ Broom / Att Arbeta med en Markvast (18/01/2014) by Annette Arlander
Åsa Unander-Scharin 26/03/2015 at 13:31

Annette Arlander explores the specific materiality a witches’ broom offers as a collaborator. In a few small performances, she has varied and combined these basic elements in various ways. The purpose of her exposition is, besides looking at the similarities and dissimilarities among these variations, to experiment with changing the language.


The artistic process is discussed in an earlier book chapter. In this RUUKKU exposition the public performances and the artistic processes are made clear by images, sound tracks and video documentations.


The research issue is contextualized in terms of theoretical issues such as Michael Marder’s Plant–Thinking which invites to consider the witches’ broom’s existence as a living being, something resembling a plant without really being one, and Jane Bennett book Vibrant Matter where she summarizes her view on matter downplaying or evading the difference between the organic and the inorganic, the animate and the inanimate, and claims some degree of agency to all matter.


The issue of the materiality of the witches’ broom leads to the question of the materiality of the digital video material. In public performances Arlander performs with video projections and claims that they have been her most important partners.


The research is thoroughly accomplished and the dialogue between her art and contemporary philosophy is stimulating and fruitful.


The exposition Working with a Witches’ Broom consists of two parts, discussion and demonstration. In the discussion the reader is led very smoothly and convincingly into the project, while navigation through the demonstration part is not quite as easy. Given the author’s call that the two parts can be read, watched and listened to in the order we prefer, it would be desirable if the demonstration was presented and organized in a more clear way.


The best about this exposition is the consistent link between research issues, theory, art practice and presentation formats. The thoughts, knowledge and insights are presented and shared in a straightforward, generous and inclusive manner.


The concept with varying versions of Working With a Witches' Broom, multilingualism, Marder’s Plant-Thinking and Bennett’s Vibrant Matter form an exciting field where the project's various impulses stimulate new thinking in the dialogue between art and philosophy.