Research Catalogue

"Play" was a project developed by Matilde Meireles and Diogo Alvim with the participation of experimental filmmaker Richard O'Sullivan. This multilayered performance was specially conceived for the annex of the Physical Education Centre at Queen's University Belfast, a building composed of several squash courts and an audience area. The project encompassed live music (a brass ensemble), electronics, video projections, and a live squash game, all affecting the perception of the site. This building became the main character of an immersive acoustic experience, where a game of squash was the starting point to explore ideas about architecture and place through sound. The squash courts were subject to acoustic processes extrapolated from two of Alvin Lucier's most important works—"Vespers" and "I am sitting in room". Also the floor markings were manipulated, as a reference to Edward Krasinski's obsession with a never-ending line. These extended beyond the performance space to reveal unexpected connections.

This article introduces the project "Sunnyside", an album and composition created using extended recording techniques inside the domestic space of my home during the initial Covid-19 lockdown in Belfast in 2020. While there was widespread public discourse around the ways in which public and outdoor spaces were changing during the pandemic, there was relatively little discussion concerning the changes occurring in indoor and domestic spaces. "Sunnyside" was an attempt to sense, analyze, and represent those changes and examine what they might mean. The following discussion draws on ideas of critical phonography, systems theory, situated knowledge, and interconnectivity to illustrate the project’s refusal of the physical boundaries of the home under lockdown. This critical reflection on everyday routines underscores the project’s relationship with memory, place, and the sonic documentation of everyday personal auditory experiences while opening up a discussion about social networks, both immediate and distributed.

Territórios Expansivos é o tema subjacente a um programa de atividades de investigação artística desenvolvido pela OSSO – Associação Cultural, e coordenado por Diogo Alvim e Matilde Meireles desde janeiro de 2020. O programa culmina nesta publicação, um pequeno projecto editorial que procura estabelecer relações entre diferentes perspectivas e modos de operação em investigação artística, bem como entre diferentes instituições. Nela participam quatro artistas que foram convidados para desenvolver ensaios à volta deste tema. A publicação foi acolhida em parceria editorial pela Cátedra UNESCO em Gestão das Artes e da Cultura, Cidades e Criatividade do Instituto Politécnico de Leiria. Expansive Territories is the theme underlying a program of artistic research activities developed by OSSO – Associação Cultural, and coordinated by Diogo Alvim and Matilde Meireles since January 2020. The program culminates in this publication, a small editorial project that seeks to establish relationships between different perspectives and modes of operation in artistic research, as well as between different institutions. Four artists were invited to develop essays around this theme. The publication was hosted as an editorial partnership by the UNESCO Chair in Arts and Culture Management, Cities and Creativity, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria.