Changing the Subject: Talking as Sonic Material
This keynote channels the sound and agency of artistic research itself, taking the word as sonic material for an excursion in polyphonic social composition. A research festival or conference, such as the ARTikulationen days, may be seen as a grand embodied encounter within a hyper-communicative environment of sound-making and listening, with the word given central intersubjective agency. Within this environment, I will explore the mechanics by which imagination and conceptualization operate in parallel with concrete sonic articulations. More specifically, this talk aims to attune to how words and voices perform in contexts of discourse and conversation, using examples from within my own and others’ related sonic practices, current significant conversations in the public sphere, as well as discussions arising during this research festival. Actively blending formats and mechanisms of academic, public and informal discussion, recording, reenactment and polyphony, the talk will take our current acts of listening and talking as material to be explored (amplified, prolonged, edited and looped) ‘as we speak’.
Juliana Hodkinson
With a background in philosophy, musicology, languages and classical music, and an ongoing engagement in cultural politics, Juliana Hodkinson works as a composer with sound as a medium of both shared and individual experience and agency. She is passionate about linking music with its others – silence, listening and ambient, incidental or environmental sounds, for example - which she often casts as central players, while musical concepts and elements serve as a backdrop. The conditions and contexts of performance determine her compositions, and so extremely diverse sonic material such as urban noise, children's toys, falling feathers, crashing egg shells, the strike of a match, a screaming electric guitar, or the warm sound of a classical violin might be combined to set off different forms of sonic experience. Juliana Hodkinson's work includes electroacoustic orchestral works, installations and performance pieces, and several major works in hybrid formats, including Angel View, released on col legno records, and Ground View, its sequel She has published on topics within re-enactment, collective subjectivities, social resonance within performance projects, and organizational strategies for migrant sonic practices. Juliana Hodkinson is Associate Professor in classical and electronic composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, chairs the Danish Composers’ Society, and is a jury member of Berlin’s Hauptstadtkulturfonds.