HÉR! An Exploration of Artistic Agency - Media Repository

Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir

Media repository published as part of Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir's doctoral thesis 'HÉR! An Exploration of Artistic Agency' (2023). See here: https://bit.ly/LUResearchPortal Abstract: This doctoral thesis is concerned with agency in the work of a performer, curator, and composer, and how these agencies are socio-culturally constructed. Grounded in creative practice as primary research methodology, the project builds on feedback loops between creation, analysis, and interpretation. The aim is to better understand the conventional norms that define the roles of composer and performer and, further, to explore more dynamic approaches to these agencies through the perspectives of a composer, performer, and curator active in the fields of contemporary music and sound art. The project responds to the following research questions: o How can ecological-enactive and post-phenomenological perspectives on musical practice within Western classical music challenge current understandings of the roles of performer and composer? o What artistic methods can be employed to provide a more robust understanding of the fluidity of these roles, to uncover their potential for artistic renewal in the creation and performance of contemporary music? The research was designed as a series of micro-laboratories to look at agency through artistic collaboration in situations set in the concert hall, the recording studio, the virtual domain, and ecological sound art. This resulted in electroacoustic compositions, multi-channel installations, and site-specific work, including performances within a sonic hologram and with artificial intelligence. The analytical approach was built on autoethnography, and audio and video analysis through stimulated recall. The findings outline how the technological, non-human, and human agencies of environments affect and shape processual work. The analysis highlights how co-relation between theory and practice may both serve to unpack the pre-conditioning of agency, while the artistic experimentation in the laboratories seeks to explore other agential relations. Here, the intentionality of the technologies used in the lab have unfolded new perspectives on the conventional roles of composer and performer, while enabling the development of more dynamic practices. Through a study of the author’s curatorial practice, the role of a curator is understood not as defined by prescribed methods, but rather as dependent on the negotiation of the many agencies at play in artistic practice. The method development of the project has implications for the design of artistic research through the model of the laboratory. Herein, the use of audio and video technologies, particularly their application within stimulated recall methods, are integrated parts of analysis and artistic creation. The artistic research laboratory is proposed as a framework through which the potential of artistic research in music—as a vehicle for the development of new practices in professional contexts and in teaching environments—is substantiated and facilitated.

To access the thesis on Lund University's website, click here.

HÉR! An Exploration of Artistic Agency – Media Repository

Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir

Figure 1: Activating the wire of the railings of the Northern Lights Hall. Photograph by Angela Rawlings.

Chapter 6

Audio example 1: 1st movement of I play Northern Lights – binaural version (Stefánsdóttir, 2017).

Audio example 2: 2nd movement of I play Northern Lights - binaural version (Stefánsdóttir, 2017).

Link 1: Access the paper Participation and creation: towards an ecological understanding of artistic practice (Stefánsdóttir & Östersjö, 2019) by clicking here. The paper was published as part of a special issue in La Deleuziana.

Video example 7: Premiere of strengur (Stefánsdóttir, 2019). Performers are Akio Suzuki, Nguyễn Thanh Thủy, Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, and Stefan Östersjö.

Figure 11: Cover of the strengur album (2022). Find strengur on Bandcamp.

Violin with Þytur (Olofsson & Stefánsdóttir, 2021) can be accessed directly by clicking here.

Chapter 10

Figure 2: Cover of the Raindamage album (2017). Find Raindamage on Bandcamp.

Chapter 7

Video example 8: Stefánsdóttir's strengur video (Stefánsdóttir, 2022), released as part of the strengur (2022) album.

Figure 12: Cover of the Halla Steinunn & Halla Lovísa part of the strengur (2022) album project. Find Halla Steinunn & Halla Lovísa on Bandcamp.

Link 2: Access the audio paper He(a)r: Of an ecological enactive perspective (Stefánsdóttir, 2019) on Seismograf's website. A direct listening link may also be found here: Seismograf's Soundcloud site . The paper was part of Seismograf's special issue 'Sonic Argumentation I'.

Video example 1: VARP trailer (Stefánsdóttir, 2017).

Figure 3: Cover of the He(a)r (2018) album. Find He(a)r on Bandcamp.

Figure 5: Photograph of a cylinder in a former quarry on Härnäset isthmus.

Chapter 9

Audio example 3: Activation of a cylinder in a former quarry on Härnäset isthmus. Recorded on June 12, 2018.

Video example 2: Excerpt from the premiere of An Urban Archive as an English Garden (Franzson, 2019), at the SPOR festival, Aarhus, Denmark, May 11, 2019. Field recording in the work by Stefánsdóttir (2018).

Figure 7: Photograph of a shell bank on Härnäset isthmus, June 13, 2018.

Audio example 5: study in sound – the quarry (Stefánsdóttir, 2018).

Figure 6: Photograph of an activation at a gunpowder storage by Fågelviken bay on Härnäset isthmus, June 13, 2018.

Chapter 8

Audio example 4: Activation at a gunpowder storage by Fågelviken bay. Recorded on June 13, 2018.

Figure 4: The cover of Halla Steinunn & Davíð Brynjar, part of the strengur (2022) album release, which includes the recording of violin fragments (Franzson, 2022). Find violin fragments on Bandcamp.

Audio example 6: study in sound –the fossilised ocean (Stefánsdóttir, 2018).

Link 3: Access the audio paper Fleshy listening and multi-entity performance: of analytical processes within artistic research (Stefánsdóttir, 2021), through Seismograf's website or through Seismograf's Soundcloud site. Part of the special issue 'Sounds of Science'.

Video example 3: Excerpt from the documentation of the second performance of An Urban Archive as an English Garden (Franzson, 2019), at the Hljóðön series at Hafnarborg museum, Iceland, September 19, 2020. The footage used was filmed by Þráinn Hjálmarsson.

Chapter 9

Figure 8: The Fjärilarna steg upp performance score (Stefánsdóttir, 2020).

Video example 4: Trailer from Fjärilarna steg upp/The butterflies ascended (Stefánsdóttir 2020).

Figure 10: Memos taken by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir during stimulated recall sessions. The memos are also displayed in video example 6.

Figure 9: A schematic representation of the stimulated recall scenario with Sofia Härdig, Liv Kaastrup Vesterskov and Felicia Konrad (Stefánsdóttir & Östersjö, 2022).

Link 4: Access the paper Listening and Mediation: of agency and performative responsivity in ecological sound art practices (Stefánsdóttir & Östersjö, 2022) on the website of Phenomenology & Practice. Part of Vol. 17 No. 1 (2022): Special Issue: Practices of Phenomenological and Artistic Research.

Video example 5: Excerpts from a stimulated recall conducted on April 15-16, 2021.

Video example 6: Excerpts from a stimulated recall conducted on April 15-16, 2021, part 2. The video provides insight into memo taking and moments of verbal intersubjective engagement between the observer and the performer/observer.

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