Research Catalogue

Towards a (per)sonal topography of grand piano and electronics How can I develop a grand piano with live electronics through iterated development loops in the cognitive technological environment of instrument, music, performance and my poetics? The instrument I am developing, a grand piano with electronic augmentations, is adapted to cater my poetics. This adaptation of the instrument will change the way I compose. The change of composition will change the music. The change of music will change my performances. The change in performative needs will change the instrument, because it needs to do different things. This change in the instrument will show me other poetics and change my ideas. The change of ideas demands another music and another instrument, because the instrument should cater to my poetics. And so it goes… These are the development loops I am talking about. I have made an augmented grand piano using various music technologies. I call the instrument the HyPer(sonal) Piano, a name derived from the suspected interagency between the extended instrument (HyPer), the personal (my poetics) and the sonal result (music and sound). I use old analogue guitar pedals and my own computer programming side by side, processing the original piano sound. I also take out control signals from the piano keys to drive different sound processes. The sound output of the instrument is deciding colors, patterns and density on a 1x3 meter LED light carpet attached to the grand piano. I sing, yet the sound of my voice is heavily processed, a processing decided by what I am playing on the keys. All sound sources and control signal sources are interconnected, allowing for complex and sometimes incomprehensible situations in the instrument´s mechanisms. Credits: First supervisor: Henrik Hellstenius Second Supervisors: Øyvind Brandtsegg and Eivind Buene Cover photo by Jørn Stenersen, www.anamorphiclofi.com All other photo, audio and video recording/editing by Morten Qvenild, unless stated.

Illustration as research from within the field is of relatively new practice. The illustrators discourse on representation (Yannicopoulou & Alaca 2018 ), theory (Doyle, Grove and Sherman 2018, Male 2019, Gannon and Fauchon 2021), and critical writing on illustration practice was hardly found before The Journal of Illustration was first issued in 2014, followed by artistic research through illustration (Black, 2014; Rysjedal, 2019; Spicer, 2019). This research project developed as response to a rise in hate crime towards refugees and the targeting of European Jews in recent decade. A pilot project (This Is a Human Being 2016-2019) treated how narratives of the Holocaust may avoid contributing to overwriting of history or cultural appropriation. Asking how illustration in an expanded approach may communicate profound human issues typically considered unrepresentable, this new project hopes to explore representation and the narratives of “us” and “the others” in the contemporary world through illustration as starting-point for cross-disciplinary projects. The participants from different disciplines, have interacted democratically on common humanist themes to explore the transformative role of illustration in contemporary communication. our projects should afford contemplation of illustration as an enhanced, decelerated way of looking; and drawing as a process for understanding - a way of engaging in understanding the other, as much as expressing one’s own needs (McCartney, 2016). This AR project consisted of three symposia and three work packages, and the artistic research unfolded in the symbiosis of these elements. Our investigation of illustration across media and materials continues as dissemination and exhibitions even after the conclusion of the work packages in 2024.

Thesis / Research Document of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023. Master Artistic Research (MAR). Designed by Faina Faigin Reflecting on personal experiences of being part of some groups and excluded from others makes me wonder how we connect when we are already clinging. Communities can be either chosen or forced, or both, which raises questions about how these bonds are formed and when we no longer belong.

An artistic Postdoc project intended to create an environment for musical innovation, to explore the design of new physical and electronic instruments and to host the international NIME conference 2011. This interdisciplinary artistic research project was a collaboration between the composer Ivar Froundberg, Music Technologist Aleksander Refsum Jensenius and percussionist Kjell Tore Innervik. A project to enhance the possibilities of music performance for the many and for the few located at the Norwegian Academy of Music.

In this lecture I reflect on recent artistic work relating to perception, technology and bodily awareness. The lecture was part of the Digital Narratives Network Conference held at UiB in 2019. The Digital Narrative Network Conference and Exhibition was a cross-faculty initiative at UiB/KMD with a keynote by N. Katherine Hayles on literature and AI, a series of presentations by scholars, artists and authors, and an exhibition of digital narratives, including a sample of my "Twilight Apparatus" sculpture-series. In my sculpture-work I have taken eyesight and optical phenomena as a starting point for mechanical installations that engage the senses and serve as metaphorical depictions of the relationship between human and technical cognition. My presentation will track the development of recent projects and the role of imaginative awareness.

This research project explores South African Art Music through collaborative practice and the classical saxophone. It begins by investigating the discourse surrounding South African Art Music through testimony collected from various conversations with South African composers, musicians and academics such as Dr Kevin Volans, Dr Antoni Schonken, Professor Hendrik Hofmeyr, Dr Cara Stacey and Arthur Feder. I began collecting the scores of South African saxophone compositions which led to the development of an online catalogue system to document these works -The South African Saxophone Catalogue. This catalogue forms the base - as well as the network - for how this research was developed. To further investigate the South African repertoire, I embarked on creative journeys with four South African composers through performer-composer collaboration. I decided to use this means of investigation as the relationship formed between myself and these composers shows a different level of engagement with this music, first-hand experience in the creation of this music as well as creating an open space for discourse. These collaborations were documented through reflections, audio and video recordings and are investigated in the form of case studies. The final artistic product was a concert featuring these new compositions in Cape Town, South Africa. The data collected was organised through an amalgamation of critical reflection and thematic analysis. Through this collective music-making, I discovered the variety in thought surrounding South African Art Music and paradoxically those who vigorously deny this term. I discovered the complexity both politically and socially that the term South African Art Music implies. In conjunction with my personal reflections, this exposition explores the ideas, opinions and art of individuals in various fields in the South African classical music scene who represent a variety of South African cultural backgrounds and generations.