Research Catalogue

Work-in-progress for the development of a sensorial piece, first explored during the workshop Augmented Attention Lab.

Calling Songs is a research into the possibilities of using the sounds created by insect and frog choirs in a musical composition/soundscape. An 8-channel speaker system was developed for this purpose, able to stand outside conditions and fitting into a natural environment. The voices of crickets and frogs have characteristics that make them sound almost electronic and therefore blend surprisingly well with the sounds that the muiscians of Zwerm can produce using effectpedals, loop-feedback, modular synthesizers and occasionally a guitar. The listener is invited to question the idea of culture versus nature. For the performers, the central question is how to give non-human life a voice in our artistic practice. Calling Songs is a collaboration between Johannes Westendorp, Zwerm and Pieter Verhees

An analitical overview over some key works from Stravinsky with the goal of selecting few elements that can help my compositional journey.

This exposition is part of the peer-reviewed article: Østern, T. P., Reppen, C., O’Connell, S., & Daneberg, M. (2025). Choreographer/researcher/teacher: Developing a/r/tography as an approach to dance pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts in a professional learning community of teachers. Nordic Journal of Art & Research, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.7577/ar.5460 This exposition explores my a/r/tographic design dive as course coordinator of the course "A/r/tography in theory and practice in higher education" (7.5 ects) at Stockholm University of the Arts. The decision to create and offer this course arose from a large collaborative change project at the former Department for Dance Pedagogy. The project led to a revision of the BA in Dance Pedagogy into an a/r/tographic study program, emphasizing the entangled roles of choreographer, researcher, and teacher. The course was developed to support professional development in a/r/tography for staff teaching across arts disciplines in higher education. As course coordinator, I dove into the course design a/r/tographically.

Here are some examples of outputs of the Solresol Birsong Translator. This forms part of the work presented for a PhD at Newcastle University. A device was built that ‘listens’ to birdsong and translates this into human speech utilising the obscure musical language Solresol (François Sudre, 1866). Birdsong is analysed and converted into musical notes (one octave in the scale of C Major: do-re-me-fa-sol-la-ti). These seven notes are grouped to form four-note ‘words’ that are looked-up in the Solresol-English dictionary. Each note also has a rainbow colour assigned to it. In a variety of configurations, the device can output the birdsong, notes, music, translated words, and colours. Text and MIDI (music) files can both be saved for further output or processing. The software can run in a variety of modes and on a variety of hardware, including PC and Raspberry Pi. It can make use of both live and recorded birdsong.

This project identifies a shortcoming in the range and coherence of the language that musicians use, in particular the Norwegian instrumental traditional music (folk music), when they aim to communicate the craft elements of their practice. The Craftmanship project identifies craft as deep knowledge that is a result of skills based activities that again result in tacit knowledge. This knowledge has traditionally been communicated between practitioners or from master to apprentice through a series of subtle cues, ideas or metaphors, which resist language – it is learned through experience and a form attunement between the participants. The project therefore, proposes to develop a vocabulary, based on and drawn from a practitioner’s perspective, through the “languaging” of keywords, and a critique of scores in order to revitalise the transmission of this knowledge for a new generation of musicians. Furthermore, it proposes that when attunement happens, it facilitates profound moments in performances, where the musician and audience reach a tacit recognition. The project proposes that these moments, colloquially described as ‘Magic Moments’ are the aim of most musicians in performance situations. These moments are often dependent on social situations. The project aims to construct a framework for further investigation of the contexts within which these moments manifest themselves.