Research Catalogue

Exploring the affordances of Larping in virtual reality.

This project tackles the issue of describing, composing, and perceiving vocality in a synthetic context, highlighting an experiential approach to the perception of a vocal signal. The research primarily focuses on the idea of fusions of sounds, particularly fusions between synthetic and natural voice, where the resulting quality enriches a vocal experience through the ambiguities and multiplicities it brings forth. Design choices and aesthetical considerations of a computer program for vocal synthesis are then discussed in relation to my own approaches to vocal composition.

Abstract In the evolving landscape of contemporary art, the value of failure and experimentation plays a central role in reshaping artistic research. This paper explores an artistic residency where the focus shifted from traditional practices of ink on canvas to performance art using the human body as a medium of expression. This residency emphasized uncertainty, experimentation, and emotional expression as the core of the process. Through collaboration between a calligrapher and a visual artist, the performance engaged themes of seduction, silence, and the transition between reality and abstraction. In alignment with experimental art practices, the process itself became the artwork, embracing moments of failure and disruption as key components of creative exploration. This research integrates theories from neuroscience, psychology, and artistic failure, drawing on the insights of thinkers like John Cage, Samuel Beckett, and Cornelius Cardew to further contextualize the residency’s impact. Introduction: The Heart of the Experiment John Cage once said, “I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I’m doing,” encapsulating the essence of experimental art practices where uncertainty is the driving force. In artistic research, experimentation is often at the heart of the process, and the outcome remains unknown. This lack of a predetermined result transforms both the journey and the final product into a continuous exploration, where failure is not only inevitable but desirable. In this residency, we embraced the unknown, shifting the artistic dialogue from ink on canvas to ink on the human body, creating a living, breathing artwork where emotions were the palette and failure became a method of discovery. Many artistic research projects require clear outcomes, often restricting experimentation. Yet, experimental art seeks to remove these boundaries, allowing failure to become an integral part of both the process and the work itself. This paper explores how this residency’s focus on performance, movement, and emotional interaction met these ideals, revealing how experimentation—through silence, seduction, and the transition from refusal to acceptance—became the heart of the artistic expression. Methodology: Embracing Uncertainty and Failure The artistic residency functioned as an experimental laboratory where failure was not feared but embraced. Drawing on Cage’s philosophy of unfamiliarity and Beckett’s notion of “failing better,” the process allowed the artists to abandon the need for perfection and instead explore the limits of emotional expression, communication, and embodiment. The performance was set in a dark room, with a single spotlight illuminating the artists—a calligrapher and a visual artist. The calligrapher’s body, inscribed with ink, represented a departure from traditional practices, while the visual artist used his camera to document the unfolding emotions and moments. Silence and movement were central to the performance, creating a tension that invited the audience to engage with the vulnerability of the process. This mirrored Tom Johnson’s *Failing* (1975), a piece that requires performers to confront inevitable failure, resonating with the uncertainty of the residency’s artistic outcome. Experimental art theorists, such as Cornelius Cardew, posit that failure is intrinsic to artistic exploration because it reveals the gap between human goals and nature’s indifference to success or failure. In this residency, the focus on human emotions, embodied through movement and silence, underscored the natural disruptions in communication, problem-solving, and artistic interaction. Each failure—a misstep in movement, a hesitation in gesture—became an opportunity to delve deeper into emotional layers, ultimately enhancing the collaborative experience. The Neuroscience of Artistic Failure and Emotional Expression Experimental art is inherently tied to the exploration of emotion, failure, and cognitive engagement. Neuroscientific research highlights how emotional engagement in art can trigger neural pathways associated with empathy, problem-solving, and emotional regulation. According to Damasio’s (1999) theory of embodied emotion, our bodies are active participants in emotional processing, and failure in art allows for deeper emotional introspection. The calligraphy inscribed on the skin in this performance transcended words, representing not only artistic expression but emotional communication. The transitions between silence and song, refusal and acceptance, echo research on how art can stimulate emotional engagement in both the artist and the audience. Mirror neuron studies by Rizzolatti and Craighero (2004) suggest that observing others’ actions and emotions can activate the same neural circuits in the observer, allowing the audience to “mirror” the emotional journey of the artists. As the performers navigated their own emotional responses to failure, the audience was drawn into a parallel experience, deepening the emotional resonance of the performance. Failure as Method: From Artistic Process to Product In this residency, failure was not a negative outcome but an integral part of the creative process. The artists’ uncertainty about the outcome mirrored the audience’s experience, where emotional and cognitive engagement with the work continuously evolved. This aligns with the notion of failure as a method in artistic research. Cardew’s reflection on Buster Keaton’s comedic failure—where success is not the goal but the continual striving for success—is a fitting metaphor for the residency’s performance. The collaboration between the two artists was based on trust, yet their movements, gestures, and interactions often led to unexpected outcomes. These moments of “failure” created space for new interpretations and understandings of the artwork. Failure in experimental art, as argued by de Duve (1996), can create productive disturbances, altering our perception of the artwork and allowing us to reconsider its boundaries. In this residency, each failure—whether in movement, coordination, or communication—became an opening for growth, creating a dialogue between the artists and the audience that highlighted the unpredictability of the creative process. Mindfulness and the Role of Emotional Intelligence in the Residency A key element of the residency was the mindfulness required to navigate emotional states and mental wellbeing. Artistic collaboration demands a high level of emotional intelligence, as noted by Goleman (1995), who emphasized the role of empathy, self-awareness, and emotional regulation in interpersonal relationships. The performance, in which two artists had to communicate silently and through movement, was an exercise in mindfulness—each artist had to be acutely aware of the other’s mental and emotional state. This process reflects Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) concept of “flow,” a psychological state in which individuals are fully immersed in a task that challenges both their emotional and cognitive capacities. The artists’ ability to adapt to failure, manage stress, and maintain trust throughout the performance highlighted the importance of emotional regulation and problem-solving in creative collaboration. Conclusion: Experimentation as a Living Art Form This residency exemplifies how experimental art transforms failure from a flaw into a tool for discovery. Through the collaboration between a calligrapher and a visual artist, the performance embodied the core principles of experimental art, where the outcome was unknown, and the process itself became the artwork. The interaction between movement, silence, and emotional expression invited the audience into an experience where failure and success were no longer opposites but part of the same continuum. In line with the ideas presented by Cage, Beckett, and Cardew, this artistic residency demonstrated that failure is an essential part of artistic experimentation. It is through failure that the artists and audience alike are able to push beyond the familiar, creating new pathways for emotional communication, artistic expression, and cognitive engagement. The residency thus becomes a living experiment in both art and human connection, with failure acting as the pulse of its creative heartbeat.

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This exposition explores how the Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen, with the artistic research project, BETTY DEVELOPS, works with spreading a collaborative practice to the infrastructure of an entire institutional theatre and how this renegotiates the notion of artistic genius and the star. The exposition offers a meta-reflection on the author’s artistic research activities at the theatre. These reflections shed light on what happens when collaborative methods of working and producing are implemented in an institutional theatre and discuss the extent to which artistic research can develop methods for collaborative co-creation as well as resistance to the neoliberal individualised performance culture. Could such methods prevent you from falling back on a modernist understanding of the artist as the original creator of an individual expression and instead support a collaborative art and knowledge practice? As opposed to defining artistic creation as something that springs from and comes from an individual (the artistic genius or star), the author argues that artistic creation is a relational act, and that art is something that comes to be between people. This exposition is a collage of empirical material, text, images, and video gathered and produced over the last five years while facilitating, documenting, researching, and sharing the development of fourteen BETTY DEVELOPS productions. Download Accessible PDF

Environmental science has shown that the global use of concrete has led to significant challenges today and will seriously trouble future generations. Nevertheless, international building industries advertise concrete as a natural, regional, sustainable, and hence green material. In 2020, global human-made mass exceeded all living biomass, with concrete accounting for nearly half of it, making it a signal of the Capitalocene. A radical transformation of industrial building culture is asked for, otherwise anthropogenic mass will be three times biomass by 2040. The growth of the technosphere is amplifying multiple negative currents in the pluriverse — air pollution, lithospheric extraction, and hydrosphere depletion — all with catastrophic effects on biodiversity. This exposition displays the steps in and findings of the artistic research project Greenwashed Concrete. Setting out to widen understanding of the multi-layered material concrete, this project applied a methodology of juxtaposing two sculptural practices in order to collaboratively design experimental settings to engage scholars from heterogeneous fields. Download Accessible PDF