Research Catalogue

This paper examines the themes of human perception and participation within the contemporary paradigm and relates the hallmarks of the major paradigm shift which occurred in the mid-20th century from a structural view of the world to a systems view. In this context, the author’s creative practice is described, outlining a methodology for working with the communication networks and interpersonal feedback loops that help to define our relationships to each other and to media since that paradigm shift. This research is framed within a larger field of inquiry into the impact of contemporary New Media Art as we experience it. This thesis proposes generative/cybernetic/systems art as the most appropriate media to model the processes of cultural identity production and networked communication. It reviews brief definitions of the systems paradigm and some key principles of cybernetic theory, with emphasis on generative, indeterminate processes. These definitions provide context for a brief review of precedents for the use of these models in the arts, (especially in process art, experimental video, interactive art, algorithmic composition, and sound art) since the mid-20th century, in direct correlation to the paradigm shift into systems thinking. Research outcomes reported here describe a recent body of generative art performances that have evolved from this intermedial, research-based creative practice, and discuss its use of algorithms, electronic media, and performance to provide audiences with access to an intuitive model of the interpersonal in a networked world.

בין עין חוד לעין הוד אין עוד. מופע דוקו-תיאטרלי

In this exposition I’m showing you my journey for these past two years of investigating my artistic practice through the meeting of identity and aesthetics. Due to my Iranian background, I have felt a need and curiosity to bring together my Iranian and European identities. This project is a dialogue between myself and music, encompassing sounds, arrangements, physical presence, materiality, technology, context, and politics. By politics I mean; history, cultural appropriation, diversity, colonisation, beliefs, and the current needs of the western culture. A project involving confrontations with habits, default parameters, and elements within digital audio workspaces, thereby incorporating scales.

This research explores the concept of authenticity in transcription. It is applied to Béla Bartók's Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm, movements one, two and five. By prioritising different aspects, the overall look of the transcription is shaped. Examples of these aspects are the sonic possibilities of the chosen or original instrumentation, the general style of the composer and the piece, one's own musical context, the technical abilities of the players... All these aspects could be considered as a form of authenticity. The first chapter elaborates on the concept and discusses methods of transcription. The second chapter analyses the history of the classical guitar, including its transcriptions. The guitar's search for a place in the classical mainstream has encouraged guitarists throughout the centuries to write transcriptions. Throughout history, the concept of authenticity in these transcriptions has changed. The final chapter discusses the entire process of transcribing, from the intentions behind selecting the piece to the obstacles and dilemmas that arose during the process. It shows that the transcribing part is as important as the individual practice and rehearsals. They alternate and influence each other. The Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm were of great importance to Bartók. Today they are not as popular as his Six Romanian Folk Dances but given their historical context they deserve to be heard more in today's classical music scene. Finally, it becomes clear that the abstract musical idea of the composer should be kept clear from the beginning to the end of the transcription process.

The research entitled "Augmented Feedback", is focused on developing a compositional practice, centered around acoustic feedback processing in digital spaces. I wish to explore acoustic feedback that occurs in virtual spaces, including the hybrid world of physical and digital space and physical phenomena that occurs from the excitation of feedback through microphones and loudspeakers. I will focus on experiments, reflections, developing techniques and functions that I have discovered while composing and experimenting with pieces that have used processed acoustic feedback as sonic material, microphones and loudspeakers as instruments. The outcome will have brief background and development reflections about my approach to feedback around my personal compositional practice, the historical side of feedback and how it relates to the works of other composers and artists, technical and philosophical content of feedback in compositional situations, and how my compositional approach led me to the term “augmented feedback”. “What if the sonority of feedback was not the center focus point of a piece? What else can we develop by using feedback and imagining it in different sonic landscapes? What is the mystique of its nonlinearity? How can we deal with microphones and loudspeakers as a musical instrument through using software environments?” are the main questions that drove me into researching feedback. Dividing these questions into subcategories: conceptual and compositional.

Prelinguistic language and aphasia share common ground, both in theory as in practice. Approaching the two fields as a pool of information and even more as a metaphor for composing vocal – based music, opens up a new window of tools and potentials. This paper is a collection of concepts, originating from prelinguistic language, aphasia and from my general vocal composition practice. Application examples are given from my own work, for each of these concepts. These concepts are gathered together into one diagram, which eventually questions whether the playful deconstruction that creators often look for is a step forward or backwards in time. Eventually, the paper questions the use of existing texts in composition under the scope of Jungian theory.