Research Catalogue

This research is rooted in nihilism, exploring how the contrast between materiality and spirituality leads to an uncomfortable way of percieving existence. What does it mean to be unable to believe in "what's beyond"? What role does the body play in such an issue? The starting point is a deeply philosophical debate. Through art and numerous attempts it tries to unravel itself.

Sheila Jordan, an important female singer in the history of jazz vocals, and an exploration of her life and musical characteristics.

This exposition gathers a series of visual and linguistic investigations in which signs, form, and the space between them construct expressions that invite multiple interpretations. Here, propositions are understood as attempts, movements, and modes of thought. Between sign and form, a space emerges where meaning can be brought into play – where rhythm, structure, wonder and quietness may interact as an expanded practice of seeing, reading, and listening.

PhD Candidate: Sidsel Christensen Project title: INTERDIMENSIONAL ARTISTIC REFLECTION: Speculative movements through Spatial, Digital and Narrative Media Period: 2020 - 2024 Host institution: The Art Academy – Department of Contemporary Art, Faculty of Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen PhD supervisors: Brandon LaBelle, Frans Jacobi and Sher Doruff

This exposition brings together the epistemologies of art-making and translation. It presents a series of artworks the curators commissioned for a travelling exhibition on ‘Experiential Translation’ (2022-2025). Many of the works were created under the auspices of the Experiential Translation Network, which facilitates collaboration and exchange between translators, writers, poets, artists and scholars from across the globe. The concept of ‘experiential translation’ as elaborated by Campbell and Vidal (2019, 2024, 2025), highlights embodied, multimodal communication as a performative inquiry into meaning-making. Blending art and translation practices, experiential translation values materiality, participation, and co-creation. Rather than mere transfer of meaning, translation is seen as a process of discovery, research, and knowledge production, embracing the unknown and exploring that which escapes language. Encouraging a rhizomatic viewing experience, the exposition is structured into three interconnected thematic 'rooms', Serial Metamorphosis, (Un)repetition and Ludic Translation, which can be visited in any order, or even simultaneously. The exposition includes video art, performance, (interactive) installation, sound art, poetry, painting and photography. This work was supported by the AHRC under Grant AH/V008234/1, awarded to Ricarda Vidal (PI) and Madeleine Campbell (Co-I) . Ethical Clearance Reference Number (King’s College London): MRA-22/23-34543

I explain "microtones" as the sounds between the piano keys, making it universally understandable. This widespread understanding through "piano keys" demonstrates how the 12-tone equal temperament (12-TET) has become standardized as the dominant system. When 12-TET was introduced, it created a hierarchy where diverse sounds were forced into a rigid system. Other sounds were marginalized and coded into one of the twelve tones, physically embedded in the piano's keyboard. As a result, pianists became subordinate to these physically embedded conditions of the piano. In this project, I attempted to dismantle this organizational principle. By deterritorializing these fixed tones and liberating the peripheral sounds now called "microtones," I explored not just the piano's timbral possibilities, but also the interactions that emerge in these spaces - between sounds, between people, between cultures... Through collaborations with over 30 composers, I discovered that microtones exist in the "ma" (space) between standardized tones, representing voices that don't fit into established systems. What began as an exploration of piano timbre evolved into an investigation of humanity itself, generating new meanings through ongoing dialogues and discoveries.