Research Catalogue

This exhibition presents the context, process, and conclusions of the artistic research project Imagination as a Tool for Change in Shared Space, carried out at DAMU. At the heart of the research is the question: How can we give the body a voice? In other words, how can we invite bodily perception and imagination into the process of decision-making and exploration, while at the same time perceiving these qualities as fully-fledged mediators of information? The backbone of the research consists of a pair of workshops designed to guide students through the exploration and reflection on the theme of the chill zone at DAMU. A series of exercises aimed to awaken their somatic and sensory perception, followed by an exploration of spaces designated for rest, and finally imaginative exercises with the aim of proposing possible changes or forms for the spaces. The exhibition presents the individual layers of the project: 1) In the contextual layer, we acquaint readers with our personal starting points (chapter: Medallions), with the theoretical and practical-experiential foundations on which we consciously build (chapter: Introduction), and with methodological procedures (chapter: Methodology). 2) At the center is the documentary layer, which describes the structure of the workshops, the creative outputs of the participants, and a chronicle mapping the transformation of the research team's thinking, documenting the lively dialogue between the discourses of transformative pedagogy and embodied learning in acting and authorship. 3) The layer of findings and conclusions identifies two fundamental qualities: (a) the concept of "sensitized researchers", in which bodily and sensory perception provides a full report on the surrounding world, and (b) the situation of being in the imagery, in which working with the imagination offers possible proposals for change. In conclusion, we look back at the reasons for the changes in the original research questions and consider further possible directions for research. Tato expozice prezentuje kontext, proces a závěry uměleckého výzkumu Imaginace jako nástroj změny ve sdíleném prostoru realizovaného na DAMU. V centru výzkumu stojí otázka: Jak dát tělu hlas? Neboli jak do procesu rozhodování a zkoumání přizvat tělesné vnímaní a imaginaci a jak zároveň tyto kvality vnímat jako plnohodnotné zprostředkovatele informací. Páteř výzkumu tvoří dvojice workshopů, které byly navrženy tak, aby studující provedly zkoumáním a promýšlením tématu chill-zóny na DAMU. Série cvičení směřovala k probuzení jejich tělesné a smyslové vnímavosti, následně ke zkoumání prostor určených pro odpočinek a v závěru k imaginativním cvičením s cílem navrhnout možné změny či podobu prostor. Expozice představuje jednotlivé vrstvy projektu: 1) V kontextová vrstvě seznamujeme čtenáře s našimi osobními výchozími pozicemi (kap. Medailonky), s teoretickými a prakticko-zkušenostními východisky, na které vědomě navazujeme (kap. Úvod), a s metodologickými postupy (kap. Metodologie). 2) V centru stojí dokumentární vrstva přibližující strukturu workshopů, kreativní výstupy účastnictva a kroniku mapující proměnu myšlení výzkumného týmu, dokládající živý dialog mezi diskurzy transformativní pedagogiky a vtěleného učení k herectví a autorství. 3) Vrstva zjištění a závěrů identifikuje dvě zásadní kvality: (a) koncept „zcitlivělé výzkumnictvo“, kdy tělesné a smyslové vnímání přináší plnohodnotnou zprávu o okolním světě, a (b) situaci bytí v představě, kdy práce s imaginací nabízí možné návrhy ke změně. V závěru se ohlížíme za důvody změn původních výzkumných otázek a promýšlíme další možné směřování výzkumu.

The Varder are a system of marine navigational aids along the Norwegian coast originating from the age of sail. Officially still part of the oldest maritime navigational system still in use, these forms now act as anchors to a physical present. In a digital society losing its patience, the Varder stand in contrast to the accelerations surrounding them: analogue, material, and static.

In the scope of my PhD-in-Art project “Staging the Invisible Elephant that Remains Overlooked”, I investigate collaborative and co-creative work with children as equal partners – from my perspectives as an artist, workshop leader, teacher, aunt, recent mother, and adult friend. The intersections, tensions, and synergies between artistic research and pedagogical practice form the core of my research. Spanning 2017–2025 the work unfolds as an open, reflective process grounded in project-based artistic practice, dialogical encounters, and reflective writing. Additionally, reading experiences in different literary and scientific fields serve as resonant spaces in which insights take shape and intensify. Recurring themes include the interplay of structure and freedom; the negotiation of shared authorship, responsibility, re­presentation and ethics in co-creative work with children across different contexts; and the possibilities and limi­tations of conducting artistic research “at eye level” within school environments. I also examine the potentials that artistic approaches offer in addressing contemporary pedagogical challenges related to digital technologies, social media, and artificial intelligence. In accordance with the principles of artistic research, I understand ambiguity, contradiction, and subjectivity as methodological strengths. I foreground transparency, vulnerability, and the transformative potential of misunderstanding, and I propose ways in which we might relate to one another differently in a complex world and strengthen democracies at risk.

Norths: Navigating Instability By Ear exposes a diversity of transdisciplinary artistic research threads within Norths, a growing body of environmental sound art practice at an intersection of data and listening experience. By rendering intangible data representations physically perceptible, ‘northness’ - understood as location, place, idea, and fiction - becomes a site for material interrogation of ‘standards’ applied to measurement, perception, being, knowing, and acting. Critical phenomenological and ecological issues emerge from the noise encountered when sonifying (near) real-time seismic and geomagnetic data, as well as data from communication systems. In the present exposition conceptual corollaries from my experience making, reflecting on, and exhibiting these works are diffracted through language in a project to expose the material propositions of these works themselves. Cross-modulation (feedback) loops established within this exposition connect artistic practice to philosophical-linguistic expression, providing both an explication and an exploratory continuation of my ongoing research practice.

Pětice skladatelů – pedagog, tři studenti a jedna studentka se vydali naslouchat zvukové krajině polského předhůří Krkonoš, aby zkoumali vliv subjektivní percepce na výslednou podobu skladby. Nejdříve zaznamenávali své zvukoprostorové poslechové zkušenosti graficky do skicáků. Vzápětí formulovali tvůrčí záměry skladeb pro komorní ansámbl, které z těchto zkušeností vycházejí. V následujících čtyřech měsících zkomponovali studie s vědomím, že jsou určeny ke studiové realizaci. Kompoziční studie poté sami nahráli a celý proces společně reflektovali. Předložený text vstupuje do kontextu akustické ekologie, instrumentální syntézy a počítačem podporované skladby. Navazuje na kontinuální umělecký výzkum na katedře skladby HAMU v oblasti zvuku a prostoru a tvůrčích aplikací výsledků. Jeho cílem je prozkoumávat vztahy mezi subjektivní zvukoprostorovou zkušeností, volbou kompozičních strategií a výslednou podobou skladby. Five composers – one teacher and four students – set out to listen to the soundscape of the Polish foothills of the Giant Mountains in order to explore the influence of subjective perception on the final shape of a composition. First, they noted down their sound-spatial listening experiences graphically in sketchbooks. They then formulated creative ideas for chamber ensemble compositions based on these experiences. Over the next four months, they wrote compositional studies with the intention of recording them in the studio. They then recorded the studies themselves and reflected on the entire process together. The presented text enters the context of acoustic ecology, instrumental synthesis, and computer-assisted composition. It builds on continuous artistic research at the Department of Composition at HAMU in the field of sound and space and the creative application of the results. Its goal is to explore the relationships between subjective sound-spatial experience, the choice of compositional strategies, and the resulting shape of the composition.

As interaction with corporate artificial intelligence increasingly becomes a precondition for contemporary life, artists need to see beyond Generative AI (GenAI) technology as a discrete tool that makes generic products. Instead, they can imagine combinatorial approaches and conceptual frameworks for AI-enabled artworks. Through my practice-based research, the act of prompting multimodal GenAI models has been informed by comprehending an assemblage as a “framework of instruction” held together through poetic alliances, within which the output from one component feeds the process of another. Practical experiments explored an interrelation of body, text, and predictive technology, where an algorithmic prediction of human action conjured “biometric poetry” that was used to stimulate a language model. Working with archival film footage and digital puppets animated with motion-capture files gave rise to the idea of a camera’s field of view – with its bounded contents acting like a key – eliciting value from a language model in a novel form of story making. Potential erroneous inferences were perceived as a new form of chance operation and a characteristic of algorithmic remix as defined by Steve F. Anderson. This method has been further developed in a project that combines performance, waste material, object recognition, and a language model to explore how the manipulation of garbage can be rationalised by a machine to produce poetic texts as a commentary to action portrayed on a screen.