Research Catalogue

WITHDRAWING THE PERFORMER WITHDRAWING THE PERFORMER is conceptualized and conducted collaboratively by Charlotta Ruth (SE/AT) and Jasmin Schaitl (AT). The starting point are two artistic practices based on methods of mindfulness and game/play; Performances for the Mind and Choreographic Clues. These two individual perspectives on participation emerge from the project leaders’ ongoing artistic research and merge in their common artistic curiosity in the facilitator role and facilitating the creation of immaterial material. Accompanied by neuroscientist and performer Imani Rameses (US/AT) the research asks: How does immaterial material perform within participatory situations? What role does participatory setting play and how does participation differ if situations are communicated as a workshop, a treatment, a practice or a performance? How can neuroscience support how immaterial and participatory art practices are developed and described? What relation exists beyond involvement and how can a participant become the situation rather than being part of a situation? What has to occur in the mind and body for this to happen? Through practice and dialogue conducted with experts in the fields of contemplative sciences, sound art, choreography, game art and somatics, the research explores how input from participants (e.g. memory, thought, emotion) can be placed at the centre of a flexible yet framed performance situation. WITHDRAWING THE PERFORMER was realised in collaboration with the Angewandte Performance Laboratory 2021-2022. In the course of the project, a lecture was given at the Center for Didactics of Art and Interdisciplinary Education, and a public series was realised at Kunsthalle, Wien & Angewandte Performance Lab. Collaborating expert practitioners and dialogue partners are: Philipp Ehmann (AT), Nikolaus Gansterer (AT), Mariella Greil (AT), Dennis Johnson (US/AT), Anne Juren (FR/AT), Krõõt Juurak (EE/AT), Imani Rameses (US/AT), Christian Schröder (AT), Lucie Strecker (DE/AT).

In this exposition, I discuss the multimedia installation "Esparto, approached", to which I opened doors last May 10th, 2025, in Organo Hall, Helsinki Music Center. "Esparto, approached" is the first of a series of three installations representing the artistic component of my doctoral degree at the Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki. The research project in which this installation is contextualized is currently titled "Listening through remembrance: An autoethnography of presence in the age of disposability". In this artistic research, the notions of listening, remembering, and presence-making are interwoven in an attempt to understand how we confer meaning and value on things despite our embeddedness in a world of disposable nature, where things are susceptible to being quickly discarded, replaced, and, therefore, forgotten. This exposition opens up a space of reflection in the aftermath of "Esparto, approached". The installation represented a collective recall of the field practice that led me to search for signs of durability in abandoned contexts of my homeland in rural Southeastern Spain. This exposition poses the following questions about it: What happened? (Description); What does "what happened" mean? (Analysis); And, how does "what happened" keep happening now? (Further becomings). The objective of creating an online exposition right after the event is to open a window to the reflective process of this investigation before its completion, thus making visible its traces. The process itself is therefore turned into an accessible outcome that manifests the continual nature of the project as a whole.

This exposition documents my explorations of pondering with pine trees. Tämä ekspositio dokumentoi yritykseni miettiä mäntyjen kanssa. Den här ekspositionen dokumenterar mina försök att fundera med furor.

It Is Indeed a Dance is a project exploring the emotional, psychological, and cultural shifts within contemporary romantic discourse. Using the metaphor of dance as a dynamic, often asymmetrical interplay between self and other, the project investigates love and post-love conditions marked by ambivalence, hyper-awareness, and emotional fatigue. Drawing on concepts such as limerence, attachment theory, fantasy bonding, and “situationships,” it examines how psychological language has entered everyday dating vocabulary—shaping not only how we talk about love, but how we experience it. Through autotheoretical writing, visual media and spatial compositions, the project seeks to map and mediate intimate dynamics in an era where connection feels both over-analyzed and elusive. It reflects on the contradictions of contemporary intimacy, where vulnerability is praised but rarely safe, and communication is vital yet often ineffective in post-romantic conditions.

The Arrangement of Objects examines the intersection of functionality, aesthetics, and artistic practice through experiments with glass and metal. Central to the project is the notion of burden, understood both physically, as pressure or weight, and metaphorically, as imprint, deformation, or trace. This theme is expressed in layers, grooves, and perforations that evoke landscapes or the life cycles of objects. The work situates itself between design and fine art, emphasizing material research as a driver of innovation and interdisciplinarity. It also highlights the role of conceptual thinking and autoethnographic reflection, integrating personal experience into the creative process. Through layering and transformation, the project questions the porous boundary between utilitarian and artistic objects while expanding the expressive vocabulary of glass and metal.

In recent years, it has become a real possibility for artists to engage with spatial sound technologies that allow for movement beyond the stereocentric paradigm. Thus, spatialization has mostly lent itself to avant-garde traditions, electronic music, and sound art. However, the rapid advancements of technologies have called for artists, songwriters, and musicians of all genres to contribute to this development not only by following and fitting into these new formats but also by shaping them through artistic engagements with them. When considering sound in space as a new component in the music creation toolbox, a new dimension is added that provides creative and performative potentials of situating songwriting and music creation within a spatial sound practice. Beyond the literal, what kinds of metaphorical or emotional resonance can emerge from the vibration between various bodies, such as composers, performers, and audiences, as well as bodies of sound, technologies, interfaces, instruments, scene, setting, speakers, aesthetics, and orientations? Voicing Spatial Songs was conducted by avant-pop duo SØSTR, which consists of sisters Louise Lind Foo and Sharin Foo.