Research Catalogue

From One Space to Another is a sound essay in video format of the ongoing research of understanding the world, phenomenons and situations through sound and listening. The ambition is that through the act of listening use the detail as a means of highlighting a phenomenon where sound serves as a deeper means of registering and understanding the environment. By zooming in we can accumulate knowledge, broaden and expand our perception and comprehension and create greater understanding of the bigger context. This way it might be possible to raise awareness and bring to consciousness the things we might not be aware of and that we sometimes fail to notice. In this practice-led sound essay you take part of sound art pieces that are intertwined by thoughts and reflections throughout the journey. From One Space to Another presents recordings and compositions of smaller components such as the acoustics of fibers in the trees and the needled thread of embroideries as well as the structural repetitiveness of machinery in the textile industry. At the same time it shows how the recorded material inspires and encourages various kinds of expressions. This sound and video essay is an independent project within the Master Program Experimental Composition and Creation at the Academy of Music and Drama in Göteborg, Sweden.

WALKING AS PRACTICE WAP23 was a process-based residency during September-November 2023, where artists using walking as a method delved into each others’ knowledges and things they encountered together at BKN, the Northern Stockholm Archipelago in Sweden. Fieldworks, share sessions and seminars were created jointly to locate and entangle structures, narratives and themes for walking. The residency formed a transformative, dynamic space for art that engaged with life and nature towards critical and poetic explorations, influenced by the immediate surroundings: the forest, lakes, sea and people living in the rural area. Processing how walking is interlocked in our artistic practices, this exposition represents a gathering of texts, visuals and audio from the walking art residency. The selected artists contributed with interdisciplinary practices, primarily drawing, photography, video, performance and dance. They worked both individually, in spontaneous constellations and in group sessions. The dissemination of the program took place in share sessions upon arrival of new artists - including dinners, open studios, walks, workshops etc. In addition, as the program unfolded, each artist developed their own exposition.

My practice-based arts research proposes to create a toolkit to decentralize art activism using hand-crafted textiles from an intersectional, feminist, decolonial and anti-capitalist framework. When I say that I want to decentralize art activism, I aim to increase access in terms of location, timing and risk, so that people who do not live in major metropolises, centres of power, who work when most protests happen, or who for various reasons are not able to risk possible arrest that normal protests may present, can still engage in artistic protest. My praxis will embark on a series of art activist actions that utilize various methods of decentralization, creating a handbook that displays and analyses these methods. The ways in which textiles are particularly suited to decentralize art activism, through subterfuge, slow time, and haptic relationship will be explored within the praxis. Answering the seemingly peripheral question of whether or not art activism is compatible within a gallery space imperative for the main theme of my research, which is decentralization of art activism. If art activism harmoniously exists within a gallery exhibition, then the easiest way to decentralize it is to send the art activism to exhibit elsewhere. My initial findings within the research suggest that act activism mostly cannot exist within sanctioned art exhibitions and therefore exhibitions are not an effective way to decentralize art activism. My toolkit is inspired by practical how-to-guides of art activism (Boyd and Mitchell, 2012; Duncombe and Lambert, 2021; Aylwyn Walsh et al., 2022) and through textile practises such as Tanya Aguiñiga (B. 1978-), the Craftivism Collective (2009-), Aram Han Sifuentes (B. 1986-), and Sandra Suubi (B. 1990-). The critique on capitalism’s infiltration into the artworld and art activisms roll because of this that is reflected in Alana Jelinek’s ‘Lifelike art’(2013), Gregory Sholette’s ‘bare art’(Ch(Charnley, 2017)); and Brian Holmes’ ‘Liar’s poker’ (Holmes, 2010) and it helps shape my art activism practise.

An artistic Postdoc project intended to create an environment for musical innovation, to explore the design of new physical and electronic instruments and to host the international NIME conference 2011. This interdisciplinary artistic research project was a collaboration between the composer Ivar Froundberg, Music Technologist Aleksander Refsum Jensenius and percussionist Kjell Tore Innervik. A project to enhance the possibilities of music performance for the many and for the few located at the Norwegian Academy of Music.

In this lecture I reflect on recent artistic work relating to perception, technology and bodily awareness. The lecture was part of the Digital Narratives Network Conference held at UiB in 2019. The Digital Narrative Network Conference and Exhibition was a cross-faculty initiative at UiB/KMD with a keynote by N. Katherine Hayles on literature and AI, a series of presentations by scholars, artists and authors, and an exhibition of digital narratives, including a sample of my "Twilight Apparatus" sculpture-series. In my sculpture-work I have taken eyesight and optical phenomena as a starting point for mechanical installations that engage the senses and serve as metaphorical depictions of the relationship between human and technical cognition. My presentation will track the development of recent projects and the role of imaginative awareness.

This research project explores South African Art Music through collaborative practice and the classical saxophone. It begins by investigating the discourse surrounding South African Art Music through testimony collected from various conversations with South African composers, musicians and academics such as Dr Kevin Volans, Dr Antoni Schonken, Professor Hendrik Hofmeyr, Dr Cara Stacey and Arthur Feder. I began collecting the scores of South African saxophone compositions which led to the development of an online catalogue system to document these works -The South African Saxophone Catalogue. This catalogue forms the base - as well as the network - for how this research was developed. To further investigate the South African repertoire, I embarked on creative journeys with four South African composers through performer-composer collaboration. I decided to use this means of investigation as the relationship formed between myself and these composers shows a different level of engagement with this music, first-hand experience in the creation of this music as well as creating an open space for discourse. These collaborations were documented through reflections, audio and video recordings and are investigated in the form of case studies. The final artistic product was a concert featuring these new compositions in Cape Town, South Africa. The data collected was organised through an amalgamation of critical reflection and thematic analysis. Through this collective music-making, I discovered the variety in thought surrounding South African Art Music and paradoxically those who vigorously deny this term. I discovered the complexity both politically and socially that the term South African Art Music implies. In conjunction with my personal reflections, this exposition explores the ideas, opinions and art of individuals in various fields in the South African classical music scene who represent a variety of South African cultural backgrounds and generations.