Research Catalogue

In the softness of the belly… There is a war on women is a testimony to the lived stories of abortion from a perspective which transcends time and national borders. This research paper is structured around two intertwined trajectories with varying text formats and writing styles. This structure merges the personal with the political and explores their relationship as it reveals how they can’t be separated in a society with deeply rooted structures of patriarchy and misogyny. The first trajectory chronologically tells the story of the author's own experience with abortion integrated with the personal stories from friends and family members. The process of dealing with abortion is gradually laid out starting from childhood memories, proceeding into the practical turmoil and the contradicting emotions surrounding the experience itself, moving onto the mental and physical aftermaths, and lastly processing the experience and slowly healing. In the second trajectory the topic is explored from a more external perspective rooted in history, politics, culture, and society. Through research on the history of reproductive rights and procreation, the permeating role of patriarchy from the past to the presence is addressed. The investigation of patriarchy dives into the misogynist history of witch-hunts, hysteria, capitalism, domestic labor, and into the present where reproductive rights are both improving but also continuously being tightened or removed. This trajectory further explores several socio-cultural aspects of abortion through research-based text and more sporadic and poetic writings. The topics that are addressed are shame, guilt, religion, gender roles, depiction both visually and written, the public discussion, and the perception of blood, violence, and war in relation to women and reproductive rights. The aim of the research paper is to break down and reveal the patriarchal structures which compromise women's reproductive rights, and to state the importance of reclaiming the personal narratives as well as the autonomy over one's own body, narrative, and life.

reposition Journal of reflective Positions in Art & Research - support project for research documentation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna Initiated by Alexander Damianisch, reposition brings together the wide variety of research at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and reflects on an ongoing culture of editorial structures for research in Arts and Sciences. reposition collects positions from ongoing processes. It offers researchers of all disciplines and departments at the University of Applied Arts Vienna the opportunity to publish their work according to peer-review principles. Colleagues of any level and doctoral students in arts and sciences are invited to share their work. This series showcases their diverse approaches to project-oriented research work and presents current insights, captivating research processes, and ongoing projects from a deeply personal perspective that courageously unearth the work-in-progress.

New creation - Sign Language and Dance - Video Projection and dance

The video is part of artistic research that explores a dialogue between human, non-human, and forces of the land in Utsjoki, Finland. In this artistic research, walking is used as a method to connect with the environment. During the walks, small amounts of soil – sand, stones, and clay – is gathered and processed further in a studio. Some soil is transformed to slips and used when painting hand-built vases made from the gathered clay. The fired vases are placed temporarily in local rivers. The result is a series of three vase experiments done in a dialogue between human, soil, water, and the forces of the land. The video presents the third vase experiment, where the vase is built from the local clay. The motifs of the painting are the nationally endangered animals: arctic fox, fell owl and glacial salmon. In the River Teno catchment, small juvenile salmon often spend some of their first years of life in tiny tributaries, which they enter from their birth place, the spawning areas in the main stem of the river. One of these nursery streams being Geassemahjohka. The vase is positioned in Geassemahjohka, which is running to the main stem of the River Teno some 70 km upstream from the estuary. Via the experiment we speculate: can act of crafting vase be conceived as act of caring, the vase being thus a symbolic shelter for the salmon?

Despite knowing that music and emotions have a lot to do with each other, sometimes it is hard to articulate which relationship they have. Since the emotional impact seems to be one of the biggest appeals for an audience, do we, the musicians (specifically the performers), pay and draw enough attention to it? After reviewing the relevant literature about the processing of emotions, I came across the philosophical approaches of emotions in and through music by Peter Kivy, Jerrold Levinson, and Stephen Davies, proposals that could serve as inspirations for an audience and for performers. Then, I decided to carry out a series of experimental sessions to test the impact of these three approaches, as well as the performer's role, and components that could also affect a performance, such as set-ups, musical manipulations, or what I have called 'extramusical' items or elements. In addition to my research question “How can a performer affect or manipulate the emotional engagement of an audience?”, I sought to explore another inquiry. Is engaging more with the public nowadays strictly a musical matter?

There are good reasons to consider point of audition (POA) as a problematic term when writing about sound. This essay addresses the different challenges one meets when using the term and discusses different alternatives for future use of this terminology within the field of television sound. The motivation for rethinking the term is the analytical and descriptive problems raised when writing about recent trends in television sound in drama, sports, news, documentaries and other television genres. The argumentation refers to the flexible and creative uses of television sound today and discusses how various production examples can be better accounted for by refining the term point of audition. All in all, four categories of point of audition are suggested for analysis: observational, active, individual and personal POAs.