Research Catalogue

A visual map of the RC. Hover over a screenshot to see the title and author. If you click you will see a gallery with a screenshot of each of its weaves. There is a form which allows you to filter based on title, author, keywords, abstract and date. For an exposition to appear in this map, it needs to be public (share -> public or published). The map is updated once every 24 hours. There is an alternative map that allows you to browse all research by keyword.

Timelessness and temporality (Kruse, 2011) are widely studied topics in the classical music of the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century, mainly concerning the perspective of musical composition and auditory perception of music. But what is the perspective of temporal layeredness in the performer’s experience? This quote offers a starting point (Noble, 2018): “music whose temporal organisation optimises human information processing and embodiment expresses human time, and music whose temporal organisation subverts or exceeds human information processing and embodiment points outside of human time, to timelessness .” Specialized in the repertoire of Karlheinz Stockhausen, I want to investigate the role of temporality in music from the perspective of a performer. I will delve into the richness of different layers of temporal awareness in an artistic experience through experiential, embodied, and sensorial knowledge, using different temporal compositions by Stockhausen as case studies: HARMONIEN (2006) for flute solo,, Xi (1986) for flute solo and STOP (1969) for ensemble.

Arts-based-philosophy is an emerging research concept at the cutting edge of the arts, philosophy and the Sciences in which cross-disciplinary research collectives align their research practices to finally stage their investigations in field-performances, shared with the public. Our research explores the significance of the HEART in artistic research and performance philosophy from a cross-cultural perspective, partially based on the concepts of the HEART in the works of two artist-philosophers, in which philosophy already became arts-based-philosophy: Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Aurobindo’s poetic opus magnum Savitri. We generally assume that the works of artist-philosophers are not only engaged in “creating concepts” (Deleuze), but their concepts are also meant to be staged artistically to let them bodily matter in fact. The role of the HEART in respect to this process of “bodily mattering” is the core objective under investigation: Firstly, because we hold that atmospheres trigger the HEART of a lived-body to taste the flavor of things it is environmentally engaged with basically in an aesthetic manner (Nietzsche). In this respect the analysis of the classical notion for the aesthete in Indian philosophy and aesthetics, sahṛdaya––which literally means, “somebody, with a HEART”––becomes crucial. Secondly, because the HEART is said to be not just reducible to one’s manifest Nature, but has access to one’s virtual Nature as well. The creation hymn in the oldest of all Vedas (Rgveda) for instance informs us that a HEART is capable of crossing being (sat) & non-being (asat), which makes it fluctuate among these two realms and even allows its aspirations to let virtual possibilities matter. Such concepts show striking similarities with contemporary concepts in philosophy-physics, e.g. the concepts of “virtual particles” and “quantum vacuum fluctuations” (Barad).

The practice-based PhD research project comprises the development and application of composition strategies and techniques generated through interdisciplinary collaboration to integrate elements and ideas from non-sonic disciplines into the musical discourse of new music-theatre works, specifically opera. I explore mechanisms of mapping and association that engage with both the specific subject matter of each piece and the creative collaborative environment in which they are created, thus generating different compositional resources that I use to inform the creative process. By using mapping techniques, I can deeply engage and communicate a subject matter on different levels in the musical composition. The framework for this research is the intertwining of art and science on a variety of levels from a music compositional perspective. Within this framework, I explored the integration of knowledge and data from the natural and social sciences to inform the composition of four science-based music-theatre works: In response to Naum Gabo: Linear Construction in Space No. 1 (2020), Autohoodening: The Rise of Captain Swing (2021), The Flowering Desert (2022), and TRAPPIST-1 (2023). With this approach, I aim to closely link these works with their particular subject matter instead of being composed based just on my personal musical taste. By consistently and cohesively applying the strategies and techniques explored in this research, the outcome is not creating music about science or music inspired by science, but, instead, music embedded with science in which the scientific data and knowledge inform the composition decisions. The subject matter is therefore intertwined within the musical discourse, its performativity and theatricality, and its relationship with the other disciplines and collaborators involved in the creation of these music-theatre works.

Table of contents JSS issues

In this article we propose the concept of "sonic citizenship" as a framework for the multitude of ways in which we, in the rhythms of our everyday lives, form the aural background of each other, and how citizenship is practiced, negotiated, and maintained through everyday sonic activities. With examples of messy, fragile, and difficult interactions with sound from the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, we argue that the effort of tuning the soundscapes of the world needs to be complemented by an attuning approach that focuses on the negotiations we are constantly involved with in our everyday lives. The soundscape approach in the tradition of R. Murray Schafer implies that the soundscape is there as a landscape that we can uncover and tune. Conversely, the attuning approach of sonic citizenship understands soundscapes as relationships and dynamic configurations to which we must continuously attune, and which are themselves reconfigured via breaks in habitual attunements.