recent activities
Partisans With a Hoe - Spontaneous Gardening in Urban Space
(2024)
Ivana Balcaříková, Barbora Lungova
This project combines artistic and anthropological research on spontaneous gardening in open public space, predominantly in Brno, CZ. The team, mostly comprising recent graduates and graduate students of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Brno University of Technology, chose gardens and plantings which were, in most cases, rather exceptional. Unlike most typical front gardens, the ones in this study are somehow peculiar, due to their location, their composition and planting schemes, their scale, or methods of those who garden there. The anthropologists on the team analyzed a Facebook group dedicated to street gardening and conducted several interviews, while the artistic team responded to particular places with which they interacted. Some results of this research have been presented to the public in the form of an application comprising an audioguide and an interactive map; this exposition in the Journal of Artistic Research documents
some of these findings.
The team
Barbora Lungová is a visual artist and has taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Brno University of Technology since 2007. Her field of practice is painting and art projects focusing on plants, gardening, and queerness. She is the coordinator of the Partisans with a Hoe project.
Lucia Bergamaschi is a visual artist working across the media of photography, sound, and installation. She earned an MA in Fine Art at Università Iuav di Venezia and an MA in Law at Università di Bologna. She is currently finishing her MA studies at the FFA BUT.
Nela Maruškevičová combines painting, installations, and glass in her artistic practice. She is a 2023 graduate of the FFA BUT. Kateřina Konvalinová is a visual artist interested in the overlapping spaces of art, communal life, farming, and ritual. She earned her MA in Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and is currently a doctoral student at the FFA BUT.
Iva Balcaříková is a graphic designer and a member of the team behind the curated audio walks created by Galerie Art in Brno. She is currently finishing her MA studies at the FFA BUT. Hana Drštičková is a visual artist and a social anthropologist interested in environmental and queer topics. She graduated with an MA in Fine Arts from the FFA BUT in 2022 and with a BA in social anthropology from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Masaryk University and is currently a doctoral student at the Gender Studies Department of Charles University in Prague.
Anastasia Blokhina is a social anthropologist who graduated with an MA tfrom the Faculty of Social Sciences of Masaryk University in 2022. Polyna Davydenko is a photographer and a video artist who documents social and environmental issues in her work, most recently those connected with the war in Ukraine.
Filip Dušek is a media artist who studied at the Department of Photography at the FFA BUT.
The project was conducted under the Specific Research FaVU-S-23-8441 Program.
Inside the Narrative
(2024)
Gustav Kvaal, Torkell Bernsen
The aim of this artistic research project is to create an illustrated VR documentary experience that narrates the story of a time witness from the second world war in Bodø, Norway. The project explores questions concerning visual storytelling and ethics in the encounter between the VR-audience, interviewed subjects and the audiovisual spatial design. Artistic and qualitative research methods have been employed to explore how different visual modes and contexts alter the experience of narrator(Time witness) and narrative in a media format characterized by its ability to place the viewer in a state of immersion, intimacy, and a sense of presence. Theoretically, this study is situated in an artistic landscape connected to media theory, journalism, ethics and visual communication. Concepts such as media witness ethics, with the so-called risk of improper distance and considerations around the term distant others, are relevant for the reflection associated with the project.
recent publications
CARCEREIRA II
(2024)
Ivan Santos Ferreira, Ana Beatriz Pinheiro Oliveira, Matilde Marques Moutinho da Costa Vinagre, Fabbio Augusto Savioli da Silva, Inês Juliana Silva Moura, Oceane Lourenco Ribeiro
"(...) a cidade (...) consiste somente de um lado de fora e de um avesso, como uma folha de papel, com uma figura aqui e outra ali, que não podem se separar nem se encarar", um lugar onde as partes, os contrastes e o movimento participam numa dança infindável. E é a busca pela compreensão da linha ténue entre o sim e o não, o claro e o escuro, o tudo e o nada, que dá nome ao nosso trabalho, Oppositions.
“(…) the city (…) consists only of an outside and a reverse, like a sheet of paper, with a figure here and there, which cannot be separated nor face each other.”, a place where the parts, contrasts and movement participate in an endless dance. And it is the search for understanding the fine line between yes and no, light and dark, everything and nothing, that gives name to our work, Oppositions.
JSS26 Editorial
(2024)
Vincent Meelberg
Every now and then JSS publishes a non-themed issue. What happens in general is that, over several months, people have submitted papers outside of a call for papers, or outside a thematic issue that is planned. After having collected enough of those papers, we start the usual (external) peer review and editing processes and publish an issue that has no focus on one theme which will be explored in depth, but one that presents the versatility and width of contemporary sound studies and/or sound art.
Walking Hanoi - Reflections on improvisation, listening and being attached
(2024)
Franziska
"Walking Hanoi 2024 - Reflections on improvisation, listening and being attached" is an audio visual piece, which stems from my long standing connection to Vietnam, and specifically to an artistic research project that took place in late March 2024 in Hanoi.
It took place as part of an international project - led by VIetnamese researchers, musicians and artists - on thinking through how best to digitise the diverse ethnic minority music in Vietnam. A sound walk, a gamified, ambulatory listening activity, with around 50 international artists/researchers forms the basis for this reflective piece on improvisation, situated listening, on embodied being, identity and the ways we attach ourselves to things, and how things attach themselves to us.
In reflecting on improvisation and being, the piece, written, narrated and produced by Franziska Schroeder, draws upon the insights of artists and writers, including Simon Rose, Donna Haraway, Lucy Suchman, Judith Butler, Martin Heidegger to reflect on the situated-ness of the 2 hour street walk in Hanoi.
It is a personal reflection, informed by how unspoken, often ineffable knowledge can shape one’s internal perspective. This internal perspective, or ‘insider point of listening’ becomes a central theme in this piece, framing the perception of an improvising self in relation to her tactile and sonic surroundings.