Research Catalogue

Although it is virtually impossible to formalize what ‘best practice’ on the Research Catalogue might be, it harbours by now numerous examples of expositions that ‘work.’ In this session, I want to introduce a small set of diverse expositions from JAR as a way to highlight successful choices people have taken. With a short explanation of expositionality and virtual witnessing, I aim to support an understanding of the effect that those examples have as a way of describing how media-rich articulations can productively engage with both academic and artistic expectations.

short bio and cv

My position is that knowledge about an artist and their work can be uncovered through close looking at their work and that some of this knowledge can be held and transferred tacitly to viewers (that are also artists). This knowledge can be articulated through practice, in this case in the making and subsequent close looking and reflection of the Selfish Portrait paintings. Because the knowledge is tacit, as opposed to propositional, the knowledge may be sensed, felt or difficult to articulate in words. Practice is the most appropriate vehicle to test whether this knowledge can shift from what Alexis Shotwell’s has articulated as ‘nonpropositional knowledge’ to ‘potentially propositional knowledge’. In Selfish Portraits I search for self-portraits by a range of dead artists in terms of geography, gender, race, ‘status’, time of working, style, etc. This necessitates (re)searching beyond my current knowledge base using gallery visits, internet searches and books. The selected self portrait(s) are subjected to a period of ‘looking attentively’ in order to visual interrelate and learn about the painting, and by extension the artist. The main focus is allowing the self portraits to ‘talk to me’ following the theoretical stance of the ‘active’ painting or picture, that knowledge is held in the painting itself and cannot always be found in (written) documentation.

Vanessa Theme Ament’s "The Foley Grail" was, for a long time, the only publication to discuss in detail the art of film sound effects (foley). In this issue, we review the third edition of the book while in dialogue with the author herself.

Norths: Navigating Instability By Ear exposes a diversity of transdisciplinary artistic research threads within Norths, a growing body of environmental sound art practice at an intersection of data and listening experience. By rendering intangible data representations physically perceptible, ‘northness’ - understood as location, place, idea, and fiction - becomes a site for material interrogation of ‘standards’ applied to measurement, perception, being, knowing, and acting. Critical phenomenological and ecological issues emerge from the noise encountered when sonifying (near) real-time seismic and geomagnetic data, as well as data from communication systems. In the present exposition conceptual corollaries from my experience making, reflecting on, and exhibiting these works are diffracted through language in a project to expose the material propositions of these works themselves. Cross-modulation (feedback) loops established within this exposition connect artistic practice to philosophical-linguistic expression, providing both an explication and an exploratory continuation of my ongoing research practice.

Pětice skladatelů – pedagog, tři studenti a jedna studentka se vydali naslouchat zvukové krajině polského předhůří Krkonoš, aby zkoumali vliv subjektivní percepce na výslednou podobu skladby. Nejdříve zaznamenávali své zvukoprostorové poslechové zkušenosti graficky do skicáků. Vzápětí formulovali tvůrčí záměry skladeb pro komorní ansámbl, které z těchto zkušeností vycházejí. V následujících čtyřech měsících zkomponovali studie s vědomím, že jsou určeny ke studiové realizaci. Kompoziční studie poté sami nahráli a celý proces společně reflektovali. Předložený text vstupuje do kontextu akustické ekologie, instrumentální syntézy a počítačem podporované skladby. Navazuje na kontinuální umělecký výzkum na katedře skladby HAMU v oblasti zvuku a prostoru a tvůrčích aplikací výsledků. Jeho cílem je prozkoumávat vztahy mezi subjektivní zvukoprostorovou zkušeností, volbou kompozičních strategií a výslednou podobou skladby. Five composers – one teacher and four students – set out to listen to the soundscape of the Polish foothills of the Giant Mountains in order to explore the influence of subjective perception on the final shape of a composition. First, they noted down their sound-spatial listening experiences graphically in sketchbooks. They then formulated creative ideas for chamber ensemble compositions based on these experiences. Over the next four months, they wrote compositional studies with the intention of recording them in the studio. They then recorded the studies themselves and reflected on the entire process together. The presented text enters the context of acoustic ecology, instrumental synthesis, and computer-assisted composition. It builds on continuous artistic research at the Department of Composition at HAMU in the field of sound and space and the creative application of the results. Its goal is to explore the relationships between subjective sound-spatial experience, the choice of compositional strategies, and the resulting shape of the composition.