Research Catalogue

Anatomy of Loss: An exposition

Building-Sound Compositions in (half-)public places: Starting from Graz, six vacant buildings in different European cities were researched as aural architectures and understood and experienced as an integral part of building-sound compositions. Techniques and strategies ​​were developed how sound art can react systematically to site-specific architectual conditions or how these environmental acoustic characteristics can become part of a previously non-existent composition.

"Expanding horizons" is an Artistic research project carried out between 2021 (August) and 2024 (November) at NTNU, Trondheim. The objectives were to contribute to knowledge on how different kinds of departure points can be useful for musicians when approaching 20th-century Western classical music through improvisation, an understanding of how one can navigate and negotiate the musical language of this repertoire, and insights into how the tension between different performance values can be navigated in this process. The research questions were: When applying improvisation to works of 20th-century classical music, 1. What role does the choice and preparation of musical representations play? 2. How can we navigate and negotiate musical structures such as melody, harmony and form? 3. How can we navigate the tension between fidelity to the work and creative expression? Based on selected pieces from this repertoire and practical explorations together with participating musicians, various approaches to creating improvisational frameworks were then explored. These included a wide range of scores, including lead sheets and indeterminate notation, as well as ear-based methods. From the perspective of integrating improvisation into the performances, approaches such as repeating elements, working with layers, creating transitions, and introducing open sections were examined. A key point was to use melodic material as a way of building strong connections with the source material, rather than relying on harmonic representations of the music. In terms of balancing respect for the original work with creative freedom, a “healthy dose of disrespect” pervaded much of the explorations, allowing deviations from the originals when they were musically justified. Throughout the work processes, an idea of focal points emerged, as aspects to focus on when reworking a classical work into an improvisational version. These focal points included the score, historical and performative contexts, expressive qualities, and the improviser’s personal voice.

There are moments within a performance where destruction and deviation from reality allow an alternative scenario to reveal itself. I argue that these moments can be called ‘brieftopic’, fleeting glimpses into a possible future (Behzad Khosravi Noori, 2024). But what are the connections between reality, deviation and alternative scenario? How can this brieftopia, which materializes for brief moments within a performative event, reverberate outside of it, propagating at a social and political level? During the site-specific improvisation series [in situ], it became evident to me that this brieftopia is tied to an artist’s relinquishment of control, leading to a decentralization of the performance. By introducing the case study, specifically the [in situ] performance held in September 2023 at the Maremma National Park, we will see how unforeseen, unpredictable, and non-linear interactions between myself, the audience, and the non-human components of the ecosystem in which we were immersed, shaped the performance itself, steering it in an unexpected direction and removing it from the continuum of artistic intention, audience perception, and everyday life reflection. In this brieftopia, in a sense, it is existence itself that is reduced to rubble, not for the love of rubble, but for the way out that passes through it, paraphrasing Walter Benjamin.

The photographic image has always historizised; an artifact of the past, photographic moment. But just as it is conditioned by the temporal and material context of its making, its essence – if there is one – is conditioned by how we encounter the image. This encounter involves both the situation in which the image is seen and our individual selves in relation to it – our histories, beliefs, and expectations. To further reflect on this unstable, temporal quality of the photograph, we explore the meaning of looking at the future by looking at photographs. Artistically and philosophically a contradiction in terms, it is still a practice we experience: How to look ahead with something temporally bound to the past. To do this, we reflect on ‘Regarding the Pain of the Future’ by the first author and develop and discuss an artistic practice emphasising a second, photographic moment.

Welcome to Galaxy Revolution, the space station of Historical Spiritual Vibrations space agency. At the station you can access training sessions and game instructions we use to imagine training and healing practices for the new space race. You can experience glimpses of our space journeys and learn more of the history of the tools and knowledge we bring with us on our missions. Dock at our space station and (mis)use our methods to reshape and imagine the past, present, and future in your own way. The exposition gathers documentation of Whyte&Zettergren's live actions and ritual practices at locations in Iceland where the Apollo 11 astronauts trained for their journey to the Moon. It also includes infrared imagery, a technology used in space visualization to capture light waves invisible to the human eye, recorded during the duo’s space journeys. The duo explores space both as a site where future colonial projects are planned and as a fictional realm for imagining alternative worlds. In their work, Zettergren's speculative technofeminism and Whyte's ritual dubfuturism intersect. Practices that reshape futures in various ways; through an intersectional feminist and technocritical lens, and through the experimental remixing of history, ritual, and rhythm in dub culture. When the present feels dystopian, dreams of life in space become a way to envision change, a transformation of the world through imagination, whose echoes vibrate into the future.