The Research Catalogue (RC) is a non-commercial, collaboration and publishing platform for artistic research provided by the
Society for Artistic Research. The RC is free to use for artists and
researchers. It
serves also as a backbone for teaching purposes, student assessment, peer review workflows and research funding administration. It strives to be
an open space for experimentation and exchange.
recent activities
Performing Process
(2024)
Emma Cocker, Danica Maier
PERFORMING PROCESS is a research group within the Artistic Research Centre at Nottingham Trent University, co-led by Emma Cocker and Danica Maier, both Associate Professors in Fine Art. We ask: what is at stake in focusing on the process of practice — the embodied, experiential, relational and material dimensions of artistic making, thinking and knowing. What is the critical role of uncertainty, disorientation, not knowing and open-ended activity within artistic research? How might a process-focused exploration intervene in and offer new perspectives on artistic practice and research, perhaps even on the uncertain conditions of contemporary life?
PERFORMING PROCESS has origins in a number of critical precedents: Summer and Winter Lodges originating within the fine art area (practice-research residencies or laboratories dedicated to providing space-time for making-thinking and for exploring the process of practice), collaborative artistic research projects such as No Telos, for exploring the critical role of uncertainty, disorientation, not knowing and open-ended activity; the DREAM seminar series with PhD researchers which focuses specifically on the ‘how-ness’ of practice research by asking - How do we do what we do?
Morten Qvenild – The HyPer(sonal) Piano Project
(2024)
Morten Qvenild
Towards a (per)sonal topography of
grand piano and electronics
How can I develop a grand piano with live electronics through iterated development loops in the cognitive technological environment of instrument, music, performance and my poetics?
The instrument I am developing, a grand piano with electronic augmentations, is adapted to cater my poetics. This adaptation of the instrument will change the way I compose. The change of composition will change the music. The change of music will change my performances. The change in performative needs will change the instrument, because it needs to do different things. This change in the instrument will show me other poetics and change my ideas. The change of ideas demands another music and another instrument, because the instrument should cater to my poetics. And so it goes… These are the development loops I am talking about.
I have made an augmented grand piano using various music technologies. I call the instrument the HyPer(sonal) Piano, a name derived from the suspected interagency between the extended instrument (HyPer), the personal (my poetics) and the sonal result (music and sound). I use old analogue guitar pedals and my own computer programming side by side, processing the original piano sound. I also take out control signals from the piano keys to drive different sound processes. The sound output of the instrument is deciding colors, patterns and density on a 1x3 meter LED light carpet attached to the grand piano. I sing, yet the sound of my voice is heavily processed, a processing decided by what I am playing on the keys. All sound sources and control signal sources are interconnected, allowing for complex and sometimes incomprehensible situations in the instrument´s mechanisms.
Credits:
First supervisor: Henrik Hellstenius
Second Supervisors: Øyvind Brandtsegg and Eivind Buene
Cover photo by Jørn Stenersen, www.anamorphiclofi.com
All other photo, audio and video recording/editing by Morten Qvenild, unless stated.
recent publications
Swan Screed egg God
(2024)
Nicole Ross
Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten
Thesis / Research document of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague 2024
MA Artistic Research
A search for the special through oil electric and sentimental.
India/Germany: the Story of a Little Girl from India and Germany
(2024)
Jessica Varghese
Thesis / Research Document of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2024
Interactive/Media/Design (I/M/D)
As a child, moving from India to Germany changed the way I looked at and was perceived by society around me. Dancing between the extremes of complete integration and complete rejection of the culture, I found myself struggling with my sense of identity and belonging.
By using TV and stories and other forms of media I was able to learn about my second culture and maintain my first culture. Looking through the lens of entertainment media I consumed throughout my childhood as well as the changes in narrative unfolding before my eyes as I grew up I started to wonder: How did the media I consumed shape my view of the world around me and the way that others perceived me? How much of that media had good/bad POC representation? How much of it was specifically South Indian? How much of it could I relate to?
Harmonious Inner and Outer Climates
(2024)
Ilva Nieuwstraten
Thesis / Research Document of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023.
BA Interactive / Media / Design
on the inner climate of the body
This study investigates the relationship between the inner experiences of the human body and the state of balance of earth’s climate. The current state of the earth is worsening and the current way of living is not sustainable, climate change wise but also health and mental health wise. Changes need to be made to the way humans live their lives, for (men- tal) health, environment and survival of all beings.
There are three stages in which this research takes place: meeting, befriending and becoming. The meeting chapter looks at the human body experiences of breathing, emotions and (graceful) movement and what these mean in relation-
ship with environmental awareness. During befriending we dive into the human body’s microbiome, neurodiversity, mental illness, burn out, education and war and how these influence the climate crisis. The last chapter called becoming, looks into the philosophy of time and space in relationship with environmentalism and viewing the earth as one’s own body.
The three stages are designed to help us understand the rela- tionship to the disturbance of the climate and our role in it. The research looks into methods to become aware of one’s body. For instance, Just being—breathing—gives the body and its microbiome time to heal. Another method being zooming out and metaphorically seeing the human bodies as the microbiome of earth. .