Research Catalogue

We left Eden Performed by Marius Igland Group Musicians: Sebastian Grüchot Violin Trygve Rypestøl Sax Bjørn Rønnekleiv Clarinets Marius Igland Guitar Espen Grundetjern Bass Trygve Tambs-Lyche Drums Production Camera Andi Gyberg Lights design Andi Gyberg Sound Engineer Espen Grundetjern Consultant Espen Grundetjern Producer Marius Igland Editor Marius Igland Mix/master Marius Igland Music All compositions and arrangements by Marius Igland Timestamps: 0:14 - Prologue 3:18 - I - A different Animal 11:55 - II - Exploring 19:15 - III - Ambience 27:55 - IV - Water 32:59 - V - Anthropocen 41:07 - VI - Chronophobia 48:31 - VII - Forward we go 53:12 - VII - Returning This production was shot live in Kristiansand, Norway 12th of May, 2024

Prodigal Misfortunes fuses digital drawing with eerie storytelling to create a captivating realm where the boundaries between the visual and narrative blur, inviting audiences into a unique experience. This synthesis leverages the strengths of both mediums, with the algorithmic medium providing a limitless canvas for visual exploration and the eerie narratives weaving complex, thought-provoking tales that engage the imagination and evoke deep emotional responses. Algorithmic drawing, with its capacity for intricate detail and surreal environments, sets the stage for stories that push beyond the ordinary, crafting scenes that are as haunting as they are beautiful. The eerie storytelling, in turn, infuses the artwork with a narrative depth that transforms each piece into a window into otherworldly tales, filled with mystery and the uncanny. But algorithms are not neutral entities and its socio-political effects result from the will of real individuals behind them who use them as an apparatus for social control. Thus, we endeavor to maintain an explicit distance between artist and computer, in the context of the emerging AI/LLM technologies that threaten to reverse the mind-over-matter stance of classic dualism. The use of mathematical chance through algorithmic processes to create drawings, aims to break free from technological functionalism. Mathematical randomness serves as a tool to explore the artist's inner self. Despite their digital nature, these drawings are firmly rooted in the tradition of drawing: they serve as a medium for expressing the artist's thoughts, embody the process of transferring these ideas onto a canvas over time, and highlight the artist's presence. Through a created software tool the software that produces the drawing stands as an artwork on par with the produced images, although remaining invisible. Thousands of lines of code have been written, although they remain in obscurity as an inherent aspect of its personal nature.

A work-in-progress artistic research project. Initiated by Hanns Holger Rutz and Nayarí Castillo in autumn 2021, it develops into multiple intermedia objects that involve collaboration between different artists, objects that engage in sensorial exchange among themselves and with humans. This exposition is very much in flux, trying to capture the meanderings of the process.

This is a exposition-version of a Keynote speech, held at SIMM-posium, Copenhagen, November 2024 Drawing on findings and experience from the Artistic Research project "Echoes from the torn down fourth wall", this keynote will explore key perspectives on building bridges between “art music” (whatever that means) and community singing. The research project began with an inquiry into audience participation within improvised concerts and has reinterpreted familiar Danish song material in an art music setting where the audience sings along in songs they know. Topics will include proposals for understanding the social dynamics of participation and listening through the framework of 4e cognition; in this case, thinking of listening as embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended. The role of the spectator across different performance art domains will be examined, focusing on how the project has challenged notions and ideals of the spectator’s separation (or lack thereof) from the musical event. Additionally, genre theory will be employed to rethink the distinctions and overlaps between “cultural” and “art” perspectives in the interpretation of inherited musical traditions. Approaches to possible renegotiations of musical traditions – whether through confirmation or destabilization – will also be discussed, partly in the Danish context of the project, but also extended more generally beyond this specific starting point.

This artistic PhD project is based on the author’s practice as a recorder player and chamber musician in contemporary Western art music. Through an initial study of the embodied and tacit knowledge of chamber musicians and how it is articulated through gestural interaction during performance, the perspective of the thesis widens to explore how such qualities can be used as a creative resource in interdisciplinary collaboration. At its core, the PhD work has explored long-term collaborative processes in projects where a series of chamber music works have been brought to a staged context, but always keeping the qualities of chamber music at its centre. The research questions that emerge from these conceptual and artistic aims are: – How can I understand and transfer the communicative and embodied qualities inherent in chamber music playing to staged interdisciplinary contexts? – How can the concept of the gestural-sonic object, and the multimodal understanding of human perception which it implies, constitute both an analytical tool and a source for artistic experimentation? – How can musical interpretation be applied in the creation of staged interdisciplinary performances? The method and design of the project builds on collaborations with artists from the fields of composition, choreography, dance, theatre and visual arts. In the projects, the participating artists have aimed to explore and develop collaborative methods and staged formats where the artforms at the same time have been considered as autonomous and as part of a compound whole. The results of the artistic work are published online in the Research Catalogue. The project findings suggest that interdisciplinary approaches, such as experimental music theatre, composed theatre and choreomusical practices, may enable the liberation from traditional roles, hierarchies and predetermined formats and can lead to what can be described as a radical interpretation of the original score. Through a study of musical gesture – building on a theoretical framework grounded in embodied cognition and phenomenology – the thesis presents examples, both artistic and theoretical, of processes through which boundaries between artistic disciplines have been consciously blurred, thereby providing novel creative opportunities for the classical music performer.

This research aims to combine my two artistic identities as a Chinese zither (古筝) player and as a classical singer. After researching, interpreting and analyzing two art song cycles from the 20th century, 5 Poems of Ancient China and Japan by Charles Griffes and Songs of Autumn (秋之歌) by Zhongrong Luo (罗忠镕), I integrate Chinese traditional music forms, ornamentation and instrumentation into my vocal performance. The methodology includes literature review, expert interview, internet media review, score analysis, language analysis and experimental music practice. The outcomes highlight my approach of incorporating inspiration from zither music and folk singing styles into the art song cycles, while also addressing the ethical considerations encountered throughout the research process.