Research Catalogue

Documentation of preliminary steps and collection of musical material and related reflections during the first Term of the Master's Program in Improvisation and World Music. December 2022

The voice of Mystery is revealed in a canvas, where space and time travel on parallel paths, different visions...

This performance was recorded at the Black Box (Sibelius Academy) on November 25, 2024, within the scope of the symposium 'Investigating Musicians’ First-person Experiences.' It is part of Paola Livorsi and Jin Hyun Kim’s ongoing artistic research project, 'Exercises in Imagination' (2024–). This project explores questions of identity and diversity through the performative transformation of Arendt’s philosophical fragments from linguistic into musical meaning, utilizing the artistic technique of 'stimming' to foster empowerment and solidarity with socially disadvantaged individuals. Methodologically, the project adopts Kim’s nonverbal micro-phenomenological co-shaping approach to investigate the lived experiences underlying the processes of musical shaping.

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.