Research Catalogue

Draft MA thesis

A 2-part module by the MA Transdisciplinary Studies of ZHdK, Department Kulturanalysen und Vermittlung. Held by Anna Rubi & Eirini Sourgiadaki. Autumn 2023-Spring 2024 Colour perception varies, so do the semantics of colour terminology, for both sighted and blind individuals. The questions around colour perception from ophthalmology or neurobiology perspectives to cognitive and artistic ones, are infinite: Is there a universal human experience of the blue sky, the green grass and the brown soil? How is colour perceived in the brain, how is it translated into a communicable concept and how does it affect our perceived world, our mental and physical state? What is the role of colour in synesthesia? And most importantly, does colour have to do just with vision? In this module we work with the generation of blue colour on print, using the major light source available, the Sun. The Island of Amorgos is often referred to as “Le grand bleu” after the famous french film was shot at location. Its ancient name is “Melania”. “Melani”, the Greek word for ink, (“Melano” for dark blue, cyan) as it is said that in ancient times the place was covered with dark green flora. Our investigation begins exactly with this deep tint. We pay a visit to the famous monastery and the water oracle, walk the trails to observe the sensual -not only vision-based- shades of blue. In the spring term, we participate in local activities such as beach clean-up initiatives of the remote bays by local fishermen and their boats. We visit bee-hives and herb-distilleries, we work with the most basic bits and pieces of the island to capture its essence.

This exposition gathers a series of visual and linguistic investigations in which signs, form, and the space between them construct expressions that invite multiple interpretations. Here, propositions are understood as attempts, movements, and modes of thought. Between sign and form, a space emerges where meaning can be brought into play – where rhythm, structure, wonder and quietness may interact as an expanded practice of seeing, reading, and listening.

This essay examines the challenges of generative AI in composing ‘new’ music. The focus is on the commercial generative AI applications (i.e. AI music generators) due to their prominence in the mainstream cultural and technological discourse. The essay adopts a philosophical rather than a technological approach, situating the use of generative AI in music within a broader societal, cultural, and environmental context. If AI and music (understood as normative practices) are majoritarian, molar, and arborescent entities, then the approach taken here is Deleuzian: minoritarian, molecular, and rhizomatic. By engaging with their fault lines, disassembling and reassembling their structures, and connecting them to the wider world, the essay presents an alternative way of thinking about AI and music – and AI in music – and proposes one such possible application.

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.