Research Catalogue

Timelessness and temporality (Kruse, 2011) are widely studied topics in the classical music of the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century, mainly concerning the perspective of musical composition and auditory perception of music. But what is the perspective of temporal layeredness in the performer’s experience? This quote offers a starting point (Noble, 2018): “music whose temporal organisation optimises human information processing and embodiment expresses human time, and music whose temporal organisation subverts or exceeds human information processing and embodiment points outside of human time, to timelessness .” Specialized in the repertoire of Karlheinz Stockhausen, I want to investigate the role of temporality in music from the perspective of a performer. I will delve into the richness of different layers of temporal awareness in an artistic experience through experiential, embodied, and sensorial knowledge, using different temporal compositions by Stockhausen as case studies: HARMONIEN (2006) for flute solo,, Xi (1986) for flute solo and STOP (1969) for ensemble.

Arts-based-philosophy is an emerging research concept at the cutting edge of the arts, philosophy and the Sciences in which cross-disciplinary research collectives align their research practices to finally stage their investigations in field-performances, shared with the public. Our research explores the significance of the HEART in artistic research and performance philosophy from a cross-cultural perspective, partially based on the concepts of the HEART in the works of two artist-philosophers, in which philosophy already became arts-based-philosophy: Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Aurobindo’s poetic opus magnum Savitri. We generally assume that the works of artist-philosophers are not only engaged in “creating concepts” (Deleuze), but their concepts are also meant to be staged artistically to let them bodily matter in fact. The role of the HEART in respect to this process of “bodily mattering” is the core objective under investigation: Firstly, because we hold that atmospheres trigger the HEART of a lived-body to taste the flavor of things it is environmentally engaged with basically in an aesthetic manner (Nietzsche). In this respect the analysis of the classical notion for the aesthete in Indian philosophy and aesthetics, sahṛdaya––which literally means, “somebody, with a HEART”––becomes crucial. Secondly, because the HEART is said to be not just reducible to one’s manifest Nature, but has access to one’s virtual Nature as well. The creation hymn in the oldest of all Vedas (Rgveda) for instance informs us that a HEART is capable of crossing being (sat) & non-being (asat), which makes it fluctuate among these two realms and even allows its aspirations to let virtual possibilities matter. Such concepts show striking similarities with contemporary concepts in philosophy-physics, e.g. the concepts of “virtual particles” and “quantum vacuum fluctuations” (Barad).

What triggered me to start this research is the multiplicity of reality. How something is represented, how it actually is and then how we all perceive it in our very own way. In that sense reality doesn’t exist, only versions of it. The lack of awareness of this multiplicity affects a lot our lives; what we believe, what we take as granted and how he behave.Through this practice based research I am experimenting on how to create moments of surprise and realization for the spectator. I work with copies and representations, replicas as I like to call them. The Replicas can be made of different materials, can be virtual or very physical. Until now I used scale models, mirrors and projections but the list is endless; so are the different ways to use the replicas or the impact that they will have. The way that the replicas are introduced to the spectator and their interaction is also very crucial in my work and another field to research. The movement and the body play a significant role to this. The special relationship that we have with our body, the way that we perceive it and how the movement can reset these relations and affect how we experience things.

Music has always been a crucial element in films. In fact, a scene can have absolutely different meanings depending on the music. In this research project I tried to investigate to what extent these differences rely on the use of musical parameters such as instrumentation/timbre, melody, harmony, rhythm and tempo among others. I focused on 4 different emotions: Tension, Sadness, Rejoice and Nostalgia. The goal was to find out how these parameters can be used in order to maximise the depiction of the specific emotion being portrayed in each scene. The main source of information was the analysis of cues from various movies portraying different emotions in combination with interviews with film composers, some of them being the authors of the analysed films. All this led to the composition of new cues putting into practice what I learned. As a result, there are findings that suggest that to maximise the depiction of these different emotions the most important musical parameters to manipulate are tempo, harmony and instrumentation. As a research outcome, I composed music for cues for films such as Blood Diamond (2006), Luna de Avellaneda (2004) and Big Fish (2003).

During the past decade, there has been a surge in the literature about crossmodal correspondences, consistent associations our minds establish between stimuli that are perceived through different senses. Correspondences between sound/music and flavour/taste have received particular scholarly attention, which has lead to a variety of practical applications in the form of food and music pairings, mostly examples of so-called ‘sonic seasoning’, a way to use sound to enhance or modify the tasting experience. This thesis aims to explore the pairing of food and music from an artistic perspective. Its goal is to find tools that would allow to present both music and food as components of coherent live performances in which neither of them is a mere ‘seasoning’ to the other. Through the description and exploration of different ‘mediating elements’ between them (such as crossmodal correspondences, but also structure, ritual, narrative, and others), a wide range of possibilities is presented to whoever wants to match food and music in a truly synergistic manner. Readers interested in multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary artistic practices of any kind might find the outcomes of this research useful for their own work.

The Archeologist’s Gaze presents and reflects on a project on the restoration of ancient tapestries, following the award of a research grant to TAMAT (Museum of Tapestry and Textile Arts, Tournai, Belgium) in 2020-2021. After immersing herself in the museum's restoration workshop, looking for images, words, materials and gestures, Paternostre turned her attention to the reverse side of the tapestry. Studying the scraps of thread that had fallen to the floor, her vision of the tapestry was turned upside down, and the little bits of thread that gradually was picked up from the ground became the focus of the research. These details bore traces of many hands that had restored and repaired the tapestry over the centuries and told a story of care and attention, the inseparable opposite of monumental tapestries and mythical tales.