Research Catalogue

Center for Art Design + Social Research Un-Writing Nature Spoleto, Italy

This exposition is a guide for students and teachers alike on the methodical approach of the subject Aural Skills and Improvisation.

Is there a method to die?

 In the spring of 2009, I attended a course in aesthetic-based qualitative research at Stockholm University. My mother was becoming very weak at the time. As I set out to write on method and methodology within the course, she had to go to hospital for some days during which I kept her company as much as I could. Tests didn't prove anything wrong with her though, and she was sent back home. When she was lifted from the stretcher and gently put her back in her own bed by the transport team, she looked around her and smiled. From the well-known paintings on her walls and the books in her bookshelves, she turned her attention to at me. Still smiling, she looked into my eyes, saying: "And now begins a new and exciting phase in our lives."

Less than a month later, she deceased. 

 The day after her death, I took one of her carpets on the back of my bike and went to the shore of a lake to clean it, the way she used to do it when I was a child. Out of this situation, the question emerged. Absurd though it seemed, it echoed through my further reading, listening and thinking.

This dissertation considers performed silences in composed music and suggests that musicians often use markers to communicate the dimensions of silence. These markers may shape, summon, or impose silence. Markers are signals or cues that may be visible, audible, or multimodal. This research consists of an archive of examples from the author's pianistic practice, as well as three case studies drawn from works of Beethoven, Cage, and Antheil. Full title: "Performing Musical Silence: Markers, Gestures, and Embodiments"

As a recorder and traverso player, J.S. Bach’s works form a crucial part of my repertoire. They include some of the most technically advanced music written for the recorder, in which the instrument seems to be pushed to its limits. Meanwhile, the traverso is welcomed into the orchestra, and it has come to stay. In order to understand the many problems surrounding the recorder and traverso parts from Bach’s music, I need to know how Bach used each instrument specifically. And to be able to make the right artistic choices, I need to know why he chose the recorder for one composition, and the traverso for the other. In answering these questions, I have used my experience in playing both woodwinds to my advantage. My journey has led me through an analysis of terminology, tessitura, symbolism, clefs and pitch surrounding Bach’s flute parts. And for context, I have compared Bach’s use of the recorder and traverso with that of his contemporaries. With my research, I present an overview of the characteristic differences between the two instruments in Bach’s music, giving my own artistic view on some of the unsolved mysteries surrounding Bach and his use of flutes.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023. BA Photography. The research paper Echoes of a Journey Through Eco is a record of several-yet-one-and-the-same journey(s). I departed guided by the two questions: What can I learn from the forest? How can I learn from the forest? The first part of the journey I started as a humble, aimless observer in Haagse Bos, where I would sit and let my surroundings dictate what I would write. The symbolic, yet totally non-existent line between culture and nature became subject of my research. I did not even know the history of the forest, or anything about trees from a more universally agreed upon perspective (science). I had to alter my approach to the research. Slowly the humble observer discovered a part of him inquisitively searching for questions and answers. I was approaching the field of ecology. Some months into my journey I carved the fateful words “bark bark” in the bark of a tree. I questioned myself as an artist making a mark on nature. I started writing a text to underpin a few things I think an artist should think about when their practice takes place in and with nature involved. Some very critical, almost cynical part of me took stead of the humble observer. It seems I needed to vent some things. The final paper holds fragments from all parts of the journey, from the humble observer to the cynical critic. As a journey it has barely begun, and as a text it is full of superficial reflections, very subjective opinions, and shortcomings. But, as the seed this text sprung from was planted only 6 months ago, it should be expected that it is still only a sapling about yay tall (20-30cm were I a Scots pine). If there is one thing I learned from trees, it’s patience.