Research Catalogue

In this section, the research defines the "Divergent Gaze" not as a subjective condition, but as a rigorous phenomenological method. It is the production of a divergent reality where fantasy becomes scientific certainty. The artist does not merely observe reality but interrogates its molecular and ontological stability.

This artistic research investigates what kind of music arises from multiple musical identities. The answer is the album III, a collaborative work with guitarist Juhani Silvola, supported by a research exposition that documents and reflects upon the creative process, and an extensive timeline showing it as it unfolded. The main argumentation within the work revolves around the importance of distinguishing between musical identities (plural) and personality (singular). The rationale behind this is to generate productive creative friction – to use the knowledge of multiplicity as a tool – to identify and push against boundaries and have knowledge from one identity inform, and expand, another. Identities are multiple, situational, and enacted through doings: (in my case) the drummer, the singer, the producer, the programmer, et al. They coexist, each with its own expectations, vocabulary, and criteria for success. Personality, by contrast, is shown as the continuous thread – the container in which all identities meet and negotiate, providing coherence without dissolving difference. The research unfolds across three phases: Startup, Deconstruction, and Assemblage. Methods include archival listening (revisiting accumulated recordings as material to draw from, either through self-gratification or analysis), physical and material constraints, custom software tools, and playing my instruments. In some cases, peripheral projects became ‘methodological sites’, allowing for focused and longer-term exploration and research. Spirit of Rain, Be Like Water, and a duo with Hans Martin Austestad, all function as experiments where methods combine and generate knowledge. A central concern is the role of machines in creative practice. Noting, but not necessarily drawing on, philosopher John Searle's (1980) Chinese Room Argument and the concept of procedural agency, this work follows a line of thought in which machines may exhibit tendencies, but not personality. What emerges from human-machine collaboration is shaped by this asymmetry. The exposition, built using HTML and hosted in the Research Catalogue framework, is not a linear argument entirely, but rather a pathway through sounds, texts, videos, and fragments – organized semi-chronologically and tagged by function. It demonstrates that answering a question about musical identity requires both artistic result and theoretically aligned reflection.

In the Mirror of Care Work researches skills within Nordic interactive performance practices. Using the mirror as a metaphor for visualisation and connection, artist Inga Gerner Nielsen brings into conversation the work of nurses and interactive performers. By inviting in the perspectives of care workers and looking into the history of their profession, Inga engages in discussions about the politics, mythologies and poetics of her own field. What do we see when we look in the mirror, and when that mirror is a nurse? Do we, as performers – like the nurses were once said to – abide by the feeling of a calling? Does this involve a kind of spiritual care for our audience? And what of the nurses’ working conditions should we perhaps try to adopt as (care giving) performers? The project visited Stockholm (MDT) in September 2023 and Helsinki in January 2024 in a two-day symposium to meet and exchange with local artists about the aspect of care work in their artistic practice . The project is based in a long-term collaboration with the nursing school at UCN Hjørring & Thisted in the north of Denmark. Together with teacher of the History of Nursing, Helle Kronborg Krogsgaard, Inga gerner Nielsen is developing ways of integrating interative performance excersices and visual art into the teaching of 1.st, 4th and 7th semester nursing students.

In this article, Bob Selderslaghs presents a research project by the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp and Fontys Academy of the Arts Tilburg on how teaching artists can strengthen their practice in an international, hybrid learning community. Through inspiring lectures, practical experiments and in-depth reflection, participants gained recognition for their practice, expanded their artistic-pedagogical repertoire and built valuable contacts. The project emphasises the power of flexible frameworks, embodied learning and sustainable networks for greater visibility and impact in this dynamic field.

This exposition presents a practice-based research project that reimagines electronic music performance through the participatory and ritualistic ethos of Capoeira. Initially motivated by a critique of audience passivity in contemporary electronic performance, the project shifted from “translating” Capoeira into an electronic context toward constructing ritual-based frameworks that foster shared authorship, presence, and collective agency. The research unfolded through iterative processes of design, testing, and reflection. Early on, ritual was established as a conceptual foundation, situating the work within debates on participation, spectacle, and cultural belonging. Subsequent phases explored instrument-making as both technical and symbolic practice, producing DIY electroacoustic objects (Lua and Mar) that embody accessibility, agency, and transparency. Attention then turned to orchestrating the ritual performance itself, experimenting with spatial, temporal, and sensory structures that redistribute power and unsettle the artist–audience divide. The process culminated in a public performance integrating instruments, structure, and reflection, while raising new questions around documentation, belonging, and the fragility of agency. From these iterations emerged the framework of ritual as multi-dimensional architecture: a compositional and perceptual field where time, space, materials, and social dynamics interweave to sustain collective creativity. The exposition combines documentation of instruments and performances with reflective writing, offering both a record of process and a proposition for future development.

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