Research Catalogue

A new filigrane sound object (or series of objects) in the making, w.i.p.

A visual map of the RC. Hover over a screenshot to see the title and author. If you click you will see a gallery with a screenshot of each of its weaves. There is a form which allows you to filter based on title, author, keywords, abstract and date. For an exposition to appear in this map, it needs to be public (share -> public or published). The map is updated once every 24 hours. There is an alternative map that allows you to browse all research by keyword.

The PD Arts + Creative Symposium takes place at LocHal in Tilburg (NL) on 20 June 2025. This year’s symposium will highlight the programme’s multidisciplinary character by zooming in on the diverse fields of practice that its researchers operate in, connect to, and impact. It asks where, how, and with whom does the PD-research resonate? And what is the contribution of artistic and creative research to societal challenges?

The impossibility of perfect translation is a widely acknowledged trope, yet translation remains a powerful act of meaning-making. This research-creation project investigates not what is lost, but what is gained through translation, by presenting and reflecting on our artistic re-interpretation of Dichterliebe, Robert Schumann’s nineteenth-century song cycle on texts by Heinrich Heine. Drawing on theories of translation by Walter Benjamin, Umberto Eco, and Hans Vermeer, we approach art song translation beyond its conventional linguistic scope, exploring it as a mode of modernization and gendered recontextualization. Our project, The Poet’s Love(r), features a new, singable English translation, alongside newly composed spoken poetry that gives voice to the song cycle’s historically silent female protagonist. In our methodological approach, we consider translation as a generative act within a broader artistic assemblage, incorporating artificial intelligence (AI)-generated images derived from the translated texts. These visuals, created with minimal textual prompts, offer a ‘post-human’ reflection on our hybrid nineteenth-century/twenty-first-century intervention, illuminating both the creative potential and the inherent biases of AI-generated art. Through an iterative process of artistic experimentation, pedagogical engagement with students at the mdw — University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna — and comparative analysis of contemporary Dichterliebe adaptations, we examine the strengths, limitations, and ethical considerations of translation as artistic research. Ultimately, we argue that translation — understood both linguistically and as creative transformation — can enhance access to art song’s multiple communicative layers (music, text, subtext), expanding its interpretative possibilities. By embracing a translational methodology, we advocate for a shift away from rigid notions of fidelity to historical works and toward a more dynamic, pluralistic engagement with musical tradition, informed by feminist, posthumanist, and experimental artistic perspectives. By situating The Poet’s Love(r) within a broader assemblage of interpretations — drawing on Paulo de Assis’s concept of musical works as decentralized, evolving entities — the project challenges traditional notions of fidelity and authorship in art song. It argues for translation as a vital creative practice that expands accessibility, deepens emotional resonance, and enriches the afterlife of canonical works. Download Accessible PDF

In a hyper-individualised, market-driven neoliberal world where everyone is considered responsible for their own success and happiness, the notion of a common or collectively lived future seems either naive or — given the Eastern and Central European experiences of failed state socialism — totalitarian. To this, the natural and social sciences offer a counter-hypothesis: We already are interconnected in terms of biological matter, ecosystemic relations, climate systems, shared societal infrastructure, and even global financial markets. Socialised as individuals, though, we lack the tools to refer, relate, and act towards this reality. Monika, besides being an organically formed name for the artistic collective of me and my two artist colleagues (Matyáš Grimmich and Karolína Schön), is a lens and shared body through which I offer entry to this framework. This exposition follows an ongoing performative research project on models of relating — becoming ‘we’ on the planetary, social, and political scale. The research centres on concepts of the expanded self and politics of unity, focusing on testing existing models or developing new methods of becoming more-than-just-self. Its participatory installations, video works, workshops, and research performances were tested and presented in residency and gallery spaces. These outcomes are organised around three strategies — object and its use; situation and its record; story and its act of telling. Methodically, the exposition (and henceforth the whole research) uses poetic and prosaic language to address people as individual selves and poetically suggest what if we perform the multividual, rather than uphold the individual. This approach hopes to build affective relation towards the reality of a shared planet (Latour 2018), where all entities are connected and interdependent, with agency emerging from in-between, not from a particular ‘one’. Download Accessible PDF

The artistic works discussed in this article – two audio pieces and three experimental films – showcase a tangible connection with the tools, machines, and processes used in their making. The sonic works include Mes bronches by Henri Chopin and “Opus Putesco” by Jacob Kirkegaard. The films feature Noisy Licking, Dribbling & Spitting by Vicky Smith, Transit(ive) by Sarah Bliss, and a Darkness Swallowed by Betzy Bromberg, including a soundtrack by Pam Aronoff. The five case studies depict the technologically mediated human body as the source and basis of sound. This article aims to examine the complex relationship between materiality and hapticity. The theoretical approach will explore how performativity is embedded in the production of embodied sounds (and images) and why a dynamic view of materiality is essential. It will then discuss haptic vision and haptic listening, shifting the focus to the act of reception. As I will argue, engaging with the material through embodied forms of art production and reception has significant ethical and political implications.