Case-Specific Electroacoustic Systems
(2022)
author(s): Alejandro Montes de Oca
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
This composition-based project of artistic research introduces the term Case-Specific Electroacoustic Systems to describe a set of electric, digital, and acoustic devices that are interconnected in a particular way to embody a specific sound work. The artistic research states that when the sound composition process occurs in tandem with the electroacoustic system configuration and design process, a particular creative practice is engendered. The main research questions are how the development of such a system becomes another parameter of sound creation, and how this influences the artistic ideas and process elaborated around a specific sound work. In the course of the doctoral trajectory five new sound works were created and presented, thus forming the artistic portfolio of this doctoral project. Each work included the composition, design, and creation of a case-specific electroacoustic system. An introduction to the concept of Case-Specific Electroacoustic Systems, its contextualisation, and an analysis of the artistic practice and the outcomes of each of the five artworks are presented in this written thesis. The complete scope of this doctoral project, including the media material of the artistic portfolio and this artistic doctoral thesis, is contained within the exposition Case-Specific Electroacoustic Systems, published and archived in the Research Catalogue online database.
Monsters I Love: On Multivocal Arts
(2019)
author(s): Alex Nowitz
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
Proposing a ‘multivocal practice’ in the vocal arts, this exposition (documented artistic research project) embodies an inclusive approach to four core categories for the contemporary performance voice: the singing, speaking, extended and disembodied voice. The culmination of a four-year PhD project in Artistic Practices (Performative and Mediated Practices, with specialisations in choreography/film and media/opera /performing arts), it documents artistic research sub-projects through the presentation of multimedia material, interweaving performance recordings with reflective and contextualising texts. Multivocality addresses various models of virtuosity, all of which are informed by a multi-faceted artistic knowledge, whether experimental or experiential, technical or technological, improvisational or compositional. Contemporary vocal performance practices are loaded by questions pertaining to detecting and solving technical issues that span the vocal domains. Through a range of artistic practices—vocal, oral, bodily and technology-related—the research project unfolds what is conceived as a bountiful ‘vocal imaginary’. When voice and body meet technology-related practices that aim at the expansion of the vocal realm by using custom and gesture-controlled live electronics, a performance æsthetics of the in-between emerges. This is explored via the ‘strophonion’, formerly built at STEIM in Amsterdam and, during the course of the PhD, further developed by Berlin-based software programmer Sukandar Kartadinata who created an intricate configuration on the basis of the audio processing application Max/MSP. Through the formulation and performance of ‘The Manifesto for the Multivocal Voice’—a ‘discursive solo performance act’ that aims to provide insights into principles and premises, and to develop the discourse on the politics of today’s performance voice—the exposition attempts to establish a potential theoretical and philosophical grounding for multivocality. Its second major concern relates to the poetics of the voice, investigating the thresholds of highly individualised vocal practices by asking: what are the boundaries of the contemporary performance voice? The exposition (on the Research Catalogue) comprises video and audio documentation of public live performances, lectures and artists’ talks as well as studio productions and rehearsals. The user is invited to study scores and various texts, such as poems, extended programme notes, translations, performance instructions, comments and other reflections. The collection of essays and articles that guide the user through the edifice of ideas that the artistic research project has unveiled remains central to the endeavour.
a new kind of vaziri
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Puyain Sanati
This exposition is in review and its share status is: visible to all.
In this exposition I’m showing you my journey for these past two years of investigating my artistic practice through the meeting of identity and aesthetics.
Due to my Iranian background, I have felt a need and curiosity to bring together my Iranian and European identities. This project is a dialogue between myself and music, encompassing sounds, arrangements, physical presence, materiality, technology, context, and politics.
By politics I mean; history, cultural appropriation, diversity, colonisation, beliefs, and the current needs of the western culture.
A project involving confrontations with habits, default parameters, and elements within digital audio workspaces, thereby incorporating scales.