Gentle Friction - through temporary territories of culture
(2024)
author(s): Alicia Rottke Fitzpatrick
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Friction between the other is not only inevitable but a necessary part of heterogeneous life. However, this friction can occur on a spectrum, from aggressive, violent manifestations to more gentle, subtle forms. This research explores the latter form of friction within the context of cultural events.
There is a growing rhetoric that cultural events are solely for elitist circles, and if this discourse continues to permeate society, the transformative power of these events will be in jeopardy.
To preserve and reinforce the transformative power of these spaces, this research asks: How do cultural events facilitate moments of gentle friction as a means to foster an understanding of 'the other'?
This research began as an introspective exploration into the author's practice. By unpacking the conditions of conviviality, autonomy, and temporality that ensure the friction remains gentle, the research explores how these conditions can be spatially translated to strengthen the experience in these spaces. Concluding with a set of design tools that can be used to ensure the vitality of cultural events, encouraging diverse participation as a means to protect this necessary form of friction between the other.
Altodi Poltodi (This shore, That shore)
(2023)
author(s): Savyasachi Anju Prabir, Amrita Barua
published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
Altodi Poltodi thinks through aspects of permeability and preservation, provoking an image of shadowy protector figures. How do they interact with a landscape, what could they want to protect and where do they mark their boundary lines? Drawing from the ancient stories of Rakhandars, mythic beings that guard or protect Goan villages, this collaborative process weaves personal stories with the land and history of Goa. Altodi Poltodi began as a conversation between two friends on a bridge over a river, in a state of suspension, connecting two shores – those of memory and the present.
The Theatre of Words Set to Music
(2022)
author(s): Lars Skoglund
published in: Norwegian Academy of Music
This doctoral project in artistic research concerns the relationship between music and text when both are created by the same person: a composer writing his own libretti. The project is situated in ‘the everyday’, with commonplace language and daily life situations being examined and explored both thematically and as material.
The combination of music with other elements on the stage has resulted in pieces of music theatre, with a focus on different forms of storytelling. The reflection given withing this exposition describes how the works have evolved and discusses the different impulses that have led to specific artistic and ethical choices.
This exposition is presented in partial fulfillment of the Ph.d.-programmet i kunstnerisk utviklingsarbeid at the Norwegian Academy of Music.
Cleaning in progress: the line between art and life
(2021)
author(s): Ulvi Haagensen
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition combines image, text, and video to provide an overview of my artistic research, which focuses on the embodied experience of art-making in relation to the everyday. Equipped with the notions of a line and a circle, I explore the connections and overlaps between art and life through a multi-disciplinary art practice that combines installation, sculpture, drawing, performance, and video, and merges this with everyday experiences, mainly cleaning, one of the more mundane aspects of everyday life. In this work, I am accompanied by three imaginary friends, who are also artists. We find ourselves constantly crossing the lines between art, art-making, and everyday life as we move between our roles and various places of work, such as home, university, library, and studio. We dip into the everyday for materials, tools, and techniques, and work in the manner of a bricoleuse, using a ‘make do’ approach and ‘what is at hand’. Along the way, we ponder the specialness of art, especially from the perspective of an artist for whom art and art-making are a part of the everyday and therefore quite un-special. As we puzzle over the distinctions of whether something is practical or impractical, useful or useless, art or non-art, mundane or special, we end up blurring the borders to discover an approach that attempts to dispense with the idea of boundaries and binaries altogether.
Walking to Utopia and Thinking About Art Along the Way
(2021)
author(s): Ulvi Haagensen
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
Walking through the old town of Tallinn, where everything is quiet because shops, cafés and restaurants are closed, some permanently because of a lack of tourists due to the pandemic and others temporarily because of the current lockdown, I experience the city in a new way. The city is different and no longer am I drawn in by the enticement of what I could or should buy. I no longer peer in the café window to see if there is an available table, in the expectation of a pastry and a coffee. Art galleries and museums are also closed. I’m closed out but this strange situation means there is time to stop, notice and think, space to walk and an opportunity to see things differently. There is freedom to imagine new worlds, other possibilities, and new ways of seeing and being. I look at shop windows, peer into art galleries, think about my own window exhibition in the context of these other windows, and in the process take in a full experience of visual art in the form of installations, performance art and even participation art. At the same time my thoughts take me to completely other utopian worlds where things are quite different. The walk, though initially purposeful, becomes something more than a walk. It starts to meander and – combined with what I see, remember and imagine – it becomes a meandering text with images and ideas that click in and out of focus.