for-Wards: Curating a Hyperlocal Compositional Methodological Framework
(2020)
author(s): Bobbie-Jane Gardner
published in: Research Catalogue
In this exposition, I present the curatorial methods I devised to create a hyperlocal compositional methodology used in the research project, for-Wards. for-Wards is a two-year citywide music programme involving a large-scale artistic partnership to co-create new music within and about forty Birmingham wards.
The curated hyperlocal methodological framework I constructed was used to support the creation of hyperlocal musical works. I use the term ‘hyperlocal’ which is borrowed from the realm of citizen journalism. It infers community-produced news that is extremely localised. Hyperlocal is concerned with events and stories within a specific geographic community (Radcliffe 2012).
Notions of Queerness as compositional building blocks in "There are more of them than us - a Queer Concerto for 9 Saxophones and Orchestra"
(2020)
author(s): Michael Wolters
published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
This exposition examines how notions of queerness can be built into the construction of a 15-minute long concerto for 9 saxophones and orchestra.
I am presenting the full orchestral score, a video of the premiere performance and a commentary on the research process.
Catalogue d'Emojis
(2020)
author(s): Paul Norman, Michael Wolters
published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
Catalogue d'Emojis is a Live Performance and CD release of a new work for two performers and two pianists by Dr Paul Norman and Dr Michael Wolters (who together work under the name 'Difficult Listening').
maskings
(2020)
author(s): Corey Mwamba
published in: Research Catalogue
"maskings" is an exposition distilled from a wider research project called "how the vibraphone can be a mouth". Using music, prose, and free verse, I seek to highlight the issues that project revealed within jazz and improvised music studies, and studies into vibraphone practice; briefly show the practical-philosophical roots of my methodology in the research; and present the practice-led roots of my current philosophy of the vibraphone.
Necessary Amendments
(2020)
author(s): Stuart Whipps
published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
During the passing of the New Towns bill in 1946 the minister for Town and Country planning invoked Moore’s Utopia only to be dismissed, ridiculed and lampooned by opposition politicians in the UK parliament. Whipps’ artistic research takes this moment's crude dichotomy as a starting point to investigate the places that were built and the people who live in them 70 years later. The outcomes (films, exhibitions and publication) allow for the different reading of historical materials from the perspective of memory and community. Whipps’ creates a change to the way we remember and think of ‘new towns’ today by both; representing the stories of people who lived and live in those ‘new’ places and by reflecting upon what happens when idealism and optimism is confronted by bureaucracy and the status quo.
This research utilises historical and archival materials from Milton Keynes City Discover Centre and vintage educational videos from The Open University that were presented alongside newly created photographs, films and personal testimonies. Whipps developed a new body of work that centres around a series of films ‘Necessary Amendments’ (2014 - 2020) supported by community engagement events (e.g “Cycle Tour” around Milton Keynes public art displays, 2018), new photographic and film material from the sculpture garden created by a Harlow New Town architect Sir Fredrick Gibberd, and commissioned writing by Dr Honor Gavin (The University of Manchester).
His findings in a form of films, contemporary art exhibitions, public talks and publications were supported by MK Gallery, The Open University and the University of Hertfordshire. The project was exhibited nationally in MK Gallery, and internationally in CURRENT Athens. “Necessary Amendments: Homes for the People” film was commissioned and exhibited as part of New Geographies (funded by ACE). Whipps published a peer-reviewed paper in ‘Art & the Public Sphere’ journal (2017).
Composition as Devised Collaboration
(2020)
author(s): Seán Clancy, Andy Ingamells
published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
The aim of this research was to explore devised collaboration between Seán Clancy and Andy Ingamells as a compositional process through the creation of two works that use collaborative creative strategies in different ways:
1. in This is About, by devising all material through the act of doing, considering all material in a given process to be collaborative.
2. in Antonio Guillem, by collaboratively constructing and performing a piece remotely over the internet, intended as a creative response to the pandemic by exploring technology in a novel way.
This exposition provides contextual information to support the two creative outcomes.
Both works borrow aspects from other areas of Clancy's practice research, such as intervention and translation (available here). Both were devised through discussion, creating material by moving back and forth between doing and reflecting. We explored the collaborative process through a kind of visual musique concrète arising from the images of performance situations. In both works the compositional process was scrutinised, reviewed by funding bodies and festival directors, and disseminated internationally by BBC Radio 3, Twitch and YouTube.