Research Catalogue

Arts-based-philosophy is an emerging research concept at the cutting edge of the arts, philosophy and the Sciences in which cross-disciplinary research collectives align their research practices to finally stage their investigations in field-performances, shared with the public. Our research explores the significance of the HEART in artistic research and performance philosophy from a cross-cultural perspective, partially based on the concepts of the HEART in the works of two artist-philosophers, in which philosophy already became arts-based-philosophy: Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Aurobindo’s poetic opus magnum Savitri. We generally assume that the works of artist-philosophers are not only engaged in “creating concepts” (Deleuze), but their concepts are also meant to be staged artistically to let them bodily matter in fact. The role of the HEART in respect to this process of “bodily mattering” is the core objective under investigation: Firstly, because we hold that atmospheres trigger the HEART of a lived-body to taste the flavor of things it is environmentally engaged with basically in an aesthetic manner (Nietzsche). In this respect the analysis of the classical notion for the aesthete in Indian philosophy and aesthetics, sahṛdaya––which literally means, “somebody, with a HEART”––becomes crucial. Secondly, because the HEART is said to be not just reducible to one’s manifest Nature, but has access to one’s virtual Nature as well. The creation hymn in the oldest of all Vedas (Rgveda) for instance informs us that a HEART is capable of crossing being (sat) & non-being (asat), which makes it fluctuate among these two realms and even allows its aspirations to let virtual possibilities matter. Such concepts show striking similarities with contemporary concepts in philosophy-physics, e.g. the concepts of “virtual particles” and “quantum vacuum fluctuations” (Barad).

'Diffracting the Copenhagen Interpretation: Toward non-local collaborative art practices' investigates the resonances of concepts from quantum theory in the realm of transdisciplinary practice-based artistic research. Throughout a series of protocols using diffractive methodologies, we intend to translate and embody concepts such as spacetime, entanglement, non-locality, uncertainty, indeterminacy, and superpositionality, and embed them as tools for our artistic practices. These concepts were chosen for their singularity in physics, but also for the ways in which they confront ontoepistemic pillars of ‘Modernity’, such as sequentiality, determinacy and separability. The research is carried out by a transdisciplinary non-local core ensemble formed by Søren Kjærgaard, Amilcar Packer, and Carla Zaccagnini. The cities we inhabit – Copenhagen, Sao Paulo and Malmö – have been our laboratories. Departing from tools and methods learned from each-other's disciplines, we have been creating scores that guide our simultaneous actions while walking on the street –interacting with public spaces and their characteristics– or while lying asleep –in the most private of spheres. On the one hand, in a practice we call ‘non-local walking’, scores conduct our collective experiencing of our cities, involving a diffractive methodology of reading and listening, and the entangled collecting of objects, words and other affections found in the urban terrain. On the other hand, the ‘entangling dream practice’ experiment is an attempt without aiming at success of meeting each other in our dreams. Both investigations are conceived as boundary-crossing transdisciplinary methodologies through which we create a relational, critical consciousness and sensing that stimulates unexpected outcomes, embracing failure. These scored performances have resulted in cartographies, drawings, moving sculptures, audio works and writings. Across these various materializations, unexpected connections, constellations, and coincidences e/merge, unveiling yet unheard polyphonies that give resonance to the urban and mental spaces, as potentized terrains awaiting (re)circuitry, and, as fields of forces that await to be (re)experienced.

Nine research groups from HKU, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Fontys, and Utrecht University of Applied Sciences are joining forces with UvH and UMCU to bring a new perspective on healthcare through the arts, supported by the SIA-SPRONG grant. Using a transdisciplinary approach, this research group and its partners are developing new methods, practices, and scenarios within healthcare and well-being contexts—not for, but with each other.

This exposition, entitled The Possibilities of Applying Elements of Czech Folk Theatre to Contemporary Street Performing Art, presents the process and conclusions of artistic research that explored the phenomenon of Baroque folk theatre performed in neighbourhood communities in the Czech countryside in the 18th and 19th centuries and the search for the application of its principles in today's theatre activity. For this research, in cooperation with the Diocesan Museum of Brno, two street productions were created in the vicinity of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Brno to test the functionality of the means of folk theatre in today's context. The exposition presents the initial considerations and methodology of the research, followed by a chapter-by-chapter description of the various theatrical principles in their historical context, how they were worked with in the investigated productions, and a summary of the benefits and problems uncovered. Finally, the major contributions of folk theatre to today's work are outlined, which were evident in two of the production forms. An essential part of this exposition is the audiovisual documentation of these two projects, which became the core of the practical artistic research. (CZ) Tato expozice s názvem Možnosti aplikace prvků lidového divadla na současnou inscenační tvorbu pouličního performativního umění prezentuje proces a závěry uměleckého výzkumu, který se zabýval fenoménem barokního lidového divadla hraného v sousedských komunitách na českém venkově 18. a 19. století a hledáním využití jeho principů v dnešní divadelní činnosti. Pro tento výzkum vznikly ve spolupráci s Diecézním muzeem Brno dvě pouliční inscenace v okolí katedrály svatých Petra a Pavla v Brně, na kterých byla ověřována funkčnost prostředků lidového divadla v dnešním kontextu. V expozici naleznete výchozí úvahy a metodologii výzkumu, následně jsou v kapitolách popisovány jednotlivé divadelní principy v historickém kontextu, jak s nimi bylo pracováno ve zkoumaných inscenacích a shrnutí odhalených přínosů i problémů. V závěru jsou naznačeny největší klady lidového divadla pro dnešní tvorbu, které byly na dvou inscenačních tvarech patrné. Zásadní součástí této expozice je také audiovizuální dokumentace těchto dvou projektů, které se staly jádrem praktického uměleckého výzkumu.

HACKING SOUND SENSORIALITY_how to build embodied sound objects for electroacoustic music with lofi techniques Disembodiment is not new and does not only exist because of the current technological reality. It is an experience that various practitioners, in the field of music, experience constantly. The composer/producer/musician/sound designer moves the material. The listener only perceives its virtual representation. How to bridge the gap between the bodily experience of sound creation and its fruition and further (re)creation in the virtual world? By using synesthesia in the creation of an object-based sound method and vocabulary with the use of lofi techniques. A synesthesia of sensory roots to place the body-cosmos at the centre of sound, to make this simulacrum of identity a bridge between the articulate and the inarticulate, between the real and the virtual. Lofi thought, with its techniques for creating and modifying sound, has a new vision of technology, linked to knowledge and memories of the body. The aim is to design a new vocabulary of tools and methods for the creation of sound objects with different degrees of embodiment. These sound objects will be designed to live in two worlds: in the disembodied world of the virtual and in the material world of corporeal sonority. The article explores the use of a practical and philosophical hacking that does not colonise the new virtual sound territories, emptying them of resources and meanings, but amplifies them through the semiotics of the ancient territories of the body, in order to make them habitable and fertile.

In this exposition, I invite you to the process of research carried out in the tapestry manufactory in Valašské Meziříčí. It aims to find out how to convey tapestries' craftsmanship, mediality and materiality through filming and post-production. The theme of transformation is essential: the transformation of the tapestry into a film image, but also the transformation of painting or graphics, which were the precursors of the tapestries woven in the manufactory. I am also looking for ways to use a primarily representational medium to achieve an effect of presence through materiality and corporeality. In my research, I interlace observational passages with stylized ones that emerge from a creative dialogue between the materiality of different media, artistic techniques, or post-production interventions. These methods can deepen not only the viewer's experience but also the documentary testimony and convey an almost tactile encounter with the filmed reality. Finally, based on practical experience, I distinguish working with materiality in film into three analytical cuts. V této expozici zvu do procesu výzkumu, jak skrze natáčení a postprodukci filmu o gobelínové manufaktuře ve Valašském Meziříčí zprostředkovat řemeslnost, medialitu a materialitu tapisérií a recipročně i filmové technologie. Podstatným je tedy téma proměny. Proměny tapisérie ve filmový obraz, ale i proměny malby či grafiky, které byly předobrazem v manufaktuře utkaných tapisérií. Paralelně hledám možnosti, jak pomocí média, které je primárně reprezentativní, docílit skrz materialitu a tělesnost účinku prezence. Ve výzkumu střídám observační pasáže se stylizovanými, které vzešly z tvůrčího dialogu materialit odlišných médií, výtvarných technik či postprodukčních zásahů. Tyto metody mohou prohloubit nejen divácký prožitek, ale i dokumentární výpověď a zprostředkovat až taktilní setkání s natáčenou skutečností. Nakonec na základě praktické zkušenosti rozlišuji práci s materialitou ve filmu do tří analytických řezů.