This exposition reports my artistic research project "Rooms of Resonance" (2019-2021). The project was granted nine months of work, and was undertaken at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen (RMC), co-financed by The Danish Ministry of Culture.
I am a reed player, composer, music producer and project creator, born in 1983. I see myself as a contributor to inquisitive and original music, informed by numerous influences. I have released three solo albums, which to me all have been deep existential processes and personal attempts to contribute to the artistic field and overall zeitgeist, I am part of. Concurrently I have toured internationally as a soloist and collaborator, as well as creating music for installations, theater, dance performances and film.
Resonance can be perceived from as a physical phenomenon and from a societal and an emotional perspective – as a feeding own-frequency or a sense of cohesion. In working with these understandings, I access “resonance” from an artistic angle, where insights derive from bodily, sensory experiences and subsequent reflections more than from an academic, theoretical investigation. This research and dissemination is therefore most of all practice-based in its way of investigating both physical and conceptual aspects of resonance, and in that sense, less academic in its scope. The ambition with this site is to contribute to the field of artistic research with a personal project, that both informs and inspires by sharing methods and an artistic output.
In “Rooms of Resonance” the primary question and overall method description has been:
Can I, through systematic research, uncover new artistic potentials in the relationship between my improvised solos, resonating artifacts and the sounding room?
Specifically, I have worked in three ways that have iteratively intertwined:
- Exploration of the sonic and artistic potentials in the interplay between the sound of me playing clarinet, and the sound produced by selected vibrating artifacts.
- Exploration of artistic potentials by testing promising sonic combinations in different performance contexts.
- Continuous reflection on processes and products through the use of a digital logbook and "interdisciplinary listening”.
To reach new insights, I have chosen to examine the artistic potentials in combining my live, acoustic and improvised performances with so-called "drivers”. Basically, they are audio amplifiers, which through vibration can transform selected objects into a sort of speaker, where the object's structure and materiality defines the timbre of the sound. Depending on the supporting technology, these are also sometimes called “transducers” or “exciters”. I experienced this technology while living in New York, where department stores transformed their window facades into speakers for advertising purposes. Later I learned that drivers are also used in various music and art settings, as a way of creating an immersive physical and/or sonic experience.
“Rooms of Resonance” opens up for many comprehensive topics such as improvisation, sound, art, technological development, philosophy, cultural entrepreneurship, educational development, cross-aesthetic processes and sociology. The given frame for this exposition was to make a web-site that can be experienced in more or less an hour. Despite the many topics my aim has been to keep this frame, which has led to a concise exposition that sometimes invites self-reflection.
Please make use of the top menu, to move around on this site. The topics reflect the levels of analysis in the project and the structure of the exposition, while also implying that in reality there are myriads of overlaps. The topics are:
- "Works"; a presentation of the audio-visual works.
- "Improvisation"; a description of my approach to improvisation.
- "Rooms"; a description of the physical rooms, my technical setup and methods.
- "Resonance" a description of the word from physical, emotional and societal perspectives.
- "Contribution" is a summary of the project’s contribution to artistic research.
- "Inspiration"; Artistic Research project that has influenced this project due to different similarities, combined with a list of some of the books, internet resources and music that I have been inspired by.
- "Thanks"; to all who have contributed to this project.