10:45-11:45
In Search of Now-Time: Live-editing as a mode of research
Joen Vedel
NTNU, Trondheim Academy of Fine Art (2nd year presentation)
Moderator: Michael Duch
Sounding Philosophy
University of Bergen, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design - The Grieg Academy - Department of Music
Main Presenter: Dániel Péter Biró, Professor of Composition, Grieg Academy, University of Bergen
Members of Artistic Team (in person and on Zoom):
- Gunnar Hindrichs, Professor of Philosophy, University of Basel
- Grit Schwarzkopf, Philosopher and Researcher, University of Heidelberg
- Juan Vassallo, PhD Fellow, Grieg Academy, University of Bergen
- Hagit Yakira, Associate Professor for Dance, University of Stavanger
The artistic research project Sounding Philosophy, supported by the Norwegian Artistic Research Program (2021-2024) integrates music composition research with philosophical and scientific inquiry. The goal to understand how theories of reason and the mind can be approached from creative, metaphysical and scientific standpoints, and how these theories can be holistically understood from various research perspectives.
The question of reason and the mind has been dealt with in the fields of art, philosophy and science and this has given way to contemporary theories of emergence, e.g. by the Nobel-Price Winner in Physics Robert Laughlin. Emergence can be described as the condition of an entity having properties distinct from the properties of the parts of the system from which it emerges, an important concept within the theoretical framework of complex systems. While philosophers have described thinking, doing and perception as different “states of mind,” scientists have not only concerned themselves with the question of how intelligence in the universe is possible, but also how intelligence plays a role in the evolution and emergence of nature. Philosophers, such as Spinoza and Kant, regarded both philosophy and art not merely as rational modes of explanation but also as expressions of spirit (spiritus) and intelligence (Geist).
While such questions of spirit relate to new developments in emergence theories in physics, psychology and philosophy, the current artistic research looks to how such concepts of mind and emergence can be expressed via artistic creation. Dealing with questions of the mind and consciousness, involving a philosophical approach to music composition, the project looks into how concepts of intelligence and the mind can be translated into music domains.
In the presentation, a series of compositions based on philosophical texts by Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) will be the main point of departure for the discussion of the artistic work and research methodologies. Analysing the production process of this compositional work, it will be shown how Spinoza’s philosophical thinking is re-enacted via musical and artistic analogy.
Selected Bibliography
Biró, Dániel Péter. “ComposingSpinoza’sEthics:ChartingaMigrationofSpiritThroughSound.” Proceedings of the ICTM Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology, 7th Symposium: Performing, Engaging, Knowing. Lucerne: Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and the Swiss Society for Ethnomusicology,2022 (in preparation).
Biró, Dániel Péter. “Emanations: Reflections of a Composer.” In Schönheit (Konzepte 2), ed. by Gunnar Hindrichs.. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2016, 39-62.
Biró, Dániel Péter. Scholium 2. Berlin: Edition Gravis: 2022.
Hindrichs, Gunnar. “Glückseligkeit nach Spinoza.” In Glück, ed. by Dieter Thomä, Christoph Henning, and Olivia Mitscherlich-Schönherr. Stuttgart: Metzler Verlag, 2011, pp. 154-157.
Hindrichs, Gunnar. Die Autonomie des Klangs. Eine Philosophie der Musik. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2014.
Hindrichs, Gunnar.“Musikphilosophie aus ästhetischer Vernunft.” Wolfgang Fuhrmann und Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf (Hrsg.), Perspektiven der Musikphilosophie. Berlin: Suhrkamp 2021, S. 43-58.
Schwarzkopf, Grit. “Was ist Teleologie?” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Philosophie 78: 38-45. https://doi.org/10.24894/StPh-de.2019.78006
Dániel Péter Biró is Professor for Composition at the Grieg Academy, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen. He studied in the U.S., Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Israel before receiving his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2004. From 2004 -2009 he was Assistant Professor and from 2009-2018 Associate Professor for Composition and Music Theory at the University of Victoria in Victoria, BC, Canada. In 2010 he received the Gigahertz Production Prize from the ZKM-Center for Art and Media. In 2011 he was Visiting Professor at Utrecht University and in 2014-2015 Research Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. In 2015 he was elected to the College of New Scholars, Scientists and Artists of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2017-2018 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is currently leader of the research project Sounding Philosophy of the Norwegian Artistic Research Program (2021-2024). His compositions are performed around the world. Website: www.danielpeterbiro.no
___
Joen Vedel: In Search of Now-Time: Live-editing as a mode of research
NTNU, Trondheim Academy of Fine Art
In my PhD project, In Search of Now-Time: Live-editing as a mode of research, I am focusing on moving images as the main apparatus for the representation of historical time and video live-editing as a materialist investigation into the very temporalization of history. While drawing on media theories and philosophical debates on contemporaneity, the event and it's representation, I am immersing my research into the temporal aspects of various forms of revolts, in order to discuss how one can make an image of a historical process still unfolding messily in the present?
My presentation at the ARF autumn forum will take its starting point in a recent series of live TV programs that I created for the local TV station, Offener Kanal Kassel, as part of my contribution to Documenta 15. By live-editing historical materials from the official Documenta archive (from 1955 up until 2017) with material shot over the period of Documenta 15 – as well as live-streaming cameras (TikTok, Twitch and Facebook) filming from different places in Kassel during the live broadcast – these five TV programs attempted to capture the mega-event of Documenta 15. In close collaboration with different local media-activist groups, as well as Kassel-based musicians, I wanted to use the TV medium as a platform and a meeting place between different forms of aesthetics, voices, temporalities, and historical layers seemingly unconnected by linear time. As the TV programs were created live and without any plot nor manuscript, glitches and moments of discontinuity constantly occurred. However, it was my hope that through these ‘interruptions’ in the live-editing, a new constellation against an even flow of time might occur, thus opening up for other relationships to the past and the present.
Joen Vedel (b. 1983, Copenhagen) is a visual artist, writer, and political organizer, educated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2011), the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York (2014) and currently a PhD candidate at the Art Academy in Trondheim, Norway (2020-). Through video, sound, text, and installation, Vedel often uses a performative and process-based methodology to collapse the temporalities of production and presentation. His artistic practice deals with the notion of ‘the event’ and its aftermath, as well as the (im)possibilities of documenting and capturing political and social transformations as they unfold. His first book of writing, Sammenbudstykker – a diary from Athens, came out on Nebula in 2013. Most recently he presented his work at Documenta 15 in Kassel, as a member of the collective, A Stick in the Forest by the Side of the Road.
___
Cancelled: Héloïse Baldelli: HIP as a Creative Tool for Performance Design: Singing Satie’s Vocal Music
University of Stavanger, Faculty of Performing Arts
The previous century has seen a wave of experimentation, reflection and discussion about art hitting most disciplines, starting first and foremost with visual art. As pianist-researcher Mine Dogantan-Dack points out, classical music has been slow to join in. Although composers have certainly been experimenting with the musical language pushing it in various direction, classical music performance as an artistic practice has relatively stayed the same. In the area of vocal music, the traditional recital format with the singer performing in a fixed position by the piano is THE standard.
In my project I aim to challenge and explore alternatives to this traditional format. I start by researching the performance practice of Satie’s mélodies to then design three different performances of this repertoire using three different artistic methods and theoretic approaches. The first cycle, which was concluded in August 2022, is based on the approach known as historical informed performance (HIP) and presents only music by Satie, while the next ones will include also mélodies by his friends and collaborators Milhaud and Poulenc.
Satie’s mélodies are little known and seldom performed. They are also difficult to appreciate at a first hearing, and my hypothesis is that this partly lies in the habit of performing them in the standard way of a chamber music recital. Investigating the original performance practice then became a way to rediscover other aspects of the music, beyond the dogmas of the score, and to find inspiration for creating a different mode of presenting classical vocal chamber music
In this presentation I retrace my use of HIP as a creative tool for designing performances of classical music. I will show some documentation from the performance and present a couple of songs live. I will discuss the performative choices the use of HIP led me to and the results they produced.
Finally, I will introduce my thoughts for the second cycle of performances. In this I will using dance and theatre (in particular monologue) as methods to reveal different layers of the musical works, almost with a cubist approach. In the performance, which for now I am calling “Singing decomposed”, each mélodie will be presented three times: as a monologue, as a dance piece and as a song.
Héloïse Baldelli is a French-Italian lyric soprano. She has a master degree in classical singing from the University of Stavanger under the guidance of international soprano Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz and a specialization in opera from the University of Tor Vergata, Rome. She has interpreted roles such as Contessa in “Le Nozze di Figaro”, Juliet in “The Little Sweep” and Cavaliere Armidoro in “La Cecchina”. She performs regularly as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles in Norway and abroad. She has worked with musicians such as Per Kristian Skalstad, Terje Kvam, Peter Szilvay, Gabriele Bonolis, Salvatore Scinaldi, Liv Oppdal, Friederike Wildschütz and Ghislain Gourvennec
As a PhD candidate, Héloïse is conducting her artistic research at the University of Stavanger, Department of Classical Music, since December 2020. Her project focuses on the performance practice of modernist French songs. She is particularly interested in the composer Satie and in how to infuse elements from other artistic disciplines into the performance tradition of his works.
Héloïse comes from two generations of artists, amongst which important representatives of the Italian modernist movement. Prior to becoming a singer, she was a dancer and a professional make-up artist and draws inspiration from these personal circumstances in her artistic practice.
___