Slow Song Science transforms academic research into a pop song, using methods from pop music production, vocal sloganeering, and improvisation across disciplines. It invites audiences into a collaborative and performative environment, turning academic artistic and scientific insights into dynamic, participatory resonances where contemporary societal challenges are identified, explored and expanded into non-linear vocalising with beats.
Pop music is something everyone can relate to: it's a way to reach people with a seemingly fun medium, possible to infuse within critical ideas. Slow Song Science (SSS) is an innovative approach bridging academic research on societal challenges like the climate catastrophe with pop culture by transforming scholarly content into interactive, performative experiences. SSS resonates with the work of Isabelle Stengers (2013) on Slow Science as a mode to resist the knowledge economy. Stengers sees the commodification of knowledge to produce more, and more harmful technoscience, faster, as lying at the root of the contemporary climate crisis. SSS follows this drive for slowing down, also regarding artistic production: it creates songs by reworking multidisciplinary research as artistic research, using pop strategies like catchy sloganeering, over-identification, or music videos.
The talk includes 4 participatory performances. This draws from our transdisciplinary climate research project "MEATigation": Towards responsible meat use in Norwegian food practices for climate mitigation (2020-2024), and our collaborative work on the need for instrumentalisation in innovation: track 1 in set list draws on methods from https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2239335/2239336. SSS invites audiences to be active performers in a live writing, composing and non-linear vocalising collective song-making SSS invites participants to co-create in real-time, using music to explore societal challenges, in ways that are both playful and thought-provoking.
Alexandra Murray-Leslie
Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Alex Murray-Leslie, Professor at Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, NTNU and co-founder of Chicks on Speed, Alex advises Sonar +D, Barcelona and curates ASVOFF at Dover St Market, Paris.
Sophia Efstathiou
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Sophia Efstathiou is a philosopher/improviser Senior Researcher at NTNU.
Clemens Driessen
Wageningen University
Clemens Driessen is a cultural geographer at Wageningen University.
Leslie Johnson
Artist and educator
Leslie Johnson is an artist and educator. Her work explores poetics and consumer culture through visual art and curatorial practices related to specific situations. Her work is exhibited in Scandinavia and internationally.