I have attached a video from a concert where I perform Bjørn Erik Haugens work "Herzkino" (2019).
It's a work for solo piano, electronics and video. Haugen is questioning both our language and the Western culture 12-tone equal-temperament when he is writing a work for the microtonal piano, drawing inspiration from the blind and deaf Helen Keller, who needed to communicate with the sense of touch, as she had to feel the vibrations and movements of the throat and face.
Though my starting point of the project was very technical/practical, my focus has however changed during the last half year, now focusing more on the concept of minority and some of its implications. (“Musical minority”: I myself am a non-western classically trained pianist playing western contemporary music on the microtonal piano)
This, of course leads to minefields of ethics, and the last seminar we had made this even clearer to me.
I might not be able to include this as a major part of my 3year research project, but I want to share these thoughts since I find it interesting to view my project from this angle as well.
The standardized way of sharing research is limiting, as we did discuss about in the seminar. It is necessary to have a common language, and the research should be shared, and also refer to others and other research.
And so, a simple but difficult question arises in my mind, as our research model is a result of Western culture, and researchers almost only refer to Western literature, at least within the field of artistic research... What happens to the “minorities” – f.ex the research being written in Japan in Japanese (or other languages), without the funding to let it be translated, etc.? One might find a parallel hierarchy in music, where Western music culture and especially it’s tuning system (12tone equal temperament) has colonized almost the entire planet. Everything (old folk songs, instruments etc) must then be adjusted to the 12TET. Only some few individuals or obscure groups of “nerds” and ideologists will continue to maintain or further develop the their “minority tunings”. Of course, no one thinks this makes the non- western music less valuable. But whenever the minorities are to be researched, they necessarily must be compared with a standard, again the Western standard, in order to articulate how extraordinary they are.
I am a Japanese artistic research fellow within a Western system that I deeply admire, and try to learn from. At the same time, I think I might bring something valuable to the project through my experience as Japanese/non-Westerner. I would very much like to raise some awareness both to myself and others about this issue – both about the non-Western and the non-standardized – the minority - through my project.