Performance, Subjectivity and Experimentation in Artistic Research
An Interdisciplinary Seminar
INTRODUCTION
The arts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have pushed us relentlessly to question inherited notions of the self, expression and communication: to ask ourselves, again and again, who we think we are and how we can speak meaningfully to one another. Increasing globalisation and the development of recording and photographic technologies, running alongside psychoanalytical understandings of selfhood and the impact of scientific principles of uncertainty, are often theorized as having prompted a crisis of identity, representation and authenticity. At the same time, the throwaway playfulness of pop culture and digital manipulation offer endless possibilities for self-reinvention. It is perhaps harder than ever to know who 'I' am, but 'I' am ever more self-aware. The fluid, dynamic, embodied and contingent qualities of subjectivity are experienced on an everyday basis.
Within arts practice, a ‘performance turn’ has allowed for a stronger focus on the production and experiencing of subjectivity in the context of live events: as ephemeral, dynamic, contingent and embodied, resisting conceptualisation into a stabilised notion of an artwork.
The aim of this seminar is to examine examples of such practice. The event will feature presentations, performances and installations by artist-researchers from across Europe – whose work relates to these questions:
- How is subjectivity is instantiated and embodied in performance?
- How does the activity of performance reflect and shape our understanding of felt experience?
- How do the dynamic relationships between performer, materials, and context constitute the production of subjectivity?
- How do these issues relate to understandings of creativity and identity?
DENIZ PETERS - KEYNOTE PRESENTATION AND CONCERT
Deniz Peters (University of Music and Performing Arts Graz) will give the Keynote Presentation at the ORCiM Seminar 2016 Performance, Subjectivity and Experimentation in Artistic Research.
Out of the Self – Into the Musical Other: Improvisation as an Artistic Inquiry into Subjectivity, Empathy, and Instrumentality
Abstract: What are the interpersonal aspects of the musical experience? Are they co-constituted between the musicians, or even the musicians and their instruments, the audience, and the environment? I explore this fundamental question – the question of shared expression – by discussing a case study in which a trio improvisation within a research context led to an instrumental discovery, and further, to the discovery of a new, integral, voice emerging from the ensemble viewed as a combination of human and instrumental agency. I shall probe ways of elucidating the central experience of what in effect was a musical study of joint abandon and aesthetic co-constitution, by arguing and analysing from various conceptual angles: of the self, empathy, and the other, of listening, of experimentation with the comfort zone, of the performers’ body, and of an advanced notion of expression, on the way also considering some key questions regarding the notion and epistemological potential of artistic research.
Linked to the keynote presentation a concert is planned: Hogg:Peters:Vogel (Trio with violin, piano, flute and electronics)
SCHEDULE
Wednesday, 24 February
Ongoing |
Installations Inside/Outside |
12:30–13:00 |
Registration |
13:00–13:30 |
Jonathan Impett, Welcome |
13:30–15:30 |
Stefan Östersjö and David Gorton Subjectivity in the workshop Richard Craig émoi et moi: subjectivity in practice Ellen Ugelvik The soloist in contemporary piano concerti |
Coffee Break |
|
16:00–17:30 |
Keynote Deniz Peters Out of the Self – Into the Musical Other: Improvisation as an Artistic Inquiry into Subjectivity, Empathy, and Instrumentality |
Coffee Break |
|
18:00–1845 |
Concert part 1 Catherine Laws (piano) Ceci n’est pas un piano by Annea Lockwood Stefan Östersjö (guitar) Austerity Measures by David Gorton Richard Craig (flute) émoi by Evan Johnson |
DRINK |
|
19.15–20.00 |
Concert part 2 Hogg:Peters:Vogel (Violin, piano, flute and electronics): nature table III |
DINNER (IN HOUSE) |
Thursday, 25 February
Ongoing |
Installations Inside/OutsideNguyễn Thanh Thủy and Stefan Östersjö Scientific Listening: Radically Different Perceptions Ann Warde |
09.00–10.15 |
Ann Warde Scientific Listening: Radical Perception? Simon HØffding Absorbed Subjectivity in Music Performance: Phenomenological Lessons with the Danish String Quartet. |
10.15–10.45 |
Special session: Anna D'Errico and Marco Fusi The uninterpreted Scelsi: the rediscovered work of an uncodifiable composer |
Coffee Break |
|
11.15–12.45 |
Christopher Redgate, Amy Blier-Carruthers and David Gorton Dying on Stage: Holliger’s Cardiophonie Giusy Caruso Experimenting with subjectivity instantiated into gestures: “My soul at my fingertips”; My Avatar and Me |
Lunch |
|
13.45–15.45 |
Eleanor Roberts Anecdotal Interventions: Performance Art in 1970s London and Feminist Historiographies Stefan Östersjö & Nguyễn Thanh Thủy Inside the choreography of gender |
15.45–16.15 |
Final discussion and round-up |
END |
CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
A call for presentations is published. (NOW CLOSED)
See full details here, and submit yourt proposal before December 5th.
PLANNED PROCEEDINGS
The convenors plan to produce a joint publication, to include selected presentations: the form of this will depend upon the nature of the work presented.