The core team of the Research Centre Performative Processes (RECPEP) of HKU University of the Arts has recently returned from Prague. Nirav Christophe, Henny Dörr, Joris Weijdom and Falk Hübner attended the “Artistic Research: Is there some Method” conference. They presented a collaborative lecture performance that touched on three different research projects of the Research Centre:

1. Nirav Christophe’s theory of polyvocality
2. Performative Research as research methodology
3. The transdisciplinary research project “If you are not here, where are you?” as a case study

The lecture performance experimented with a mode between”talking about” and “doing it”. While the researchers elaborated on the research project and their own role between artist, researcher and collaborator, Christophe silently commented these elaborations with cards carrying the names of different “voices” (such as voice of the artist, of the ego, the child, the collaborator, and so on).

Read the full abstract here: RECPEP Prague abstract.

Next to the lecture as such, the team distributed a number of statements under the title “Prague Provocations” (see image).

On April 14th, the next edition of Setting the Tone will be about relations between image and sound in the performing arts, and the interdisciplinary creative processes in this kind of work. 

The guests of this edition are renowned composer/director Arnoud Noordegraaf and object theatre company Tamtam. They will tell about their work, and about the creative process that leads to intimate relationships between images and sound.

As always, Setting the Tone starts at 17:00 by having dinner together. Everybody is welcome to bring instruments. 

Click here for more information (in Dutch).

On thursday, 3rd and 17th of March Falk Hübner conducted the third live video lab at HKU Utrechts Conservatory. Both sessions focussed on involving and adding screen projection to the previous experiments. 

  

During the two sessions the work on setups for miniature pieces for prepared double bass, live electronics and live video continued. This was fueled by the visit of the head of the Research Centre Performative Processes, Nirav Christophe. He and Falk had an intense exchange on the 17th of March, which ended up in a collective making session where both gave shape to a series of four performance-installations as artistic outcome of the lab series, in a co-creative fashion.

  

The concept and result of this project will be anounced and documented soon.

  

On Thursday, February 11th, Falk Hübner carried out the second Live Video Lab session, as part of the larger live video research within the Research Centre Performative Processes. While the first session live video lab had focussed on the sound possibilities, this second one was dedicated to experimenting with first visual ideas.

During the session, Falk worked with the same preparations used previously, and photographed a variety of settings from different positions and in different framings.

This resulted in a series of images that evoke a variety of associations – such as lots of paper clips hanging from the strings that may evoke the image of a colorful curtain moving in the wind.

The double bass became utilized as a large landscape, building or structure, demanding to be discovered from unusual viewpoints.

The next two labs will shift the focus towards moving images and live projection. These will be the first experiments that instigate the relation between the (filmed) musical action and its processed outcome on screen.

Falk Hübner’s recent article “Hard Times. Lecture Performance as Gesturel Approach to Develop Artistic Work-in-Progress” is published by RUUKKU, a Finish online journal about artistic research; available here. The article, in form of an online exposition in the framework of the Research Catalogue, is one of the outcomes of Falk’s research at the HKU Research Centre Performative Processes.

The article discusses the approach of using a lecture performance format as a way of obtaining feedback both for research as well as artistic processes. Artistic work is often an essential mode of articulation within artistic research, specifically when practice is understood as both source and target domain of the research.

In the exposition, the format of a lecture performance is investigated and discussed as an explicit articulation through which the process of both artistic work and research is shared, rather than functioning merely as a format for disseminating findings. The format of lecture performance that is investigated here frames the artistic work and theoretical-conceptual framework as two distinct, yet interrelated, processes shared with a conference audience. This includes the deliberate choice for a live performance of artistic work-in-progress, adding a gestural and at times very kinaesthetic aspect to otherwise textually-dominated forms of presentation.

The exposition as such has two focuses that are strongly related to each other, approaching the form of a feedback loop: on the one hand, the creation process of a new experimental performance work by Falk Hübner is investigated. “Hard Times” refers to the title of this artistic work: I will carry you over hard times.

The exposition demonstrates how these conference discussions strongly inform the work process of the specific artistic work in question and attempt to shed an alternative light on the well-known concept of “audience talks”, which typically serve to generate feedback and insights into audience perspectives for artists after tryouts or performances of unfinished work. The audiences of conferences are, in most cases, considerably different in nature than “standard” audiences, offering the possibility of insightful input on quite different facets of both artistic work and research process––provoked by the very form of a lecture performance as described above. The exposition suggests that this type of lecture performance, explicitly including the audience at a conference as important source of information, feedback and peer-review, forms a gestural method of artistic research in itself, whose full potential within artistic research is yet to be explored.

On Thursday, January 14th, Falk carried out the first session of his Live Video Lab, which is part of the larger Live Video Research Project (more info here). In this first of seven session, the the session focussed on the use of preparations for the double bass, and their sounding potential and possibilities.

In the upcoming sessions, these first experiments will serve as a basis for extensions into the visual domain. All experiments are carefully documented in both audio and video and will be published at a later moment. The sessions take place at the HKU Utrechts Conservatory and are open to visitors. In doing this, Falk aims to facilitate a new approach to artistic research at conservatories, and utilising the “conservatory as research laboratory” (see dates here).

In the first half of 2016, Falk’s activities will take him on several travels to Spain, Finland, the Czech Republic and Australia.

After the premiere performance of I will carry you over hard times in January (see dates), Falk will serve as external member of a doctoral defense at the University of Valencio.

The next seminar of the Innovative Conservatoire (ICON) will take place in march, in Kallio-Kuninkala near Helsinki, where teachers from all over Europe will work with choreographer and educator Liz Lerman, who developed the famous Critical Response feedback method.

In april, the core team of the HKU Research Centre Performative Processes (RECPEP) will present the outcomes of the collective investigation into performative and participatory research at the conference “Artistic Research: Is there some method?” at the Academy of Performing Arts, Prague.

Finally, in September Falk will travel to Melbourne where Sef Hermans will perform and premiere the new music theatre work “silencio” at the Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music (BIFEM). For this work, Falk received a composition grant from the Dutch Fonds Podiumkunsten. In the decision of the grant, FPK specifically honored Falk’s music theatre work of the recent years as an exceptional contribution to the field.

On thursday, 14th of January, the 11th edition of Setting the Tone will take place at the Utrecht Conservatory. The session has the theme of Expanding and Making Impact on Audiences. Guests will be the renowned Johan Idema (author of Present! Rethinking Live Classical Music), members of the music theatre collective Het Geluid and performer/singer/maker Stephanie Pan. 

As the first practical-artistic part of the new Live Video Research project, Falk Hübner is carrying out a number of experimental sessions between January and March 2016 (see dates), in order to develop an artistic work for double bass, live electronics and live video. He will do this in the building of the HKU Utrechts Conservatory, using the “conservatory as laboratory” – which will provide his peers, other teachers at the institute and the students with the possibility to come by, listen and watch, discuss and experience this artistic research first-hand.

After the begin of the new season, several projects have started: among others, Falk has begun with the first steps in his new artistic research project about Live Video in music theatre, a project under the Research Centre Performative Processes (RECPEP) of the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht. After the initial setup of the project, Falk will start with a series of exploratory experiments in the location of the Utrechts Conservatory, also making it possible for interested students to attend the experimental sessions and get into discussions about the artistic work and the research approach. The dates of these experimental sessions will be announced here as well.

The second season of the the series Setting the Tone at the Utrecht Conservatory has started again! As last season, this year’s sessions will focus on creative processes of the invited guests, but the scope has gotten broader: Rather than focussing on one guest per session, more guests might be invited in order to discuss specific themes. The next edition will take place on November 26th at 17:00, and will focus on the theme of education. Invited guests are master-educator Cecile Rongen, ex-HKU-student Daan van den Hurk and Suzuki teacher Johannes Lievaart (tbc).

Furthermore, the work process of the recent performance I will carry you over hard times, is in its final state. In the next coming weeks the date of the premiere of the full version of this performance work, together with lectures about the creative process and related research, will be announced.