Unheard Stories - Navigating Next Level

Unheard Stories - Narrating Next Level To publish art – to literally make it public – was a political act, one that challenged the art world and the world at large. Gwen Allen1 This critical appraisal on the published journal Next Level reports the result of my research relating to the body of my work from 2005 to 2016. More specifically, I will survey the creative production of the contemporary photography journal Next Level, currently consisting of seven city editions from a volume of twenty-four editions. This acknowledgement is not intended to emphasise the subjectivity of the journal as a limitation, but rather to provide focus to the lens through which I have been looking at my data with important findings about the outcomes of measurable theoretical, critical and artistic approaches. The journal Next Level periodically publishes a number of editions that present the collection of original data about photography art communities through the exploration of various cities around the world. These editions are developed from data collected through on-the-ground research that is central to this evaluation, which is an examination of and response to a large range of data drawn from seven cities, providing new information. This provides a pivot for the work around which my ideas are put across in a meaningful, comparable and communicable way, creating a mapping of each city, always enabling and never limiting. This methodology of gathering data, consisting of governmental cultural reports, museum archives, catalogues, comment books and newsletters, visual artists’ curriculum vitaes (CVs), interviews and rich contextual material, in turn provides primary research for students, photography professionals, photography enthusiasts and future photography historians. By countering the standard framework of research and production, my work is theoretically, critically and artistically traced, not by making things new, but by comprehensively questioning the characteristics that have shaped things in new ways. This framework manifests itself in the preliminary research and creative practice that provided the foundation for the complete scope of the entire space in the journal, which I present alongside this critical appraisal. Through the dissemination of current photographic discourse, I discuss current traditions and new perceptions through various articles and features. These editorial pieces relating to local communities of contemporary art photography look in particular at their cultural outputs in response to the rise of globalisation. Through the roles of artist-as-editor and curator, the journal is an artefact that I have shaped, utilising print production as part of its aesthetic dimension. I have published and distributed between 8,000 and 20,000 copies per edition to 37 countries. The readership of the journal thus has access to viewpoints that are revealing and politically reflective of specific manifestations of power, representation and the unheard stories that are altering various aspects of the conventions of current photographic discourse.N/

In Between The Shifts

Ingrid Fischer Jonge was the director of Museet for Fotokunst (The Museum of Photographic Art), Odense, Denmark. She holds a MA in Art History. She established The National Museum of Photography at The Royal Library in Copenhagen, Denmark where she was Head of the Museum, Head of Cultural Activities and in charge of The Department of Maps, Prints and Photographs from 1994-2007. She has curated many exhibitions and has written numerous books and studies. Twenty years ago, it would be inconceivable to point to the fact that photography is integrated into Copenhagen’s art scene. Since the turn of the millennium, Copenhagen’s gallery scene has exploded. New galleries with a highly professional and international standard open every year. Even the financial crisis and the following recession have not diminished the scene. We consider why photography is recognised and accepted as a highly developed and multifaceted medium. Next Level launched in 2002 and has gone on to become one of Europe’s leading art photography publications with a dynamic mix of art photography and ideas. Next Level editions explore photography as contemporary art alongside visual analysis and critical writing. The drive is to celebrate the excellence and diversity of contemporary art photography, the survey of established and emerging artists and writers, and to engage new audiences

Power of the Institution

Tatyana Franck was inaugurated as director of the Musée de l’Elysée in 2015. She was just thirty, however, she was born into a family devoted to the arts; Henri Cartier-Bresson married Franck’s aunt. The Musée de l’Elysée’s extensive history of links to local practitioners, and donations by novice photographers has set the pace of the collection. The change of directorship has heralded a shift in direction that includes innovative 3D digitising techniques for conservation. Franck is keen to stamp a contemporary mark upon this historic museum. Research into the Musée de l'Elysée’s extensive history of photography, the photographers who have contributed to the collection and innovative 3D digitising techniques for conservation. Next Level launched in 2002 and has gone on to become one of Europe’s leading art photography publications with a dynamic mix of art photography and ideas. Next Level editions explore photography as contemporary art alongside visual analysis and critical writing. The drive is to celebrate the excellence and diversity of contemporary art photography, the survey of established and emerging artists and writers, and to engage new audiences

West African languages enrich the frequency code: Multi-functional pitch and multi-dimensional prosody in Ikaan polar questions

Cross-linguistically, statements tend to be pronounced with low or falling pitch and questions with high or rising pitch, a form–meaning pairing which has been attributed to the frequency code (Ohala, 1984). In many West African languages, however, questions are marked with a ‘lax’ prosody comprising falling intonation, low tones, lengthening, breathy termination, and open vowels (Rialland, 2007). This paper presents prosody findings from Ikaan (Niger-Congo; ISO 639-3: kcf) and proposes a re-analysis of the West African lax question prosody to integrate it with the frequency code model. The paper shows that the pragmatic functions of statement and polar question are expressed prosodically in Ikaan. Audio recordings of statements and morphosyntactically identical polar questions by six speakers were annotated segmentally, tonally, and for the presence of prosodic question markers. Speakers mark questions by using higher onset pitch, wider drops to final low tones, final breathy voice and voicelessness, final vowel lengthening, vowel insertion, and increased intensity. Breathiness may further contrast with creaky voice and glottal stops in statements. Phonation mode, and the accompanying vowel lengthening and insertion, are argued to indicate friendliness and appeals for collaboration, linking phonation mode to similar functions of higher pitch in the frequency code