“A new cartography of the world” : Of participatory sense-making within ecological sound art and interdisciplinary collaboration

This presentation discusses two examples of participatory sense-making, that fall within the ecological-enactive trajectory of my artistic research. The first work is Tapeshavet, a collaboration between composer Anders Hultqvist, poet Gunnar D. Hansson and ecological sound artist Stefan Östersjö and I, with the first output premiered at GAS festival in Sweden in autumn 2018 and a larger work set for premiere in 2019-20. The second is The cartographer; a staged performance created with actress Liv Kaastrup Vesterskov at Lund University‘s Inter Arts Center, Sweden. The work falls under my PhD research which draws on exploration of agency, and the dynamics between the practices of performer, composer and curator in the field of contemporary music and sound art. Through various case studies I look at how an ecological-enactive perspective on musical practice can challenge current understandings of the aforementioned agencies and what artistic methods can be employed to explore a fluid understanding of these roles. The collaborations draw on field-recording as a methodological tool, as well as activation as a method. I have developed the latter since winter 2016-2017, through which “a musician's multi-modal listening is employed in a fleshy listening” (Stefánsdóttir & Östersjö, forthcoming). Through analysis this presentation is set to unpack the processes of such participatory sense-making. Based on this I put forth and argue for the concept of multi-entity performance (Rawlings 2019, Stefánsdóttir 2019) as a technique as well as analytical and conceptual stance

Participation and creation: towards an ecological understanding of musical creativity

This paper draws on artistic explorations of territorial and spatial forces through analysis of projects set in the natural landscape, in a specific indoor site or at the threshold between the two. Specific attention is given to the artistic processes at play in the transformation of materials cre- ated/collected in the natural environment when shaped for presentation in an indoor location. What is the relation between being and becoming in this liminal space? According to Erwin Straus, the impetus to this process is the pathic moment of sensation, a moment which evolves in two dimensions: as an unfolding of the world and of the self (Straus 1965). Louis Schreel argues that in Deleuze and Guattari, artistic practice activates a process in which «the work ‘captures’ forces at work in the world and renders these sensible. Its effects are above all real and not merely im- aginary: the image is not a mental given but a concrete, existing reality» (Schreel 2014: 100). Here, Deleuze distinguishes between the percept – landscape in the absence of man – and affect, the non-human becomings contained in the artwork. This paper wishes to unpack these processes through a study of two concrete instances of artistic practice, aiming to create immediate interac- tion between musician and environment, in which either of the two authors took part

Þytur

A nine mono-channel installation, part of the site-specific public work 'Spherical White with Diamond' commissioned by NATUR North Atlantic Tales/Curated Place in collaboration with National Trust Formby. Voices: Maja Jantar, Angela Rawlings, Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir

Spherical White with Diamond

A stereo work, part of the site-specific public work, 'Spherical White with Diamond' commissioned by NATUR North Atlantic Tales/Curated Place in collaboration with National Trust Formby. Voice: Jez Dolan

strengur - video

Video which is part of Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir's improvisation to the graphic score 'strengur' (Stefánsdóttir, 2019). Released as part of the 'strengur' album, on the Carrier Records label in 2022

Spherical White with Diamond

Site-specific public work, commissioned by NATUR North Atlantic Tales/Curated Place in collaboration with National Trust Formby. The work includes three sound installations: 'Spherical White with Diamond', stereo work (voice: Jez Dolan). 'Þytur', 9 mono-channels (voices: Maja Jantar, Angela Rawlings, Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir). 'The Shadowy Space Beneath', a stereo work, which builds on texts from Jane Sprackland’s Strands (2013) (voices: David Dolan Martin, Ellie Paskall and Alicia Prowse)

HÉR! Of curation in the act

This presentation looks at the curatorial practice within my PhD project titled HÉR! An explora- tion of artistic agency. The project is designed to look at situated actions through a row of case studies that link to my role as performer, composer and curator within contemporary music and sound art. The curation has spanned various processes, such as the concert event, the act of stu- dio recording, album creation, participatory sense-making between composer and performer, as well as a row of multi-channel sound installations. A common denominator between the studies is curation as activation of processes, as well as curation informed by an ecological-enactive perspective. This presentation is therefore foreseen to link to multi-entity performance (Rawlings, 2019; Stefánsdóttir, 2019), spatial practices and bodily poiesis of relation

Let’s (be) play(ed by) an ocean : Of situated actions within ecological sound art

This chapter investigates participatory sense-making within ecological sound art. The field links to “a broader set of cultural practices in which the imperial power of ‘the human’ over the rest of the world is shifting in favor of what we might call a more eco-systemic engagement” (Hogg, 2013). In summer 2018, the project sent poet Gunnar D. Hansson, composer Anders Hultqvist and ecological sound artists Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir and Stefan Östersjö on a search for the sounds of the book Tapeshavet (Hansson, 2017), through the artistic method of activation. This chapter analyses the processes of such participatory sense-making, which springs out of an ecological-enactive approach. Based on this the author puts forth and argues for the concept of multi-entity performance (Rawlings, personal communication, May, 2019; Stefánsdóttir, 2019a) as a technique as well as analytical and conceptual stance, thus showing through doing that the ecological-enactive approach has the power of “providing one with new tools and technology and new understandings of processes, in any musical environment and its collaborative creativity, where things happen in the connection” (Stefánsdóttir, 2019b)

Field recording

Field recording, included in Davíð Brynjar Franzson's 'An Urban Archive as an English Garden' (2019)