Public Defences at the Faculty

2012
Martin Avila, design

Title
Devices. On Hospitality, Hostility and Design

Time and Place
20 April 2012 at 1.pm at Glashuset (The ‘Glass House’, in the Inner Court Yard at the Valand School of Fine Art, entrance from Chalmersgatan). An exhibition is included in the public defence

Opponent
Professor Andrew Morrison, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO)

Examination Board

• Professor Barbara Czarniawska, School of Business, Economics and Law, Gothenburg University
• Professor Johan Redström, Institute of Design, Umeå University
• PhD Alex Wilkie, Goldsmiths University of London

Abstract
This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of ar- tefacts with human and nonhuman agents. These interrelations form assemblages, some of which have emergent properties, be- coming manifestations of processes that we cannot fully control or understand.
The work started by exploring the theme of hospitality and hostility with the ambition to better understand the ecological complexity of the design process and its results.

As an assemblage, this work combines different literary, phil- osophical and theoretical discourses and traditions with experi- mental design in order to develop and articulate the concept of device. A device organizes, arranges, frames our environment and thereby defines and limits possibilities of relation.

Since relations can only be thought through a so-called natu- ral language such as English, they must be taken into considera- tion through the process of languaging, understood by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela as “communication about com- munication”, and as the most characteristic feature of the human species. My focusing on linguistic and biological phenomena is a response to this concern, in an attempt to understand how this process influences our perception of the world.

Through a series of design projects, the thesis examines the potential range of an artefact’s relations. It does so by exploring grammatical associations that affect design conceptualizations, creating tools (prepositiontools) as well as studying and articulat- ing forms of symbiosis that an artefact might develop in and with its environment (¡Pestes!).

Keywords: Device, hospitality, hostility, design, languaging, acci- dent, ecology, symbiosis, autopoiesis, umwelt.

Lena Dahlén

Title
I go from reading to performing. Descriptions from a monologue practice

Time and Place
January 30 2012, Schildknechtteatern, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Professor Karin Helander, Stockholm University

Abstract
English title: I go from reading to performing. Descriptions from a monologue practice
Language: Swedish
Keywords: acts, art of acting, artistic research, detail, habitual practice, monologue, performing, performing space, practical knowledge, presence, reading
ISBN: 978-91-7844-840-1

I go from reading to performing. Descriptions from a monologue practice is a dissertation based on an actor’s work with monologues. The path of work is traced and described from a practitioner’s perspective. Concrete examples are used and examined in order to ‘sift out’ and expose the specific conditions this work involves.

The dissertation follows the path from reading to performing, where one person, as in a monologue, is the speaker. It consists of three parts. In the first part the given circumstances of the path to performance are described. The questions that are posed along the way include: What role does the audience play? What significance does the performing space have for performance expression? How is a written text read, lived through, reshaped and transferred to performance?

The second part is based on, and delimits, the search for a “living” performance. And what is that? What is presence? What different past and present acts does the actor have to relate to? What does rehearsing, what does ‘acquiring habitual practice’, involve? Habitual practice as a condition for change and as a condition for the unexpected and for the spontaneous is portrayed. The significance of detail for the performance and for the particularity of the performance is also described.

The dissertation’s first and second part lead on to the third part, which exemplifies the particular. This is followed by rehearsals of Samuel Beckett’s play Happy Days. Here, the actor’s searching sheds its light on the dissertation’s earlier reflections.

That reflection is based on practice and that it is examples that are used to capture, in writing, a fleeting path that disappears in an actor’s steps, is a part of the study’s task – and a result. To examine and convey something of the transient nature of this work from a practitioner’s perspective is its aim.

2011
Katarina A. Karlsson, music interpretation

Title
Think’st thou to seduce me then? Impersonating female personas in songs by Thomas Campion (1567-1620)

Time and Place
9 December 2011, Högskolan för scen och musik, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Christopher R Wilson, professor, fil dr., University of Hull, Great Britain

Abstract
Title: Think’st thou to seduce me then? Female personas in songs by Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
Language: English with a Swedish summary
Keywords: Thomas Campion, lute songs, female personas, gender, same sex desire, musical interpretation, Overbury, artistic research, arrangements for female vocal quartet

This dissertation is in the field of Artistic Research in Music Interpretation. It is a study of songs with female personas written by Thomas Campion, investigated through performance practice and a critical reading of historical research carried out on the English Renaissance. The study is inspired by gender- and queer theory and looks at the function of the songs within their socio-cultural context. Since the songs seems to have been used and performed in a homosocial society, the study also discusses the possibility of male bonding and same-sex desire as part of the songs’ hidden or overt messages.

The dissertation consists of a thesis in two parts, a newly-made transcription from the original lute tablature of the fourteen chosen songs, and a CD-recording, documenting different modes of interpretation, including the following accompaniments for the songs: a clavichord, tuned in meantone, a positive organ tuned in meantone, a modern guitar and a female vocal quartet. Four of the arrangements for female vocal quartet are also included in the transcription appendix.
The aim of the dissertation is to find out how the songs worked in their society and what impact their historical function can have on a contemporary musical practice. The aim is also to find hidden layers of the songs and try to make these layers come alive in musical practice today.

The act of singing is used as means of inquiry. Part two of the thesis describes how a singer can work with contradicting stories behind the songs in order to make the music come alive.
In the transcriptions, discrepancies between earlier editions and Campion’s original music have also been found and corrected.

Per Anders Nilsson, music interpretation

Title
A Field of Possibilities: Designing and Playing Digital Musical Instruments

Time and Place
25 November 2011, Lindgrensalen, Högskolan för scen och musik, Artisten, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Robert Rowe. Ph D. Professor of Music and Associate Director of the Music Technology program at New York University.

Abstract
This thesis focuses on a set of digital musical instruments which Per Anders Nilsson has designed and developed with ensemble improvisation in mind. The intention is not to create a universal improvisational instrument, but rather to create a set of instruments which each realize one musical idea. His research addresses the meaning and relations between activities at design time and activities at play time. In short, design time deals with conception, representation, and articulation of ideas and knowledge outside of time, whereas play time is about embodied knowledge, bodily activity, and interaction in real time. In this work, aesthetics play a crucial role; at design time personal aesthetic preferences guide the design process, whereas in play time, a major aesthetic tenet is that musical improvisation has strong similarities to gaming, play, and sports.

One hypothesis states that choices made during the design process at the development stages of a digital musical instrument significantly influence ensemble improvisation and musical results at play time. Given that a musical instrument in its use actualizes the aesthetic decisions of its designer, in cases where the designer and player are one, during play there will be a double influence: directly through the player’s actions, and indirectly through the nature of the instrument. Each instrument constitutes a field of possibilities, and every performance makes the instrument an actuality, but is itself only complementary to all possible other performances with that instrument.

Tina Carlsson, fine arts

Title
the sky is blue

Time and place
28 October 2011, Stadsbibliotekets hörsal, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Milou Allerholm, Kungliga Konsthögskolan, Stockholm

Abstract
Title: the sky is blue
English title: the sky is blue
Language: Swedish
Keywords: Feyerabend, story, subjective, sky, change

Through its works the sky is blue wants to show that both institutional and subjective limitations are present in our lives but that we also have the ability to go beyond these limitations by way of our dreams, our fantasies and our visions. Tina Carlsson maintain that this ability, which is built into the title’s adamant claim that the sky is blue, carries within it the possibility to change the present. However, knowledge and understanding of the now is also needed for change. the sky is blue wants to show how the individual experience and the subjective story are productive and necessary parts of the formation of that knowledge. The particular, or the individual experience, is central to the works in the sky is blue.

the sky is blue contains photographic works, artworks and textual works. The three works “jag samlar på himlar, jag samlar på himlen” (I collect skies, I collect the sky), “1000 stories about a blue sky” and “under en himmel” (under a sky) are the point of departure for the dissertation and its central works. A subjective story that seeks the answer to the question why I do what I do forms itself around these works. By choosing the same method in the dissertation work as in the artistic practice Tina Carlsson let the question intervene with the question. This means that the dissertation the sky is blue, which has come into being in the search for a why, is an implicit answer to the question: what I do when I do what I do.

In “två bakgrundstexter” (two background texts) is described how two losses have formed the conditions for the coming into being of the sky is blue. There is a series of micro-essays related to the “two background texts”, which, instead of looking backward, take their point of departure in the present. In “tolv betraktelser” (twelve reflections/discourses) everyday flow is central; in these texts come the thoughts and reflections on expressions that take up space when I am confronted with different events in my everyday life. The texts in “fyra verkbeskrivningar” (four descriptions of works) are written in intimate relation to the works, and are, instead of reports on the material of the works and their coming into being, portrayals of the personal “state” that are the points of departure for these works.

Just like the personal experience, which never forms itself in a linear way but rather consists of different parts or wanderings here and there that correspond to each other, the sky is blue is built up of different parts that are situated in a dialogical situation with each other. In order to maintain the dialogue between the different parts of the dissertation, Tina Carlsson has chosen not to use the book format, which, in most cases, invites linear reading; the different parts of the dissertation have been placed in a box instead. The dialogical situation between the works does not only correspond to her artistic practice; she also consider the former to nurture the methods that are used to convey knowledge and meaning within the arts.

Lars Wallsten, digital representation

Title
Notes on Traces. Photography. Evidence. Image.

Time and place
27 May 2011, Universitetets huvudbyggnad, Vasaparken, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Per-Magnus Johansson, professor at Gothenburg University

Abstract
Swedish title: Anteckningar om Spår. Fotografi–Bevis–Bild.
English title: Notes on Traces. Photography. Evidence. Image.
Language: Swedish
Keywords: Photography, evidence, trace, pattern, condensation, art, criminalistics.
ISBN: 978-91-978477-3-5

Anteckningar om Spår (Notes on Traces) is a self-critical and self-reflective practice-based PhD project. It endeavours to make visible how artistic practice can create its content and context in relation to experience, reinterpretation and further progression.
The project is an inquiry into photography’s capacity to prove evidence. It is structured around photographic representation and written text. The dissertation consists of four photographic works together with an introduction, a list of contents, and a main text presented as an essay with numbered passages. The research effort is guided by a broad, selective inquiry. Contextualisation and conceptualisation have been identified through a process of bricolage, whereby creative use has been made of different discourses such as photography, film, art, philosophy, psychology, education, law, criminalistics, literature and cognitive science. Artistic strategies and practices that use forensic aesthetics are also discussed.

The method has the character of tracing a trail that leads the project forward. This creates a dialogue between the content and the form of the dissertation. Trace together with condensation and pattern are presented as productive concepts; these concepts, which in some respects have their roots in photography, not only provide others with the leads to understand a photograph as evidential proof but are also characterised by a suggestive quality, which is a recurring feature in the photographic projects.
The study contributes to overcoming the differences in the ways theoretical and practical knowledge are produced.

Andreas Gedin, fine arts

Title
I Hear Voices in Everything – Step by Step

Time and place
28 May 2011 Sjöströmsalen, Artisten, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Jan Håfström, artist, Stockholm 

Abstract
Title: Jag hör röster överallt – Step by Step
English title: I Hear Voices in Everything – Step by Step
Language: Swedish
Keywords: Mikhail Bakhtin, Michail Bachtin, curating, curator, exhibition, intertextuality, metalinguistics, carnival, dialog, essay, conceptual art, contemporary art, artistic research.
ISBN: ISBN 978-91-978477-2-8

I Hear Voices in Everything – Step by Step, is a practise-based dissertation in fine arts. It includes three art exhibitions, several independent art works and an essay. It discusses the role of the artist and the making of art mainly through the ideas of the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (1875-1975) but also by reflecting on similarities between the artist and the curator.
Being a dissertation in fine arts, the aim is not primarily to develop
any certain philosophy but to use theory to discuss art, and vice versa.

In the first section, the methodological presuppositions are articulated and contextualised. The relevance of artistic research as a means to develop artistic practice and as a means to increase the understanding of artistic practice is also addressed, as is the reasonability of using the philosophy of Bakhtin in this specific context. Bakhtin is usually referred to as a literary theorist; however, his dialogical philosophy concerns man’s being as a whole, that is, it is through dialogical relations man is constituted. Here, man, and also art in general, is understood by Bakhtin as being temporary meeting places for art works, readers, artists, protagonists, history etc. The reflective text in itself also endeavours to be dialogical and polyphonic by including different voices such as fictional characters, real comments, emails, letters and quotes.

In the second section the practice of making art is discussed in relation to Bakhtin and other writers. One main topic is if one, by using Bakhtin, can also regard an art work as a meeting place for language (in its broad sense) so as to include physical material, skill, and experience; and hence, if one could, or should, regard the artist as a kind of curator, and vice versa. Bearing this in mind, is there then any relevant difference between organising language into an artwork or into an exhibition?

The third section focuses on the artworks that are a part of the PhD
project; these include an exhibition and two planned exhibitions. The
central theme of, or the catalyst for, the works of art is repetition.
Published as one exclusive copy, and also smuggled into the Lenin
library, Sleeper is a collection of essays on the ingredients of a tuna fish casserole. Thessaloniki revisited is a video of a reading of a short story.

Spin-Off is a video where a curse is read by an actor. Sharing a Square is a documentary-based video of a ritual drumming session in Calanda, Spain, and Erich P. is an artwork based on an embassy to Russia in 1673 and on contra-factual archaeology. As a final part of the dissertation project these artworks will be shown in a solo exhibition, and there will also be a curated exhibition, which will include only other artists.

The last part of the dissertation’s title “Step by Step” refers to a larger art project called Taking Over, which this dissertation is a part of. Taking Over deals with different aspects of power relations in five separate projects. Being an integral part of this larger and thematic art project, the dissertation also refers to different aspects of power, and even to the lack of power in relation to the artist’s position in research contexts, both inside and outside academia. It also underlines that artistic research is part of a wider artistic practice.

Elisabeth Belgrano, scenisk gestaltning,

Title
“Lasciatemi morire” o farò “La Finta Pazza”: Embodying Vocal Nothingness on Stage in Italian and French 17th century Operatic Laments and Mad Scenes. 

Time and place
June 1 2011, Lindgrensalen, Artisten, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
John Potter, fil dr, sångare, Great Britain

Abstract
Title: “Lasciatemi morire” o farò “La Finta Pazza”: Embodying Vocal Nothingness on Stage in Italian and French 17th century Operatic Laments and Mad Scenes.
Language: English with a Swedish summary
Keywords: voice, singing, nothingness, je-ne-sais-quoi, 17th century opera, pure voice, lamentation, madness, passions, emotions, nightingale, transformation, ornamentation, observation, improvisation, vocal expression, embodiment, creative process, performance, repetition, movement, inner images, artistic research
ISBN: 978-91-978477-4-2

This music research drama thesis explores and presents a singer’s artistic research process from the first meeting with a musical score until the first steps of the performance on stage. The aim has been to define and formulate an understanding in sound as well as in words around the concept of pure voice in relation to the performance of 17th century vocal music from a 21st century singer’s practice-based perspective with reference to theories on Nothingness, the role of the 17th century female singer, ornamentation (over-vocalization) and the singing of the nightingale. The music selected for this project is a series of lamentations and mad scenes from Italian and French 17th century music dramas and operas allowing for deeper investigation of differences and similarities in vocal expression between these two cultural styles.

The thesis is presented in three parts: a Libretto, a performance of the libretto (DVD) and a Cannocchiale (that is, a text following the contents of the Libretto). In the libretto the singer’s immediate inner images, based on close reading of the musical score have been formulated and performed in words, but also recorded and documented in sound and visual format, as presented in the performance on the DVD. In the Cannocchiale, the inner images of the singer’s encounter with the score have been observed, explored, questioned, highlighted and viewed in and from different perspectives.

The process of the singer is embodied throughout the thesis by Mind, Voice and Body, merged in a dialogue with the Chorus of Other, a vast catalogue of practical and theoretical references including an imagined dialogue with two 17th century singers.
As a result of this study, textual reflections parallel to vocal experimentation have led to a deeper understanding of the importance of considering the concept of Nothingness in relation to Italian 17th century vocal music practice, as suggested in musicology. The concept of Je-ne-sais-quoi in relation to the interpretation of French 17th century vocal music, approached from the same performance methodology and perspective as has been done with the Italian vocal music, may provide a novel approach for exploring the complexity involved in the creative process of a performing artist.

Christian Wideberg, educational science of fine arts

Title
The Challenge of Studio Critiques – A Perspective of Growth

Time and place
June 10 2011, Universitetets huvudbyggnad, Vasaparken, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Arnt Myrstad, professor at Tromsø universitet, Norway

Abstract
Title: Ateljésamtalets utmaning - ett bildningsperspektiv
English title: The Challenge of Studio Critiques – A Perspective of Growth (German: Bildung)
Language: Swedish with an English summary
Keywords: Bildung, Educational Science, Fine Arts, Growth, Higher Education, Phenomenological Hermeneutical Method, Studio Art, Studio Critiques, Supervision
ISBN 978-91-978477-5-9

The present study is in the field of Educational Science and is an investigation of the studio critiques i.e. the teacher/student studio interactions that take place as part of two higher education programmes in the Fine Arts in Sweden; these are the three-year Bachelor of Fine Arts programme and the two-year Master of Fine Arts programme.

The aim of the dissertation is to find out what is essentially important in a studio critique, to understand its context and integrity, as well as to examine how a teacher captures the opportunities and challenges that occur within the force field of the student’s intention, of his or her idea and his or her formal knowledge.

A phenomenological hermeneutical method is applied as the method of inquiry in the study, where several different collecting methods are used to gather empirical data. An historical overview, transcribed interviews, a log book and studio critiques make up the narrative text data, which have both practical and scientific relevance.
The core theme of the studio critique is to challenge the quality of the student’s artistic expression, thus contributing to involving him or her in a process of growth; this process embraces the potential of the studio critique to nurture and attain quality, which is the main result of the study.

Studio critiques are complex and interwoven interactions of two kinds: 1) interactions where the teacher and the student seek common ground in a mutual process of understanding and accord, and 2) interactions where the integration of intention and quality is strived for. In his or her role as supervisor, the teacher aims at finding the point of interface between the student’s intention and the material qualities of his or her work. Ultimately the goal of this form of growth (German: Bildung) is to maximise student potential, thus enabling him or her to develop the full range of his or her talents. When the main topic for the studio critique is found, another interaction begins. This process addresses the challenge of integrating concept and material, the ultimate goal of which must be a seamless fusion of the two if the finished work is to possess sublime qualities. One can regard the studio critique as a process where the student reaches a deeper knowledge of self and his or her artistic goals, where subjective and creative impulses are essential for the developmental growth of this form of living knowledge.

Cecilia Björck, music education

Title
Claiming Space: Discourses on Gender, Popular Music, and Social Change

Time and place
25 February 2011, Academy of Music and Drama/Högskolan för scen och musik, University of Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Professor Lars Lilliestam, Institutionen för kulturvetenskaper, Faculty of Art, University of Gothenburg

Examination Board

• Professor Petter Dyndahl, Avdeling for lærerutdanning og naturvitenskap, Institutt for kunstfag og informasjonsvitenskap, Hedmark University College, Norway
• Professor Elisabeth Öhrn, Institutionen för pedagogik och specialpedagogik, University of Gothenburg
• Professor Hillevi Ganetz, Center for Gender Studies, Stockholm University
   

Chair person of the Public Defence
Professor Claes Ericsson, Academy of Music and Drama

Abstract
Title: Claiming Space: Discourses on Gender, Popular Music, and Social Change
Swedish title: Att ta plats: diskurser om genus, populärmusik och social förändring
Language: English
Keywords: space, spatiality, popular music, girls, women, gender, social change, agency, music education, discourse analysis
ISBN: 978-91-978477-1-1

This compilation (portfolio) thesis explores how language is used in the context of gender-equity music initiatives to construct ideas about gender, popular music, and social change. More specifically, it examines the use of spatial metaphors and concepts revolving round the idea that girls and women need to “claim space” to participate in popular music practices. The empirical material consists of recorded round-table discussions with staff and participants from four different initiatives in Sweden, all with the explicit aim to increase the number of girls and women involved in popular music production and performance. They include a time-limited project by a youth organization, a grass-roots network for young musicians, an adult education course, and a pop/rock music camp for girls. A Foucault-inspired discourse analysis method in six stages was used to examine the data in terms of discursive constructions, discourses, action orientation, positionings, practice, and subjectivity. The results are organized in four themes – Sound, Body, Territory, and Room – and are discussed in relation to the concepts of performativity (Judith Butler), feminine body spatiality (Iris Marion Young), and gaze (Michel Foucault and others). The idea of “claiming space” is found to be involved in two dialectics. The first dialectic is formed by space-claiming understood as on the one hand extrovert self-promotion to be seen and heard, and on the other hand, as introvert focus on the musical craft. A second dialectic is formed by an ongoing struggle between empowerment and objectification, i.e., between being an acting subject and being the object of a disciplining gaze.

2010

Cecilia Wallerstedt, music

Title
Pointing Out the Invisible in Motion: A Didactic Study on Time in Music.

Time and Place
29 October 2010, Lingsalen, Högskolan för scen och musik at the University of Gothenburg, Artisten, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Professor Mikael Alexandersson, Utbildningsvetenskapliga fakulteten, University of Gothenburg

Examination Board

• Lektor Monica Lindgren, Högskolan för scen och musik
• Docent Sonja Sheridan, Institutionen för kommunikation och lärande, University of Gothenburg
• Professor Christer Wiklund, Institutionen för musik och medier, Luleå University
   

Chair Person at the public defence
Professor Bengt Olsson, Högskolan för scen och musik

Abstract
Title: Att peka ut det osynliga i rörelse: En didaktisk studie av taktart i musik.
English title: Pointing Out the Invisible in Motion: A Didactic Study on Time in Music.
Language: Swedish
Keywords: listening skills, early childhood education, music listening,
variation theory, learning study, children’s perspective, metre
ISBN: 978-91-978477-0-4

The aim of this study is to examine what constitutes being able to discern time in music, as seen from the learner’s perspective. Listening is not only regarded as a higher mental process but also as a core skill in musical ability. Participants in the empirical study are 3 teachers and 27 children in a preschool class and in primary school. Three lessons aimed at facilitating children’s ability to discern time are analysed. The data also consists of interviews with the children.

The theoretical framework for the study is variation theory. Four critical aspects of the object of learning have become apparent: to be able to discern stressed beats, the auditory meaning of keeping time and the continuous aspect of pulse; of critical importance is also to be able to separate the metrical aspect of the music from different forms of representing it, such as clapping or drumming.

It is suggested that mediating tools, such as time, constitute important learning objects in music education. The teacher’s task is to point out what is invisible in the music and also what is invisible to the children. This can be done with the help of visual representations of auditory aspects, patterns of variation and verbal dialogue.

Magnus Bärtås, fine arts

Title
You Told Me - work stories and video essays / verkberättelser och videoessäer

Time and Place
28 May 2010, Hörsalen, Göteborgs stadsbibliotek, Götaplatsen 3, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Dr Suzana Milevska, professor vid Accademia Italiana, Makedonien

Examination Board

• Anna Sofia Rossholm, lektor Linnéuniversitetet, Kalmar/Växjö
• Maria Lantz, lektor, Kungl. Konsthögskolan, Stockholm
• Staffan Söderholm, professor, litterär gestaltning, Göteborgs universitet
   

Abstract
Title: You Told Me – work stories and video essays / verkberättelser och videoessäer
Language: Swedish and English
Keywords: Video essay/filmic essay, conceptual art, biography, storytelling, work story­/verkberättelse, narrator, voice-over, post-construction, narratology, reenactment, Chris Marker, Choi Eun-hee
ISBN: 978-91-977758-8-5

You Told Me is a practice-based research project and consists of three video biographies (the Who is…? series), and two video essays (Kumiko, Johnnie Walker & the Cute (2007), Madame & Little Boy (2009), an introduction with a contextualization and methodology of the field, and three essays. The dissertation is an observation and analysis of certain functions and meanings of narration and narratives in contemporary art, as well as being an experiment with roles, methods, actions, and narrative functions in an artistic medium – the video essay. Using the methods of “pilgrimage” (Chris Marker) and essayistic practices, and by revisiting and retelling biographies, this work tries to find a place in between collective and personal memory. During the practical process and the reflective theoretical work the different elements or instances of the video essay are identified: the subject matter, the images (the representation), the artist/author, the narrative/text, and the narrator/voice. In documentary film the lack of natural correspondence between these entities is often dissolved or denied – this work instead exposes the instances as separate units. A question arises: What alternative roles can be established between these elements, for example by negotiation and transference between them?

The methodological part of the text focuses on the conceptual invention made during the process, which I have called work story [verkberättelse]. A work story is a written or oral narrative about the forming of materials, immaterial units, situations, relations, and social practices that constitutes, or leads to, an artwork. By discussing analogies between storytelling, collecting, and biographical accounts together with examples from conceptual art, the dissertation shows how the work story is not only crucial for the understanding of the artwork but that the act of making and the very order or sequence in which the making proceeds often have symbolic, metaphorical, metonymical, political, and even epistemological meanings.

In an extended form a work story disseminates meaning rather than capturing it. This is the essayistic work story that permits a writer/artist to wander off and touch upon a subject as if in passing, reproducing its neglected genealogy and destiny in the detailed materiality of the work story.

Sven Kristersson, musical performance

Title
The Singer in the Empty Space – a Poetics. Performing the Gilgamesh Epic and Songs of John Dowland and Evert Taube

Time and Place
29 May 2010, Högskolan för scen och musik, Artisten, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Professor Karin Helander, Stockholm University

Examination Board

• Professor Bo Göranzon, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Stockholm
• Artist Marie Bergman, Stockholm
• Professor Anders Wiklund, Göteborgs universitet
   

Abstract
Title: Sångaren på den tomma spelplatsen – en poetik. Att gestalta Gilgamesheposet och sånger av John Dowland och Evert Taube.
English title: The Singer in the Empty Space – a Poetics. Performing the Gilgamesh Epic and Songs of John Dowland and Evert Taube
Language: Swedish, with an English summary.
Keywords: Orpheus, empty space, performance, song, verse, Evert Taube, Gilgamesh,
John Dowland
ISBN: 978-91-977758-9-2

The aim of this doctoral project is to explore an expanded role of the singer in an artistic field situated between poetry, theatre, music and reflection. The project consists of three parts:
Firstly, three performances of songs and poetry: (a) Me, Me and None but Me!, a blank-verse monologue connecting songs of John Dowland, (b) Gilgamesh – The Man Who Refused to Die, a musical version of the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, and (c) The Poet and Time, interpretations of works by the Swedish chansonier Evert Taube. As artistic methods, I use the Shakespearean traditions described in Peter Brook’s The Empty Space. Within these traditions, scenic communication is established using verbal imagery instead of a stage set.

Secondly, a thesis, where I describe the working process of the performances as a series of problem-solving. I also compare my performances to performances by contemporary artists. In the thesis, I also apply a method of inquiry in which I use the Orpheus myth as a means of understanding the expanded role of the singer.
Thirdly, a film by Lars Westman. The DVD contains excerpts from the performances and interviews with me, conducted by Westman and by the Norwegian singer and researcher Astrid Kvalbein.
The results of my research are firstly manifest in the performances themselves. Secondly, the written descriptions articulate a synthesis of artistic knowledge which has not previously been collected in one publication. Thirdly, the comparing of the Dowland performance with other performances constitutes a mapping of new forms of presenting lieder on a national level. The comparison with a Palestinian Gilgamesh performance gives new knowledge about how Western theatrical traditions are combined with Arabian storytelling tradition in an international context. Fourthly, the Taube performance implies new results in literary scholarship. Finally, the inquiries into the use of the Orpheus myth show that the mythic figure can be seen as an embodiment of “knowing-in-action”. Thus, the thesis establishes a link between practice-based research and mythology as embodied knowledge.

Olle Zandén, music education

Title
Discourses on music-making: Conceptions of quality in music teachers’ dialogues on upper secondary school ensemble playing

Time and Place
16 April 2010, Academy of Music and Drama, (Högskolan för scen och musik), Artisten, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Professor Petter Dyndahl, University College of Hedmark, Norway

Examination Board

• Professor Görand Folkestad, School of Music, Lund University
• Professor Christer Bouij, Örebro University
• Professor Lars Lilliestam, Department of Cultural Sciences, University of Gothenburg
   

Abstract
Title: Samtal om samspel: Kvalitetsuppfattningar i musiklärares dialoger om ensemblespel på gymnasiet
English title: Discourses on music-making: Conceptions of quality in music teachers’ dialogues on upper secondary school ensemble playing
Language: Swedish
Keywords: assessment, criteria, music education, didactics, pedagogy, dialogical theory, upper secondary school, class room ensemble, rock and pop ensemble, teacher professionalisation.
ISBN: 978-91-977758-7-8

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse music teachers’ collegiate discourses on ensemble playing with regard to dialogically expressed criteria and conceptions of quality, and to relate these criteria and conceptions to the national governing documents for upper secondary ensemble education. The study has two theoretical perspectives, that is, a didactical perspective and a dialogical perspective.

The research setting as well as the research questions are clearly didactical, whilst dialogical theory is used both as a foundation for the research method and as an ontology against which the findings are interpreted. Topic analysis, which is based on a dialogical theory of sense-making according to which meaning is constituted
in a double dialogical process between interactants, situation and socio-cultural traditions is the method used. Four groups of music teachers have discussed video excerpts of popular music ensembles from ensemble classes, and these discussions have been analysed with respect to topics displaying conceptions of musical and didactical quality. Topics are created through communicative projects, in which
two or more people display a mutual understanding of what they are talking about. Thus, all conceptions of quality elicited from the participant groups of ensemble teachers are the result of intersubjective sense-making.

The results show that the ideal of informal music-making is so strong that the groups describe teacher intervention as detrimental to musical progress. Very little is said about the sounding music, whereas physical expressivity, autonomy and joy of playing are prominent topics. The apparent lack of music-specific, “contextual” criteria and the low valuation of the teachers’ work are discussed as possible threats to the existence of music as a subject in the national curriculum.

Henric Benesch, design

Title
Kroppar under träd - en miljö för konstnärlig forskning

Time and Place
26 February 2010 at Glashuset, Konsthögskolan Valand, Vasagatan 50, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Dr Catharina Gabrielsson, London School of Economics and Political Science

Examination Board

• Professor Gunilla Bandolin, Konstfack, Stockholm
• Professor Fredrik Nilsson, Instutitionen för arkitektur, Chalmers Tekniska Högskola
• Professor Hans Hedberg, Högskolan för fotografi, Göteborgs universitet
   

Note: An exhibition by Henric Benesch wil be held at Glashuset in connection with the public defence.

Abstract
This dissertation in the field of artistic research is an articulation, in
words and images, on the experience of working with a notional environment for artistic research. It is not a reflection on or a description of the process which the work has involved, but above all an articulation, characterisation and development, in words and images, of the conceptual and pictorial world constituted during, through and in the course of the actual work on an environment for artistic research in Vasaparken, Göteborg. The work is the design of a design process or, in the words of Aristotle, a form of poetic, in which great importance has been attached to making the special relationship between the concrete project and the text as clear as possible. Underlying this concrete work is an interest in the fundamental issue of the dynamic relation between activities (people), environments (buildings) and outward circumstances in perspectives of change. These issues are of a general nature but are especially relevant in relation to the emergence of new fields and practices, as in the case of artistic research. That is to say, fields, activities and practices which are more open by nature and more amenable to change than is usually the case with established fields, activities and practices. This work can also be viewed as a form of travel report, both general and specific, in the hope that it can be used as a form of guide book, to be read by those similarly interested and wishing to undertake corresponding journeys, but it can also serve as travel literature for those interested in the places or in travel as such.

ISBN: 978-91-977758-6-1

Kajsa G Eriksson, design

Title
Concrete Fashion: Dress, Art, and Engagement in Public Space

Time and Place
22 January 2010, Lilla salen, Frölunda Kulturhus, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Fil dr Ylva Gislén, Dramatiska institutet, Stockholm

Abstract
This dissertation is an example of artistic research that explores the border between fashion design and contemporary art, in order to place situated bodily practices within the larger field of exploration and ideology, and to discover new formats. The activities engaged in explore the dressed body as a contemporary art medium, and the performances are carried out in public space and within everyday life. The research utilizes ‘the itinerary’, put forward by Certeau, as a metaphor for its prevailing methods.

Three extensive art projects are presented within the dissertation: THREE, the Mirror Brooch, and Transformers. The first project concerns exhibition of the intermediate art form of the dressed body in the institutions of art, in this example, the gallery space; the second involves the presentation and use of the Mirror Brooch and examines art as an everyday life experience; and the third entails performances, staged in various locations and featuring the Transformer Jackets, and which are viewed as explorations into public space.

The relationship between experience, on one hand, and representation and documentation, on the other, is treated as a translation; a translation meant to be ‘haunting’, and one which feeds energy back into the ongoing artistic process. The conclusion is that, both, performances and translations can be used to strengthen identity and engagement in public space.

ISBN: 978-91-977758-4-7

2009
David Crawford, digital representation

Title
Art and the Real-time Archive: Relocation, Remix, Response

Time and Place
8 October 2009, Robert Frank-salen, Högskolan för fotografi, Storgatan 43, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
PhD, artist, Kristoffer Arvidsson, Gothenburg

Committeé
Jonas Ingvarsson, lektor at Karlstad University
Anna Orrghen, lektor at Södertörns högskola, konstkritiker
Peter Hagdahl, professor in fine art vat Kungl. Konsthögskolan, Stockholm, artist

Abstract
If Internet artists have recently relocated their work to galleries and museums, there has meanwhile been an increasing engagement on the part of gallery artists with the media. While these migrations are often discussed in aesthetic if not economic terms, this essay asks what such phenomena can tell us about the changing nature of subjectivity in relation to media and technology.

Three main themes are introduced: the aura of information, inscription technologies, and the real-time archive. The themes extend across subsequent chapters addressing: the relocation of net art, the remix as an art method, and the capacity of the subject to respond to technology. !e idea that technologies alter subjects (produce subject-effects) plays a central role in the arguments
advanced.
Examples are drawn from both the author’s own art practice as well the practice of others, including Phil Collins and Steve McQueen. Theorists including Lewis Mumford and Bernard Stiegler are used to interpret the questions raised by this practice. It is concluded that relocation and remixing can respectively aid in the apprehension of subject-effects and support subjective autonomy.

Ragnhild Sandberg Jurström, music education

Title
Shaping musical performances. A social semiotic study of choir conductors' multimodal communication in choir

Time and Place
18 September 2009, Högskolan för scen och musik, Artisten, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Professor Staffan Selander from Institutionen för didaktik och pedagogiskt arbete at Stockholm University

Committée
Docent Claes Ericsson, Högskolan in Halmstad
Professor Eva Nässén, Academy of Music and Drama, Göteborg University
Professor Mikael Alexandersson, IPD, Göteborg University

Abstract
Title: Att ge form åt musikaliska gestaltningar. En socialsemiotisk studie av körledares multimodala kommunikation i kör.
English title: Shaping musical performances. A social semiotic study of choir conductors' multimodal communication in choir
Language: Swedish
Keywords: Choir singing, choir conductor, choir singer, musical interpretation and performance, learning, communication, interaction, video analysis, multimodality, social semiotics, metafunctions, design
ISBN: 978-91-977757-9-3

The purpose of this thesis is to identify and describe how musical interpretations and performances are semiotically designed and realised by choir conductors in their interaction with choir singers during rehearsals and concerts, and also to find methods for
how these actions can be analysed and described.
The data consists of video-recorded rehearsals and concerts with six Swedish professional choir conductors and their choirs. The video films are transcribed in detail, with focus on how semiotic modes, such as gestures, gazes, body movements, singing, printed score and piano-playing, are used when choir conductors in their interaction with choir singers work with a musical composition.

The study uses a multimodal and social semiotic theory, which implies that communication and learning is seen as a social process of transformative sign-making. The concept design is central since it is a way for sign-makers to create different communicative conditions for meaning-making, based on their interests and choices of modes.
The analyses focus on how choir conductors in their use of different modes perform and illustrate the music, how they interact with the choir singers, and how their actions are realised in different designs. The analyses also focus on what cultural conventions
surround the actions that occur.

The thesis brings light to the complexity and multiplicity of an audiovisual culture, where choir conductors in their use of different repertoires of action and designs constantly vary how they perform and illustrate the music. The results show how these actions afford various choices and conditions for the choir singers to learn and perform the music, how a collective and local musical language is constructed and how the dominant positionings of the conductors can be seen as productive leadership.

Anders Tykesson, musical performance and interpretation

Title
Music as Action. Analysis, Musical Interpretation and Performance of a Work. With a Study of Anders Eliasson’s Quartetto d‘Archi

Time and place
4 June, 2010 (seminar-concert) and 1 p.m. (public defence), “Ensemblesalen”, Academy of Music and Drama, Artisten, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Søren Kjørup, Professor of Practical Philosophy, Roskilde University, Denmark, and Jan Ling, Professor Emeritus of Musicology, University of Gothenburg

Examination Board

• Lasse Thoresen, kompositör, professor i komposition, Norges musikhögskola, Oslo
• Lena Weman Ericsson, musiker, fil dr i musikalisk gestaltning, lektor vid Institutionen för musisk och medier, Luleå tekniska universitet
• Gunnar D Hansson, författare, poet, essäist, översättare och docent i litteraturvetenskap samt professor i litterär gestaltning, Göteborgs universitet 
   

Abstract
English title: Music as Action. Analysis, Musical Interpretation and Performance of a Work. With a Study of Anders Eliasson’s Quartetto d‘Archi
Swedish title: Musik som handling. Verkanalys, interpretation och musikalisk gestaltning. Med ett studium av Anders Eliassons Quartetto d’Archi
Language: Swedish
Keywords: musical analysis, musical gestures, musical interpretation and performance, musical meaning, musical narrative, music theory, music and emotion, music as emotional expression, music as action, music as motion, music as mimesis, music and language, musical hermeneutics, musical phenomenology, musical semiotics, artistic research, Anders Eliasson, Hans-Heinrich Eggebrecht, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Robert Hatten, Ernst Kurth, Paul Ricoeur, Bo Wallner.
ISBN: 978-91-977757-7-9

The aim of the dissertation is to illustrate the potential musical analysis has in the development of artistic questions with regard to the interpretation and performance of western art music.
The analyses of the dissertation focus on Quartetto d’Archi, by the Swedish composer Anders Eliasson, and discussions of music as action, music as emotional expression, music as motion and music as mimesis are based on the four movements of this string quartet. The methods which are used are the very ones the project examines, namely the analysis of and the reflection on the musical work.

The author has attempted to gain a deeper knowledge of the work and its possible interpretations by means of a comparative study of other music and literature within the theory of music and within philosophical thinking. The hermeneutics of Hans–Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur are significant to the thesis. For example, the author claims that Ricoeur’s concept of interpretation, in which understanding interacts with explanation, and where the interpreter “appropriates” the text, could be applied to musical interpretation. References in music, or in artworks in general, to phenomena, actions and concepts may be explained through the concept of mimesis. Within the doctoral project, the author has worked with chamber ensembles in the form of seminars at the Academy of Music and Drama, the University of Gothenburg.

One of the central claims of the thesis is that the musical work opens up to the possibilities of interpretation through its own way of being, in the way it expresses itself in its structures. Questions of the significance of music must be posed to the musical work itself, which answers through different categories of interpretation; it is by means of these categories of interpretation that the meaning and significance of a musical work can be interpreted. Four categories are presented: processual interpretation, narrative interpretation, characterial interpretation and emotional interpretation.

Harald Stenström, musical performance and interpretation

Title
Free Ensemble Improvisation

Time and Place
9 June, Högskolan för scen och musik, Artisten, Fågelsången 1, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Jari Perkiömäki, Ph.D. in Music, Senior Lecturer at the Sibelius Academy, Finland

Examination Board

• Cort Lippe, kompositör, biträdande professor i komposition, Buffalo University, USA
• Mary Oliver, fil dr, improvisationsmusiker, USA/Amsterdam
• Anders Wiklund, docent, professor, Högskolan för scen och musik, Göteborgs universitet
   

Abstract
Title: Free Ensemble Improvisation
Language: English
Keywords: aleatorics, artistic research, attractor state, central tone, chaotic systems, collective understanding, comprovisation, conceptual model, directed motion, ensemble size, feedback and feedforward, free ensemble improvisation, gesture, importance of rhythm, indeterminacy, interactional skill, listening skill, musical evaluation, musical interaction,
musical maturity, musical chemistry, musical interpretation, musical composition, nonidiomatic improvisation, rhythmic flow, sound properties, stylistic influences
ISBN: 978-91-977757-8-6

The aim of this doctoral project has been to study so-called non-idiomatic improvisation in ensembles consisting of two or three musicians who play together without any restrictions regarding style or genre and without having predetermined what is to be played or how they should play.
The background to this thesis has been the author’s own free improvising, which he has pursued since 1974, and the questions that have arisen whilst music-making. The thesis takes three of these questions as its point of departure:
– what is free ensemble improvisation, what characterizes free ensemble improvisation and how can it be defined
– how does free ensemble improvisation relate to:
– – instrumental technique
– – idiomatic improvisation and stylistic influences
– – composition
– – interpretation
– – aleatorics and indeterminacy
– – different types of sytems (e.g. biological, social, dynamic/chaotic systems)
– what might a conceptual model as a theoretical base for free ensemble improvisation look like?

The artistic/performative part of this research project has primarily consisted of public concerts, as a result of longer/shorter periods of cooperation with four permanent and a number of temporary (ad hoc) ensembles. The results provide a better understanding of what free ensemble improvisation is, in what respects it differs from other forms of music-making and how it can be defined. Free ensemble improvisation’s relations to the points mentioned above were found to be more multifaceted than expected. However, it was possible to attain a basic two-layered conceptual model as a theoretical base for free ensemble improvisation and, in its extension, as a basis for the analysis of free ensemble improvisation. The study includes numerous concert projects, of which several are recorded and included in this book on two CDs with MP3 files.

Bryndis Snæbjörnsdóttir, fine arts

Title
Spaces of Encounter: Art and Revision in Human-Animal Relations

Time and Place
27 March 2009, Glashuset, Konsthögskolan Valand, Vasagatan 50, Göteborg.

Faculty examiner
Sarat Maharaj, Professor vid Konsthögskolan i Malmö, Lunds universitet, och professor i konsthistoria vid Goldsmith University College

Examination Board

• Fil dr Karin Wagner, IT-universitetet, Göteborg
• Artist and PhD professor Martha Fleming, Creative Director, Biomedicine on Display Project, Medicinsk Museion, Institute of Public Health, Medical Faculty at the University of Copenhagen, även/also Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Materials Research Group, School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, King's College London
• Lektor Henk Slager, Dean, Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Art and Design, Utrecht, The Netherlands

 

Abstract
Title: Spaces of Encounter: Art and Revision in Human-Animal Relations
Language: English
Keywords: animal studies, artistic research, conceptual art, contemporary art, contextual art, fine art research, installation art, photography, post-humanism, relational art, Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson, site-specific art, taxidermy
ISBN: 978-91-977757-6-2

This PhD project explores contemporary Western human relationships with animals through a ‘relational’ art practice. It centres on three art projects produced by Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson – nanoq: flat out and bluesome; (a)fly; and seal – all utilize lens-based media and installations.

Discourses on how humans construct their relationship with animals are central to all three projects. The first one looks at polar bears, the second at pets, and the third at seals, in a variety of different sites within clearly defined contexts and geographical locations. The thesis explores the visual art methodologies employed in the projects, tracing in turn their relationship to writings about human-animal relations. This includes both writings researched in the making of the works and those considered retrospectively in the reflections on each art project.
These artworks engage their audiences in a series of ‘encounters’ with the subject through simultaneous meetings of duality, e.g. haunting vs. hunting, perfection vs. imperfection and the real vs. the unreal.

These dualities are important in theorizing this relational space in which the eclipse of the ‘real’ animal in representation occurs and in formulating questions embedded in and arising from the artworks on the construction and the limits of these boundaries. The ‘three registers of representation’, as put forward by the artists Joseph Kosuth and Mary Kelly, have further helped to frame and develop the thinking, concerning both the mechanisms within the works and their perceived effects.

Magali Ljungar Chapelon

Title
Actor-Spectator in a Virtual Reality Arts Play. Towards new artistic
experiences in between illusion and reality in immersive virtual environments

Time and Place
27 January 2009, Robert Franksalen, School of Photography, Storgatan 43, Gothenburg

Faculty examiner
Fil dr Pelle Ehn, professor i IT, design och nya medier på K3 ( Konst, Kultur och Kommunikation), Malmö University

Examining committee

• Willmar Sauter, professor i teatervetenskap, Stockholms universitet
• Eva Nässén, professor, Högskolan för scen och musik, Göteborgs universitet
• Jan Bärmark, professor vid institutionen för idéhistoria och vetenskapsteori, humanistiska fakulteten, Göteborgs universitet
   

Abstract
Title: Actor-Spectator in a Virtual Reality Arts Play: Towards new artistic experiences in between illusion and reality in immersive virtual environments
Language: English
Keywords: Artistic crossover, actor-spectator, Virtual Reality Art, VR-Cube, immersion, interactivity, experience of art, audience experience, play, metaphor, illusion, reality, Gestalt, metaphorical journey, social interaction, performing arts, visual arts, computer games, adventure games, entertainment
ISBN: 978-91-977757-1-7

This doctoral project brings to the fore the specificity of the artistic experience when the Virtual Reality Cube, a medium based on immersive virtual reality technology, is used as artistic virtual space, where the stage and the auditorium blend into one and
spectators and actors no longer have distinctive roles. It consists of three integrated parts: a written thesis, a VR artwork and a DVD, which illustrates the text, the production process of the VR work, and which also presents an interpretation of the research results in filmic and photographic form.

Gadamer’s concepts of play and experience of art, Aristotle’s conception of drama and Ricoeur’s theory of metaphor are used as points of departure in order to coin the term virtual reality arts play or VR arts play that characterises this kind of immersive journey in between illusion and reality. Empirical and theoretical functions interweave in a chorus of voices representing the experience of all actors involved: the audience, the production team and experts from several art fields, computer-games and media. Audience surveys show that all the respondents but one, children as well as adults, thought that this type of VR artwork opens up new ways for an artist to give shape to an artistic vision and for an audience to communicate with and experience an artwork from within. What appears as the most worthwhile and unique aspect of the experience is the opportunity to experience fictive, imaginary worlds and characters that cannot be represented by other means than through an immersive virtual reality medium, i.e. within a physical space where the audience becomes physically immersed and participant “on stage”.

The essence of such an experience is to be found in the notion of “play in between”, at the crossover of several art forms and computer games, for audiences which consider themselves as both actor/participants and spectators. Research results, exposed and illuminated through semiotics and hermeneutics, show that such experiences may develop in the form of intimate experiences for a little group of spectators or within new social contexts for broader audiences and with several possible applications within the fields of art and entertainment.

The dissertation has been published within ArtMonitor