It has been three months now that incoming artists-researchers Ludvig Elblaus and Charlotta Ruth have left the in-situ phase with the resident simularr team in Graz, concluding thus the first interval of the project. Yet, we are only beginning to work through the many materials produced, thoughts and concepts, sketches, sonic and performative actions. While in-depth analyses are saved for forthcoming articles and chapters, and the digitised materials remain, for the time being, in our internal repository, this blog entry will provide a glimpse into our doing.
A good amount of techniques, concepts and formulations were brought in by each member of the team in the end of March and beginning of April, put to test and transformation in the group. What are the connecting surfaces between compositional, choreographic, installative and architectural thinking that would make it possible to share our processes? Is it possible to think while doing, or need there be rhythms of making and reflecting? What is everyone’s individual working rhythm, and what happens to these rhythms as they meet and overlap?
On 26 August, simularr member Hanns Holger Rutz gave a keynote at the Colloquium on Artistic Research in Performing Arts (CARPA). His talk, entitled “Beyond self and other: Shifting research from automation to endomation”, proposed the provisional neologism to describe a situation in which an ensemble of interdisciplinary artist-researchers, with or without mediation by machines and devices, establishes a spatial situation that allows to think and move within a common boundary, where thoughts and artefacts can circulate and be shared without the need for an equalisation of intentions and approaches. Case studies included the first simularr interval.
Founded in 2009, CARPA is organised every two years by the Performing Arts Research Centre (Tutke) at the University of the Arts Helsinki. As a colloquium and laboratory, it aims to discuss the challenges and possibilities of artistic research, especially in the field of performing arts, understood in a broad sense and involving a variety of different creative practices. The event included three plenary lectures, 27 presentations, three setting-things-in-motion workshops and three overview workshops. There were also outdoor group walks and a selection of short films. CARPA8 had 96 participants from 22 different countries. A proceedings publication is planned.
In July 2023, the simularr team was in Weimar, Germany, for the 11th Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X. xCoAx is an exploration of the intersection where computational tools and media meet art and culture, in the form of a multi-disciplinary enquiry on aesthetics, computation, communication and the elusive X factor that connects and characterises them all.
Nayarí Castillo, Hanns Holger Rutz and Daniele Pozzi presented two sound and intermedia installations—Swap Rogues and Trópos, exhibited at Eigenheim Gallery—and an experimental live sound project—Strip & Embellish, performed at Nivre Studios. The works are accompained by three articles which are published in the conference proceedings.
In the past week, we have begun the in-situ work in Graz, meeting at Reagenz, Studio KI, and Neue Technik.
The photo was taken at lunch break, from left to right: Charlotta Ruth, Daniele Pozzi, Franziska Hederer, Hanns Holger Rutz, Nayarí Castillo, Ludvig Elblaus.
The materials we are currently developing will be available under a Creative Commons license, but for now we keep the process internal to the group. In the coming week, we will
plan our intensive retreat at the Schrattenberg compound, in which the group will be joined by Emma Cocker from our advisory team. Some initial results will be presented at
the IEM’s Signale Soirée on 24 April at 6 pm (Inffeldgasse 10, Graz).
At the end of 2022, we concluded our open call for participation in the first in-situ research interval. We were honoured by receiving many thrilling applications, emphasising the breadth
that current collaborative practices have. After talking to several of the people who sent their proposals, not only were we able to finish the composition of our first interval’s team,
but we also put together the teams of the second and third interval, which take place next year.
The guest artist-researchers coming into the project will be Ludvig Elblaus and Charlotta Ruth (first interval), Yucef Merhi and Elena Redaelli (second interval),
Andrea Bakketun and Sophie Fetokaki (third interval).
For now, you can read up on Ludvig and Charlotta on the people page. Ludvig is a Stockholm-based composer and sound artist, Charlotta is a Vienna-based choreographer and interdisciplinary artist.
Since the beginning of the year, we have begun a bi-weekly online exchange, in which we share our practices and perceptions and develop a common understanding of the scope and strategies of the project.
