Jök & seasicK

In 2013 research fellow Morten Qvenild and I formed the concert-laboratory series called Jök & seasicK at the Norwegian Academy of Music. During spring 2013 and spring 2015 we arranged about 12 concerts, in which we separately presented our own works-in-progress, in what served as an arena between the informal rehearsing studio and the official concert podium. The series has been an arena for public and “live” critical reflection, for testing, for success and failure (a lot of interesting failures), for discussions with the audience and for sharing and testing our own articulated reflections.

I have systematically and repeatedly tested different project components. I have been able to focus on specific questions and problems within my looping devices and the video projections in Video Ensemble; I have been able to play concerts with only my lap top­, an experiment I would never dare to do in a more official situation; and through this I have received immediate feedback from students, faculty members, supervisors, research fellows and externals.

This essential arena has been an amalgam of the ease of the rehearsing space and the tension of the podium. I believe that this climate has given me and my project different questions and answers than what would have been the case if I only were to present my artistic outcome in more formal situations.  

In retrospect I clearly see that this concert series has been an important part of my project’s methodological endeavours. It grew out of my needs at the time – from within the project – and it has contributed to both the reflexive space and the artistic outcome. Henk Borgdorff’s definition of artistic research includes the observation that “Researchers employ experimental and hermeneutic methods that reveal and articulate the tacit knowledge that is situated and embodied in the specific artworks and artistic processes.”¹ Jök & seasick has been an important facilitator for this in my project.

^{From Jök & seasicK, 2015}