Vectorial Research

The next session begins with a presentation by Luke Jaaniste, Damien Barbeler (who couldn't be here), and Toby Wren; I'm actually chairing this session so we'll see how much of it I can blog. They're coming from a musical background in composition and performance, and their interest is mainly in how music and performance links to other discursive fields. They were part of a group called Compost through which much of their work has taken place, and note that through this they've situated themselves outside of the academy. Their work shows a shift from an arts production group to a practice-led research model, and they're also suggesting that their work is in actuality a form of scientific test through which various types of data can be researched within a site. this involves a move from a premiere performance model to a multiple version approach. Such an approach then also enables increased feedback from the new music industry, and means that it can compete for research rather than pure arts funding - this also enables research and development work rather than simply the work of setting up and conducting a performance.

Luke and Toby now show some of the work they have done - a performance of BRAINgame at the ABC Ultimo Centre in Sydney in 2003. It uses research into neural networks as an organisational tool for a large-scale sound work, with a group of 400 schoolkids modelling the neural network of a brain through their musical performance. The kids all had specific rules for the performance, functioning as synapses in the network, reacting to incoming signals form other kids' bar chimes by playing music themselves. So, the performance doesn't just base itself on neural networks, technically it is a neural network. The network model provides a kind of musical score which is of course very different from traditional scores.

A further project was their residency at Old Government House on QUT's Gardens Point campus, the former Queensland governors' residence. It is essentially an empty space at present, yet carrying significant historical meaning for Queensland, of course. The team researched the various discursive layers within the space (architectural, acoustic, historical, fictional, and psychological; they also developed a methodology of connectivity to connect the research strands and develop certain research themes: audience flow, discursive spaces, spatial acoustics, and mapping/scoring/notating the events possible here. (For example patterns of potential audiencen movement across the floor plan of the building, moving between, in mathematical terms, 'strange attractors'.)

Ultimately, then, this model of work has moved from a focus on sectors (research, admin, design, production) to a preoccupation with vectors, where research is present throughout the projects and is directed towards certain outputs (context, concept, design, production, and analysis). At each stage of the process there is enquiry and output (question and answer), so, they say, 'it's all research'. There are three main types of public output here - public experience (events), a public portfolio (books, Websites), and public debate (texts and talks).