Evolutions of Interplay

Episode 1’s original experimental collaboration — or, perhaps, collaborative experiment — explored the crossroads of music and visual arts. In doing so it explored several facets of this artistic endeavour:

•Painting in reaction to pre-set music, contrasted to painting vis-a-vis improvised music

•Videography intended as an inert element of image capture

•Pre-conceived ideas of how music would be conceptualised on a canvas There were surprises at this stage, with classical music emerging not in the dark hues one might think of music of a bygone era, with the artist reflecting, “The painting ended up looking like a lively little garden scene on a cool summer’s day – it felt like it had energy.” This led to the title of the project, both in imagery of the garden and the central figure of surprise.

The videographer’s role was meant to be behind the scenes, but the absence of an audience made his movements an influence on the improvisation. The musician noted: “There are some times when he walked quite fast to build the panned shots. If it matches what I’m playing at the time, I build it into the playing.” Additionally, “In the improvisational parts as well... he’s the active ingredient in the room: even when he’s behind you, you can see his shadow. It was quite interesting to work with that.”

A key area was how there was pressure to build synchrony of bow strokes and brush strokes — overtly intentional rather than two random artistic events happening in tandem and with no relation to each other. This created a sense of unease with the artist, resulting in one-way brush strokes and darker hues. This facet would be explored further in the following episodes. In Episode 2, there were a new elements for exploration:

•The inclusion of an audience and its effects on the artist, musician, and videographer

•The choice to limit direct synchrony to produce a more organic effect

•The expansion of the event to include a small exhibition and extensive public conversation

The prominence of the performative element literally took centre stage here. The artist, who felt that she was “stalked” in Episode 1’s contrived synchrony no longer had this element — but this seemed to be transferred to the audience. At the post-performance conversation, dean and musician Matthew Marshall commented:

“It almost felt uncomfortable to me in that I’m observing something that I normally wouldn’t or would be excluded from. Almost like I was a voyeur watching you paint; I felt like I had to keep looking away. How did you feel about having the audience here – did it make a difference?”

The painter responded: “Honestly, I forgot that you were here.”

The musician added that it was strange to have the attention of the audience on something else in the room. “I’m used to having an audience, but I’m not used to the audience not paying attention to me. Then I felt really independent – it doesn’t matter what I do.” The initial reaction seemed to parallel the well-known experiment of famed violinist Joshua Bell busking in a subway.

The videographer’s role as the editor later in the process helped him to further develop the flow of the Episode 2. In terms of camera movement and planning, the videographer was no longer shackled with the assumption to produce something that was deemed “elegant”. This realization resulted in experimentation with a Dutch canted angle to evoke a sense of unease for the viewer. 

If there was a jump from Episode 1 to 2, then there was a leap to 3: the expansion of the project to include another musician from a different university, and an extension of the event to three days, covering exhibition, workshop, and performance — not to mention the two-year gap in between. In Episode 3, new horizons included:

•The effect of musical conversation with two improvisers, and no pre-set music

•The development of the performative element, with the videographer’s live projection

•The audience as influence not just in post-performance reflection, but in preceding conversations

A stark contrast was seen in the videographer’s role — while in Episode 1, he reflected that “I was self-aware that I shouldn’t be too near to either of you because I think that would tamper with your process in a way.” In Episode 3, he bumped into the musician while in performance, and was not surprised that this happened. “I know we are going to touch and something will happen. I know I’m extremely close to you because I want to get your shoulder shot and I think the movement of the bow is very interesting and I know at some point I’m going to be touching.”

The three-day span, with the exhibition of five completed paintings, allowed for reflections of the project as a whole through conversations with visitors, as well as small trials both of musical improvisation and painting, and conversations on approaches and interpretations. A wider discussion emerged on how to define the project (as event versus process, or performance versus production, creativity versus expressivity) and how we dealt with the urge to find that which was different without simply resorting to complexity.

The improvisatory process was brought to greater focus not just through the absence of pre-composed music. The videographer reflected that his role became improvisatory as he weaved through the new performance space: “Improvising through these spontaneous moments felt much like folding a fitted sheet—an initially chaotic process that, once you find the right edges, folds into something beautifully aligned.”

The artist, now with performative experience and in the transformation of the traditional isolated experience of painting, reflected: “Knowing that the process was being documented and projected live, created an awareness of both the art being made and the story of its creation. It felt like a ‘performance of process’—a shared experience.”

II. Discussion: In Between Phases

This section considers the challenges of interdisciplinary work which transforms artistic conventions into meaningful collaborations. It interrogates the nature of interdisciplinary collaboration through a developing understanding of ensemble roles. Part of the challenge may lie in the articulation of artistic form and method. That is, how we articulate our creative roles influence the interdisciplinary practice and subsequently, the research value of interdisciplinary work. In this way, we establish how artistic research emerges from our creative practice. We also consider how artistic research functions as our theoretical framework and also as a metaphor for interdisciplinary encounters. As the third iteration of the project, some changes were implemented, not least the addition of one more musician, the change of location, and the extended period of production over three days which allowed all members to recall, reflect, and reimagine their roles within the creative process.

The use of improvisation as the main tool of expression had its basis in drawing out creative interactions to engender new artistic responses. Initially, it generated some anxiety for the practitioners – especially in the first two episodes where there were many unknown outcomes. What was improvisation for artists who generally rely on external influences to inspire their pieces? What about videography whose role was primarily ‘to document’ the event? How can a videographer influence the liveness of the improvisation? Should it? Improvisation may be clearer for a musician, but there was also a desire to relate or ‘to make reference’ to the artwork which could potentially inhibit the improvisatory spirit. The multiplicity of our roles (as musicians, painter, and videographer) was challenged in the process of creating the work.

Along with our anxieties about using improvisation as our creative approach, our primary concern was to establish a creative outcome. But in an interdisciplinary encounter, this became a fundamental problem. Was it a single work that was produced? Yet, if there were multiple works being created, how is the artistic work heard, shared, and validated – particularly in a scholarly context? How do we perceive our artistic roles when we use music, art, and media to collaboratively develop a creative work? Quite simply, what are our creative positions in an interdisciplinary context? Inadvertently, developing an understanding of interdisciplinary collaboration became our research purpose. While the project was not designed with an intention for research inquiry, issues in interdisciplinary work emerged from within our practice.

Here, we considered artistic research as our model for interrogating interdisciplinary work. In the context of how our project developed into a research inquiry, it can be thought of as ‘practice-led research’. As often the case with artistic research, issues or problems emerges from the creative practice, with the creative process seen as a way to examine the research questions. In a fit of irony, the creative practice both reveals our research objective and is the methodological tool from which we attempt to derive new knowledge. This juncture is sometimes seen as ‘practice-based research’. However, going even further into the paradigm of artistic research, the creative work is then both the research process and the research outcome. This might even be considered ‘practice-as-research’. Problematic as these positions may present, the nuance of artistic research stems from the diversity of creative practice and contextual richness of the material. Mapping this onto our interdisciplinary project, artistic research as a framework offers a theoretical approach to articulate the project as a research inquiry and a practical frame to interdisciplinary practice. After all, artistic research outlines an interdisciplinary relationship between artistic practice and scholarly work. It becomes both the framework and metaphor we adopt for our project.

Henk Borgdorff suggests that if artistic practice is contingent on research, it is possible to perceive the converse: artistic research as contingent on artistic practice (2012). In part it is to manage the parallelisms between creating artistic work and conducting academic research. Where the articulation of research question generally assumes primacy in shaping the outcome of research; in artistic research, it is the creative practice which initiates the field of interest and ‘not only precipitates the research process but informs it and is shaped within it’ (Burke & Onsman, 2017:10). In other words, articulating one’s artistic practice is as essential in developing it, as it is crucial in defining the scope and method of research. This kind of ‘discipline formation’ through language which was outlined by Darla Crispin may lead to other anxieties regarding artistic research, framed as ‘me-search’ rather than new insights (2019). Thus, the balance of subjectivities, that is, the way we identify and represent our artistic roles, returns us to our initial position when establishing our interdisciplinary project.

One of the first points of reflection was identifying what ‘The Garden of Sound, Sight, and Surprise, Episode 3’ was. Was it a performance or a production? The space was set up with the intention of creating a performance space where the musicians will take to stage, facing rows of chairs. Yet, there were several cameras for wide static frames and close-ups akin to a production setup. In the middle of it all was an art studio, a blank canvas set up with a volume of paints and brushes. The labels may not be important to us as practitioners, but interdisciplinary collaboration demands clarity of perspectives so that creative value can be assigned in recognition of how interdisciplinary impact has taken place. Similar demands are made of artistic research too as it establishes research value to the project. As practitioners, it is our reflexive interaction which develops the creative process. As researchers, the reflections represent critical research data of the creative process.

Each discipline – the music, art, and media can stand independent of each other, separate from the performance or production, with its own creative value that is particular to the nature of the artistic practice. However, the artwork, music, or videography in and of itself cannot represent interdisciplinary work. What draws it together in interdisciplinary form is actually the writing, the textual expression of that interdisciplinary process. In other words, it may be an interdisciplinary practice as far as we can observe it, but it is not interdisciplinary work until we write about it. But what are we really writing about when we write about interdisciplinary work? Parallel to that, what are we writing about when we write about artistic research? As artistic researchers, these phases between knowledge and practice are essential to deepening our perspective between creative practice and research work.

Robin Nelson suggests that one way to dissolve the binary between theory and practice is to mobilize an interplay between conceptual thinking through critical reflection and practical doing-thinking (2013:29). In other words, a heuristic analysis is necessary to deliver critical research data – partnering both the artist’s reflection with a reflexive interaction with the research material to continually formulate and develop the artistic work. Artistic research becomes a recurring cycle between research practice and creative practice, with the practitioner-researcher modulating between reflective and reflexive approaches throughout the project. This was precisely the interplay which we modelled in our interdisciplinary interactions with each other – at once reflecting the artistic moment and reflexively engaging with each other.

Interplay: Aural, Textual, Visual

This manner of interplay is applied in our approach to interdisciplinary practice. Reflecting on our project, we discovered the interconnectivity between each discipline through the perspectives of each other, blurring the initial roles we had established for the project. Our perspectives were opened to other possibilities of looking at artwork as musical score or listening to music as a visual spectacle. The interplay between art and music lends itself to a creative relationship that is relatively common in interdisciplinary practice. This correlation between art and music can also be found in a cognitive condition known as synaesthesia where an inter-sensory experience with taste, sight, sound can be activated simultaneously. The earlier episodes (Vol.1 and Vol.2) explored this relationship between sight and sound in an almost linear direction. It was when videography entered this space, the project engaged with a new dimension of interdisciplinary practice. We consider this to be the ‘surprise’ element, enhancing what we had first established as the primary creative source in art and music. The post-production aspect fed into our creative consciousness which we reflexively engaged with.

The initial motivation of having videography was for documentation purposes. However, post-production outcomes revealed new particularities of the creative process that had taken place between art and music which required further reflections in developing the next project. In other words, new creative perspectives that were being presented from the singularity of video capture and edit shaped how the next project was structured – from Episode 1 to Episode 3. As a reflexive interaction, recognizing the influence of post-production output through videography allowed new interdisciplinary settings to take shape, creating space for interdisciplinary encounters to emerge from within. The growing influence of videography in this process is testament to an interdisciplinary practice that is inclusive, provocative, and generative. In Episode 3, the reflections from our videographer included terms such as ‘rhythm’ and ‘composition’ – quintessentially musical ideas, common also to art and videography, but here, our interdisciplinary perspectives were expanded to enrich the intertextuality of our artistic practice.

In the performance-production of ‘The Garden of Sound, Sight, and Surprise, Episode 3’, the reflections brought out other underlying perspectives of the experience shifting between expressing (music), translating (art), and representing (video). How interchangeable were the three positions in the moment of creative work – and crucially, have we begun to be influenced by each other beyond our disciplines? That is, might we now be performing for the piece/artwork/creative output? This intertextuality began to emerge in our reflections. The music, which was our expressive element initially, gradually engaged with translation and representation of the process. One musician moved around the canvas midway of the performance to observe the painter – changing the dynamics of engagement from one who was expressing to one who is representing and translating the visual elements. Conversely, the artwork which began as a form of musical translation also had expressive elements to offer the other practitioners. Each stroke of the brush was being projected live, akin to a performance which the musicians could observe. Our videographer may be representing the entirety of the project in a post-production clip, but he also expresses and translates the performance he captures as he moves in and around the space – influencing the live elements.

While we retained our original roles as musician, painter, and videographer in practice, we have transcended our perspectives to conceive of the creative work as a collective. The painter’s reflection echoes this through the lack of fear she felt and the trust that was built throughout the 3-day exhibition. Aside from thinking of the artwork as a form of translation of the music she heard, there was an expressive aesthetic that was singular to the painter. The artwork was also representative of the improvisation and the improvised settings that were in place. The same can be said about the musicians. Aside from improvising to an internal expression, they were simultaneously translating and representing the context of the performance-production through music.

This suggests that interdisciplinary practice, when nurtured, can develop into an interplay of all the elements together. The connotation of ‘play’ as opposed to ‘discipline’ is pertinent here as it exemplifies the intuitive nature of creative work as opposed to the intentional practice of artistic craft. Where ‘discipline’ might be considered a more rigid practice, ‘play’ transcends that discipline and allows creative practice to flourish. The idea of ‘play’ was also evident in our videographer’s reflections of finding ‘rhythm’ from his response to framing the artists and their movements. There was greater overlap between performance and production spaces that was bridged by videography, sharing in the creative roles and enriching the interdisciplinary experience. This simultaneous process between expressing, translating, and representing through the different disciplines offers us a framework for understanding the various experiences that can occur during collaborative experimentation. It is representative of artistic research framework which utilizes both reflective and reflexive positions to develop simultaneously the creative and research work.

Sustainability of The Creative Process

There is a general reliance on disciplines to establish boundaries on which to prop our excellence. This is both a necessity and a liability. There are great benefits to perpetual engagement within the discipline to elevate the craft from an artistic account. However, it runs the risk of isolating the creative practice and descending into farcical imitation within the discipline. Furthermore, the subjectivity of artistic quality means that some limitations will naturally inhibit (or even, prohibit) the practitioner from further exploration within the discipline. Interdisciplinary practice, however, invites us to consider new ways of producing creative work outside the confines of the discipline.

Beyond the conventions of artistic practice, interdisciplinary collaboration calls on us to radically alter our mode of expression, production, and performance. It enlarges our perspective from a singular form into a multi-layered texture, challenging us to view authorship from a collective standpoint. While the musician may not have wielded the brush that painted the strokes, the music was nevertheless an essential part in the creation of the artwork. Similarly, while the videographer may have played no part in laying bow to string, the act of capturing a live session indirectly assigned musical and artistic values to what was displayed. This shows the interaction between ‘discipline’ of each member against the ‘play’ of the creative process as a complementary whole.

Crucially, interdisciplinary collaboration requires greater textual articulation for a broader engagement within its neighbouring practices. While the strength of the creative work lies in the artistic capabilities of its practitioners, the value of interdisciplinary work lies in the creative relationships built over a few episodes. The singularity of artistic work is iterative of itself and runs the risk of repetition. Interdisciplinary work, on the other hand, is generative in spite of the repetition that occurs because of a creative interaction that is beyond artistic material. This, and other intangibles offer an opportunity for artists to consider new and sustainable ways of expressing, engaging, and encountering the world.

III. Modelling (Inter)Play: Framing Collaboration

In reflecting on our collective endeavour, we attempt in this section to visualise some of the axes or parameters that helped create artistic meaning within our multi-faceted collaborations.

The first, perhaps most fundamental of interplay principles is the question of direction, as seen in this first diagram: