Graduation projects MMus 2018

MASTERS ARTSCIENCE

ARTSCIENCE If there is a theme that connects the works of this year’s ArtScience Master, it must be communication. In some works, communication is the driving element: in Nele Brökelmann’s audience-participatory performance we are confronted with different attitudes towards each other that are looming in all of us. Maarten Brijker created different musical characters that converse with each other through the sound.

Manuel Beltrán shows us new ways in how to organise ourselves in the social media world of Facebook, Twitter and the likes. And the selfbuilt instruments of Veerle Pennock present us with the question who is talking to whom: are the machines talking to each other or are they talking to us? Or maybe it is Veerle talking to them? The other two works show us conversations that have fallen silent. Koenraad de Groot presents a large, brittle installation in which we experience the action that has taken place: a world of past sounds of destruction. In Leandros Ntolas’ installation we are puzzled about what we actually see. Is it a communication device or is it just for eavesdropping? From the far past or the fare future? And from humans or aliens?

In any case, all these new ArtScientists show confident work — we are sure we will hear much more from them in their future careers.

Taconis Stolk Head of Department

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GRADUATES Manuel Beltrรกn

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Maarten Brijker

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Nele Brรถkelmann

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Koenraad Leonardus de Groot

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Leandros Ntolas

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Veerle Pennock

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ARTSCIENCE

Manuel Beltrán mbeltran@protonmail.com http://speculative.capital Spain Project Institute of Human Obsolescence Data Production Labour In a job market in which humans are rapidly getting replaced by technology, the ‘Institute of Human Obsolescence’ investigates how the production of data is a form of invisible labour. The installation offers you the chance to reveal your production for the Big Data industry by scrolling through your

social media feed. A sensor records your hand movements as you scroll through your timeline, while emotion-recognition software registers your visceral response to what you see. The installation problematises the social inequalities established by companies like Facebook through their exploitation of our production of data. We propose a structural change in how to understand our position: instead of being the users, we see ourselves as workers.

Thesis We, the data workers The logic of the production of data performed by humans increasingly influences how power structures

are constituted and relations are established within society. In a time in which technology automates labour at an exponential rate, data becomes a major driving force for progress and productivity. Emerging from new technological capabilities of producing, collecting and processing massive amounts of data, the notion of Big Data has been constituted: a new source of concentrated power for specific actors that perform massive data collection.

Through the work of the ‘Institute of Human Obsolescence’ we analyse the implications and unbalance of the ownership of data, leading to explore a series of political propositions to regain its control.

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ARTSCIENCE

Maarten Brijker maartenbrijker@gmail.com yoneta.xyz The Netherlands Project In my dreams I stand upon a void In my dreams I stand upon a void under a pink sky As I whispered down, you growled back to me Bubbles of light imploded behind my eyes In conflict, the three of us search for common ground

Thesis Maarten Brijker on creating a world of constructed identities In the form of a self-interview, the artist Maarten Brijker walks through all the stages of his artistic process.

From initial theoretical frameworks like paranodal space and identity theory, to character creation and his own artworks. Brijker his work deals with the malleability of identity.

He implements the construction of identity as a method, and utilises constructed identities as a tool for creating art. The core assumption underlying his work, and this thesis, is the notion that identity equals

perception. As over the course of the conducted interview, a fictional character joins the conversation, the thesis’ topic starts to converge with its’ method and the thesis itself grows into the work it is reflecting on.

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ARTSCIENCE

Nele Brökelmann info@nelebrokelmann.com www.nelebrokelmann.com Germany Project It’s all there, just use it.

Set roles, departing from a set situation, exploring the possibilities in a set time and space.

The agents create the dynamics through action and reaction, becoming part of the situation as they proceed within their roles. Alienated

in the beginning, they shape the situation and make it theirs in the end.

Thesis P.S. I love you (Or how I learned to love power structures) Humans intrinsically strive for continuity and coherence. Our realities are dynamic, they continuously change – as we receive, filter and imagine – to precede cognitive dissonance. The fear of meaningless voids forms the motor for the brain to create linear story-lines from experiences and information.

I argue that the created linearity

makes it difficult to step out of line and change social structures. Our societies are build upon structures of meaning and an opposition of active and passive roles.

Each chapter of the thesis investigates specific traits of a theatre piece, working towards an understanding of the systemic human needs that the structures of meaning answer to, and of the underlying power structure.

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ARTSCIENCE

Koenraad Leonardus de Groot koen@kunrad.net kunrad.net The Netherlands Project Streep #1 ‘Streep #1’ is an iteration in my continues research on the physicalisation of computer music. For this work I draw from the concept of the ‘DAW’ (Digital Audio Workstation), the go-to tool for many electronic composers. Within the ‘DAW’, audio is represented by blocks that are

put onto a timeline. When played, a vertical line swipes trough the composition and one can anticipate on what is about to come. ‘Streep#1’ features paper as object, water as actuator and dripping as method.

The appliance of water on paper is chosen to emphasise the transiency native to the physical realm.

Thesis SISE Sometimes I feel like we reside in a culture that has digital approaches as default. Over the last 70 years computer music has developed into a style that has it’s own language and aesthetics. How to take gained

knowledge from computer music to the physical realm? In my thesis I distill the concept of ‘Structural Immersive Sound Experience’ (SISE), a concept that applies computer music to the physical realm with a holistic intake on all the elements it embodies. A soundwork is not only made of sound. Post-digital may be a hype word to use but in the end, will turn out to be a facade. Digital realised ideas are starting to embed themselves into the physical.

We can see this as part of a process of acceptance. An iteration between realms.

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ARTSCIENCE

Leandros Ntolas leandrosntolas@gmail.com www.leandrosntolas.com Greece Internship: Studio Zoro Feigl Project Relic of Future Past Is science the new dogma of our contemporary age? Has it taken up the role of religion in speaking the ‘truth’–by being the only source of ‘real’, ‘objective’ knowledge? If so,

what role do scientific instruments— summoned into this perpetual quest for answers—adopt?

A sculptural object, which borrows its design from contemporary mirror telescopes, reflecting questions.

Thesis On Perceptual Pluralism: how individuals exist in unique perceptual realities The senses provide us with direct awareness of the world as it is.

We open our eyes, and there it all is, detailed, continuous and gap free.

Every sane person shares the same perceptual experience of being in

the world with everyone else.’

Or not?

Building upon contemporary theories of perception and cognition, I argue that people exist and function in unique perceptual realities.

I analyse in what ways these realities differ, by explaining how perception is an active process–an action we do–and how knowledge affects perception. Furthermore I investigate the initial construction of these perceptual realities, their potential to shift and change during one’s lifetime, and finally, how art can act as a facilitator of such shifts.

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ARTSCIENCE

Veerle Pennock veerle.pennock@gmail.com www.veerlepennock.nl The Netherlands Project HELLO WORLD! The phrase ‘hello world!’ is a programming tradition when a program, machine, or code is first successfully run and interacts with its user(s).

It can be seen as a sanity test, showing the machine is properly installed and.... ready to go! My homegrown

machine will make it’s first public performance, giving its audience an audiovisual palooza involving sound and light, balancing between technology and spirituality, ready to meet the world and share its thoughts and skills with you.

Thesis Between Man and Machine When I open a machine, it exposes its insides and every machine has its own mechanisms, gears, and flow of electricity setting tasks into motion.

I’ve always been fascinated by machines how they work and function

inside, what makes them tick.

But as technology progresses, also the interaction between me and the apparatus changes. What is the relationship between man and machine, and what kind of relationship would we like to have with them? Where do we find rest in a world where machines dominate and roam within our daily lives? How are they slowly reading, interacting, coupling and merging with us on a physical and conscious level, helping us extend our minds far into the outskirts of the universe, and what does it mean to be human?

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