2015.

The Great Barrier Orchestra, a trans-disciplinary project in sound art, art music, and performance. The Great Barrier Orchestra is an umbrella project containing other projects such as the Barrier Orchestra!
The project seeks to understand how the artistic process and the resulting work of art is influenced and affected by different barriers when working with trans-disciplinary art.

Could the awareness of emergent barriers transform the restrictions into possibilities in the artistic practice? An example is Knee-cuff small digital instruments with textile controllers that I will develop for the Barrier Orchestra. These instruments and their function, besides being instruments is that they provide new means of expression and enhance the communication process.

In the Great Barrier Orchestra project I use and develop a number of modules, for example an orchestra, a living sound installation, specially developed electronic instruments with textile controllers, music compositions, sound art works, interdisciplinary collaborations, scores, choreography and performances. How do the emergent barriers’ restrictions and possibilities influence and affect the choices and decisions made in the artistic process?

Prerequisites and overall structure:
During the process I will create modules that can be used as parts of an art music-performance/live sound art installation.
Some examples of modules I will develop during the research project are the Barrier Orchestra, the Knee-cuff, an electronic instrument with a textile controller, the sounds that are processed with the Knee-cuff, the score, the music, the sound art, the choreography, and the text that emerges during the process. Earlier work, for example the ZO­4 concert installation for choreographed choir and live electronics with the audience as the score, will be recycled into this process. The scalable, interchangeable and exchangeable modules could also merge into new modules. The modules could be looked at as works of art in themselves depending on the context.

The Barrier Orchestra functions as the central module. The Barrier Orchestra with musicians chosen for their special skills and ambition to challenge, brace, and use their own barriers for the development of music and art. The musicians play on special live electronics instruments besides their regular instruments. I started the orchestra because I would like to get the opportunity to work in a long-term process and collaborate with the same artists. My intention is that we could develop relations, techniques and art in collaboration using our different knowledge, skills and experience. The participating musicians are Anna Lindal, violin, Eva Lindal, violin, Elsbeth Berg, viola, Sara Sjödal, piano and accordion, Jacob Riis, trombone, Jörgen Pettersson, saxophone, Matias Björnstad, saxophone, Ola Paulsson, saxophone, Anna Svensdotter, flute, and Sten-Olof Hellström, live electronics. The orchestra could be extended with singers and other artists.

The artwork will be developed in interaction with the Barrier Orchestra and other performers and artists, both professional and amateurs, for example, a professional choreographer and amateur choirs. I am the director, the composer, the artistic leader, the artist, and the researcher and together with the musicians I will develop instruments and music/sound art and we will do performances. Some of the documentation will be recycled and used in the Barrier text. I will also collaborate with a number of other professionals in the arts such as a poet and a choreograph.

The size of the Barrier Orchestra is depending on artistic decisions and financing possibilities. The orchestra will consist of one musician if there is less financing and twelve or more if possible. That could change over time and from performance to performance. Collaboration partners and the financing possibilities are also emergent barriers to consider.

Context:
The areas and disciplines I am moving around, across, and in between are visual art, sound art, art music and stage art. My experience from working in these artistic fields for more than twenty years tells me that there still are many not yet elucidated and researched barriers. Emergent barriers within and between the fields often become limitations, hinders, and restrictions as when, for example, trying to collaborate in an artistic process across borders, or in a process that needs expertise from another field.
Could the awareness of emergent barriers transform the restrictions into possibilities in the artistic practice?

Short background: I have always had problems with understanding relations, and it took more than half my life before I understood this, it was just difficult to adapt. Looking in the rear view mirror, I have used my artistic practise to try to understand myself, the world around me, and the relations in between. I’ve come to realise that my interest in interfaces and interaction design has a lot to do with this and become a strategy for me not only in creating means for me to communicate with others but also as a method for me to access and bridge the gap between different areas of my brain.

Method:
My artistic method is generally process-oriented, based on a framework and modular building blocks, which I refer to as modules. When I get an idea or a vision I often start with creating the larger form by setting up a framework with prerequisites and rules. Within the framework, often through workshops and laboratory experiments, I create and develop modules in relation to and/or in interaction with other artists, the contexts or/and the public.
A module is a scalable, transformable and exchangeable building block consisting of anything from a prerequisite or a tool to a work of art in it’s own right. My work process is explorative and often incorporates research. When I work with research, as will be the case with the Great Barrier Orchestra, it is essential that the research and the artistic process are fundamental and organic parts of the artwork I create!

Ann Rosén