Highlights Performing Arts and Film

Photo of the hybrid organized conference ZFICTION on June 29, 2021. © Johannes Dietschi
Photo of the hybrid organized conference ZFICTION on June 29, 2021. © Johannes Dietschi

    «Voice, body and camera are as much ways and means of thinking as are pen, brush and language. What the microscope is to the scientist, the image is to the filmmaker doing artistic research, movement to the dancer, emotion to the actor. The good viruses were networking & supporting emerging artists and reseachers: Peers exchanging ideas with peers as a means of forging future knowledge.»

    Prof. Anton Rey, Head of the Institute for the Performing Arts and Film (IPF)
     

        Scientific, Artistic and Creative Output and Impact

        Volumes published in the subTexte series: 

        • No. 22 – Gardi Hutter: Trotz allem
        • No. 23 – Dr. Gunter Lösel, Prof. Dr. Martin Zimper: Handbuch Research Video. Filmen, Forschen, Annotieren.
        • No. 24 – Elna Matamoros: Dance and Costumes

        In 2021, the IPF held five international conferences, although some went ahead as hybrid events: 

        • The Art of Video (in) Research (January)
        • How to Act (June)
        • ZFICTION (29 June)
        • ZDOK (30 June – 1 July)
        • Limits of the Human (Oktober)

        → Overview «Scientific, Artistic and Creative Output and Impact»

          Promotion of Talents and Careers

          The IPF launched two PhD programmes (both funded by swissuniversities): «Arts-based PhD Program in the Performing Arts, Music, and Film» and «Transdisciplinary Artistic PhD Program (TAP)». Both programmes will intensify our cooperation with KUGraz, Konrad Wolf Film University of Potsdam, KU Linz and Uniarts Stockholm. 

          Our PreDoc Programme PEERS launched with six emerging researchers and has attracted great international attention.

          → Overwiew «Promotion of Talents and Careers»

            Cooperation and Internationality

            The IPF signed a two-year cooperation programme with RESO, the Swiss Dance Network, for a study on «artistic residencies».

            The 2021 Research Academy on «Liveness» was held in August with none other than Dr. Philip Auslander and ten international participants.

            Liliana Heimberg's research project «The immaterial heritage of the Lake Constance region: mobility, immobility and social change», completed in 2021 and carried out by the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences (project lead), the HTWG Konstanz, the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and the Vorarlberg State Conservatory (VLK), received great recognition and a wonderful, multimedia website «StoryMaps». The project was funded by the International Lake Constance University IBH.

            → Overview «Cooperation and Internationality»

              External Funding

              Two projects by Dr. Gunter Lösel received funding from VW and Stiftung Niedersachsen. One is «The Answering Machine», an interdisciplinary collaboration with TU Dresden (psychology), Stuttgart University (computational linguistics) and Tübingen University (media studies) on applied anthropomorphism, chatbots, AI and improvisational theatre. The other project, «ANA – A multimodal empathic experience generation system», is a cooperation with the GL quartet, Chris Ziegler, Ilja Mirsky and Leonid Berev.  

              → Overview «Research Projects»

                Event Highlight

                ZDOK.21 «I hear something you don’t see» (which explored soundtracks in documentary film) went ahead jointly with the feature film conference ZFICTION «The Promise: Storytelling meets Virtual Production», which was postponed due to Covid, and enjoyed great and downright liberating success. In future, ZFICTION will be held biennially, alternatingly with ZDOK, and in close collaboration with ZHdK Film Studies.

                  Reading Tip

                  Elna Matamoros’ Dance & Costumes: A History of Dressing Movement (2021) has met with broad acclaim since its publication. For example, in her review in the FAZ, Wiebke Hüster raved: «Matamoros provides a detailed and excellent account of the role of costumes in the history of dance». In the professional magazine Tanz, Dorion Weickmann observed: «Matamoros’ study, which runs to almost 500 pages and is richly illustrated, is already a standard work — a must-have for every bookshelf featuring books about dance».

                    Award-Winning

                    The IPF was also successful with a project submitted to the Rapid Action Call of the Digitisation Initiative of Zurich Universities (DIZH): «Research Video in Modcast Format» is a ZHdK project by Dr. Gunter Lösel, Charlotte Axelsson and Dr. Thomas Schärer dedicated to transferring moving images, texts and other elements into an intuitively navigable and long-term stable publication form.

                      Noteworthy

                      Our SNSF submissions, aimed at advancing artistic research, were rejected by the Humanities and Social Sciences Division of the National Research Council. The reasons given included insufficiently assured objectifiability and lacking connections with traditional methods. We will need to continue making our subject-specific, practice-based research questions even better understandable.