Incomplete Subjects (a SoundsTheatre performance):On the unpredictability of artistic processes
Academy of Music in Ljubljana, Slovenia, from March 21 to March 23, 2024
Research and Conduction: Vahid E. Hosseini
“… Due to the indefinite nature of the relation between the artist and the systems at play in the process of artistic creation, conceptualisation of a map for the artistic process is close to impossible. The artist traverses changes, some radical and some superficial, the moment he encounters the systems that possess him into some artistic endeavour. These systems are indefinite by nature, and one is hardly able to fully speculate the rules of the game through experience and craftsmanship. The artist has to walk through uncomfortable dreams and frequent “incomplete subjects” that bid him to change forever as black holes suck in light into unknown territories. What remains of him after is no longer the same: he is changed forever.” — Vahid Hosseini 18 Nov. 2023
This performance is the result of a two-year-long research, conducted at the workshop for artistic research WARM 2021-23, that observes the relation between subjects and systems in the process of musical creation. The researcher has tried to use his experience in two far- apart musical education systems (i.e. Persian music and western classical music) in order to see how one develops new sensibilities in encountering new artistic materials, cultures, instruments (what he generally calls systems) in a way that one does not feel lost or alienated. The research shows how theory (as systemisation of musical knowledge) can be challenged with every artistic endeavour, and how the artist as a subject may undergo radical changes in encountering new systems he chooses to practice.
In this performance, that is held in the form of an open rehearsal, the artist shall meet a group of musicians from Ljubljana for the first time. He explains how his system works in conducting a group improvisation and thus he shall explore the possibilities of a new artistic endeavour: such that one cannot yet theorise, yet one has to use all the theory they have in their arsenal in order for SoundsTheatre to work.