On 20 and 21 November, Axel Vatne Barratt-Due, Notam, the Norwegian Academy of Music and nyMusikk are organizing a symposium on instrument building, gathering contemporary instrument designers to share and discuss their instruments and working processes. The symposium takes place at Notam and includes work by Cathy van Eck, Thorolf Thuestad, Marije Baalman, Cecilia Jonsson, Harald Jordal Johannessen, Simon Løffler, Axel Vatne Barratt-Due, and Christian Blom. 

The role of the instrument in contemporary music research has shifted, from simply translating a person’s ideas into sounds, to dramatizing music’s diverse relationships with the broader social forms of communication, desire, labour, power and time. 

What do we gain by understanding musical instruments not as the causes of this shift, but as its limits, manifesting the breakdowns and imperfections inherent in specific technical forms of feeling, mind, perception, belonging and tradition? 

How must we redefine the ‘progress’ of music technology for a time when there is no more nature to master, and when humans are no longer marked as exceptional in terms of authenticity, creativity or intelligence? What can instrument builders do to subvert contemporary myths of technological salvation and annihilation? 

Concepts from the writing of twentieth-century researcher-activists Ursula Franklin and Gilbert Simondon will inform moderated discussions with invited artists about the evolving boundaries of instrument building practice.   

The symposium follows a reading circle initiated by Axel Vatne Barratt-Due in collaboration with music philosopher Patrick Valiquet. More information about the reading group can be found here.

Participating artists are:
Cathy van Eck 
Thorolf Thuestad
Marije Baalman
Cecilia Jonsson
Harald Jordal Johannessen
Simon Løffler 
Axel Vatne Barratt-Due
Christian Blom

Programme Symposium:
Thursday 20 November: Presentations and performances
Doors open at 11:30.

12:00 – 16:00:
Harald Jordal Johannessen
Simon Løffler
Christian Blom
Cecilia Jonsson
Marije Baalman

17:30 – 20:30
Cathy van Eck
Axel Barratt-Due
Thorolf Thuestad

Friday 21 November: Seminar and panel discussion
Doors open at 09:30.

Panel discussion chaired by philosopher and musicologist Patrick Valiquet.

10:00 – 14:00:
Seminar and panel discussion.

The event is free of charge

Photo: Kari Jahnsen