X-periment: An international dialogue on artistic experimentation

The Orpheus Research Centre in Music [ORCiM] is pleased to announce that its Third Annual Research Festival will take place in October 2011.  This Festival will focus upon Artistic Experimentation and promises an unprecedented atmosphere of exciting and stimulating interaction, celebrating what is happening in artistic research in music on a global scale. ORCiM has opened up its Third Annual Research Festival into a shared creative and critical forum with the Pentacon Group.

ORCiM’s current three-year theme of Artistic Experimentation is at the heart of the Research Festival. Experimentation is omnipresent in artistic practice and in the processes of music making. Artistic experimentation encompasses the actions that an artist undertakes in developing and constantly renewing personal artistic identity and expertise. Exploring this field has the potential to give greater insight into how art unfolds, and opens new possibilities for artistic practice and reception.

The joint Orpheus Research Centre/Pentacon Festival will celebrate a unique interaction of ORCiM researchers with guest presenters and performers from the five Pentacon institutions.  In preparation for it, the Pentacon members have been invited to reflect upon, and react to, ORCiM’s research agenda of artistic experimentation, but refracting this through their own, particular research strengths. Their reactions will take the form of performances, presentations, talks and public concerts.  Research Fellows from ORCiM, as well as guest speakers, will share aspects of their latest artistic developments and insights, and will draw fresh stimulus from the cross-fertilization of ideas that emerge.

Besides offering valuable inspiration to musician-scholars keen to attend and experience the fresh understanding and new questions that artistic research generates, the Festival will help to delineate future directions for ORCiM as it moves towards the culmination of its artistic experimentation project and looks beyond it to new opportunities to bring artistic researchers together.