Thinktanks 2020

Overview of IPEM's Think Tanks 2020

 

Notice: Where possible we include a streaming version of the presentations.

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Dominik Pyfferoen | The impact of the intensity factor, the movable one and the Aferian hemiola on the dynamics of ritual music-making in Dagbon Society (Ghana)

January 31st at 13.30PM, IPEM online

In this talk I will present some results of rhythmic analysis that we did on ritual music and dance from Dagbon in Northern Ghana, seen from the angle of embodied music interaction and expressive timing. The theoretical concept of embodied music interaction assumes that the musical stimulus and the auditory perception of music are ambiguous and that this music is not additive but cyclic, containing both “ternary-duple” and “binary – triple” meter components which are diachronic, meaning that both metric structures can be simultaneously available for embodied music perception. By moving to music, such as hand-clapping, work movements, or dance the listener can select a binary or ternary pattern in the matrix and listens by means of an auditory filter or “grid”. Ritual music-making has a strong improvisational character and has cultural key components and rational key components (with a one and a movable one) with periodicity and ordered arrangement of beats that allow performers to embody sounds.
We will demonstrate on the hand of music analysis of audiovisual field recordings that ritual music- making in Dagbon consists of the superposition of simple cyclic rhythmical layers which are shifted in in time and dimension in the grid. Through the simultaneously interaction of the different musical instruments ( musical timbres) these simple rhythmical layers interlocks with each other, creating polyrhythms, a movable one, homeostasis - and transitional states which all contribute to the intensity factor and the dynamics of ritual music-making in Dagbon. 
The Aferian hemiola is a structural key components e.g. ’rhythmic gestalts’ or ‘archetype rhythms’ and refers to the rearrangement or regrouping of rhythmical patterns based on the play of two and three which are embodied in the architectural structure of the ritual music-dance performances. It is a combination of two equal sections of duple and triple. It is accomplished without any durational change in the basic pulse unit or micro timing so that two groups of three can become three groups of two within a “regular spacing”. The performers/listeners uses a musical filter that to al large extend is culturally bound, as culture phenomena are learned and involves a mental code which here results in practicing and performed in Dagbon society.
The embodied music interaction and expressive timing paradigm on ritual music making in Dagbon, therefore assumes that the structural analysis of music is an important starting point but that a more comprehensive understanding of structural processing can be obtained by considering it from a dynamic systems perspective, thus involving a network of mutual and self-reinforcing processes that can stirrup the interaction quality beyond ordinary (or common) interaction quality. Understanding why expressive moments or homeostatic states are empowering is a step towards understanding music at the anthropological level, that is, why music is sense-giving and why music plays a role in culture. In that sense the embodied interaction paradigm provides a bridge between structuralism and culturalism.

Prof. Dr Andréia V. Abdelnur Camargo (Nhur) | Sonorouschoreography: cognitive crossings among movement, sound and voice in bodies performing multiple artistic tasks

January 31st at 13.30PM, IPEM online.

The contemporary performing arts scene presents several examples of artists who use multiple skills to perform hybrid scenic experiences. Even though there are a lot of theoretical analyses about how different artistic languages are mixed, there is a small group of studies investigating how performing artists could transit among their skills while acting. The project aims to analyse how movement, sound and voice reveal biocultural crossings in the work of performers who cross multiple tasks simultaneously, such as singing and dancing or speaking and dancing at the same time. The idea is to find effective both pedagogical and artistic approaches to drama and dance students and professional performers who intend to apply their various skills on the contemporary stage. The spark of the research started in 2019 as a result of earlier artistic and pedagogical investigation about the relation between sound and movement in the contemporary performative arts. Now, one of its aims involves the research of new methods and bibliographic references about movement and sound interaction, sponsored by Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES-Brazil).

Andréia Nhur is a brazilian actress, dancer and a professor at the Department of Performing Arts and the Graduate Program in Performing Arts of University of São Paulo. She holds a doctorate degree in Communication and Semiotics from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, focused on the history of dance, where a part of it has been done at the Dance Department of University of Paris 8. She has a bachelor degree in Dance from the State University of Campinas- UNICAMP. As an actress and dancer, she has participated in several international festivals of dance, theatre and performing arts in Latin American and Europe. Since 2007, she has been working as a dancer, choreographer and researcher for the Pró-Posição Group. This group was awarded by the APCA Award (São Paulo Association of Art Critics) in 2013, being also nominated for this prize in 2017. As a dancer she gained the Denilto Gomes Award of best performer in 2017. Since 1999, she has been working as an actress and body and vocal coach of the Katharsis Group. She was awarded seven times as best actress in theatre festivals in Brazil and nominated for the APCA Award for best actress in 2015.

Prof. dr. Pieter Jan Maes | New Research Report

April 3rd at 13.30PM, IPEM online

I will describe the procedure employed for the experiment of Jeroen De Vleeschhouwer, incorporating the general synchronisation methods and data protocols. The procedure is based on a systematic interaction between researchers and technical management, outsourcing different functions to respective specialists across the De Krook consortium. It is a good example that I would like to elaborate into a working model in future research at IPEM/ASIL.

Bavo Van Kerrebrouck | Real-time sonification of low-frequency, continuous spatio-temporal signals and its applications

April 10th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Research has shown that sound and music can be useful in the context of human physical activity, such as sports and motor rehabilitation (Maes, Buhmann, & Leman, 2017). Through
sound and music a real-time feedback can be provided on various aspects of the activity, such as movement, posture, physiology, and others (i.e., "sonification"). Research is focused
in particular on the development of strategies to address these different aspects, based on thoughtful manipulations of the real-time sonification.
In the current study, we aim to further explore the use of such sonification strategies in the domain of breathing. The first phase of the study concerned the technological development
of a real-time sonification system for breathing. In a second phase, we want to test sonification strategies via an empirical experiment with human subjects. We want to check specifically whether it is possible to measure the respiration rate and the ratio of durations of in- and controlled exhalation can be influenced through real-time sonification.

IPEM team | Possible contribution of systematic musicology to deal with the corona health problem

April 17th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

The corona virus has two important stages of attack at the human body: first it wil multiply rapidly if the immune system is not strong enough and secondly it will attack the respiration function.
Systematic musicology can be of help at the two stages: 1. The immune system is sensitive to stress. Apropriate musical feeling can reduce stress. 2. Music can can also influence breathing through embodiment and thus be of help in respiration therapy. Many respiration therapies indicate slow breathing as beneficial for stress reduction. Music can help to support the therapies to find an effective route towards cardio-respiratory coherence, which means maximal amplitude of Heart Rate Variability, in the form of RSA, which is linked to relaxation. Slow breathing has a maximal resonance peak between 5 and 6 breaths per minute. This is much slower than the normal breath rates between 12 and 20 breaths per minute.
There are indications that regular practicing respiration therapy can develop the muscles for breathing needed in fighting the suffocation by the virus, thus decreasing the dependence on respiration machines. An app for helping to perform slow breathing exercises could be a low cost alternative for situations in which respiration machines are not viable.
In systematic musicology we have already methodologies for adapting music to manage repetitive movements of the body (Djogger). Much of this technology could be adapted to the much slower and less regular movement of breathing. First experimental steps are already being made in finding the best sound stimuli to be used in this kind of applications.

Prof. dr. Marc Leman | Homeostasis as regulatory balance: a dynamical system for timing analysis, with examples

May 8th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

I show that timing of a music ensemble can be understood in terms of a dynamic system 's latent (regulatory balance) parameters that emerge from mutual interactions among participating musicians. I implemented this idea with a state-space approach based on Kalman filtering and I re-tested the JustHocket database showing better results than previously obtained. I also demonstrate its robustness and application to African music analysis.

Parts:
- Musical homeostasis as regulatory balance in music
- Mathematical explanation of the dynamical system
- Examples of its performance

Aleksandra Michalko | The Coupling of Action and Perception: Can Embodied Cognition Override Enculturation Effects on Beat and Meter Perception? - Discussion of Pilot Study Outcomes. 

May 15th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

The project explores whether action-based learning can improve adult's perception of
complex music meters, such as the 7/8 meter that is common in Balkan folk music.
We have finished running preliminary tests that aimed to validate the experimental set-up and stimuli.
I will discuss the experimental set-up, process and outcomes/end-results of this pilot study.


Prof. dr. Leon van Noorden | Music to defuse useless Corona Stress

May 29th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Of course, we need a lot of stress to stay attentive to avoid the uncontrolled propagation of the virus and even to find possibilities for making music together in times of social distancing. This is useful stress. However, our minds give us a surplus of stress that is useless, that gives rise to sleepless nights (for people like me) and conspiracy theories (not like me).
It is already known for centuries that we can use our respiration to diminish this kind of stress. Many methods exist to guide our breath to slower patterns then our auto-breath-pilot. Our breath can be guided by speech, counting, visual, auditory and tactile stimuli. The simplest form is by giving an example of the right breath, called sonification.
However, in my research into the best sounds for relaxation I found it a bit confusing. It turned out to be difficult to distinguish between the in- and exhale. I looked a bit further in the auditory domain and found that it is well possible to construct simple tone sequences that guide breathing more precisely and on top can take into account the tempo of the heart, which is of course the complimentary part of the machine that provides the oxygen to every cell of our body. It is coupled to the breathing in 3 ways: 1. the Respiration Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA), 2. a more or less fixed time interval between start of inhalation and the following heartbeat and 3. a more or less fixed number of heartbeats during the breath periods.
A further step in my ‘distanced’ experiments showed me the possibility to compose simple 2 voice sequences that can control the respiration as a 4-stroke engine with the two expansion directions of the lungs: 1. the diaphragm and 2. the cage of the ribs. This way the of breathing brings about a much faster increase of the Heat Rate Variability and thus reduction of stress values on my smart watch.
A further promising direction could be the involvement of the knowledge on the dynamics in chord progressions of which I will give some examples. Much is known in composition but not much used in therapy. And a final interesting step would be the transition from relaxing music to sleep music, which should be effective but not disturbing.

Sandra Fortuna | The Influence of Discrete versus Continuous Movements on Children's Musical Sense-Making

June 15th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

A growing body of studies emphasize the influence of movement on music perception. This study contributes to this research, investigating whether different qualities of movement aligned to music, may affect the way children attribute meaning to music. To address this question, 34 children (aged 9-10), divided into two groups engaged in different listening activities, aligning with discrete versus continuous movements on different pieces of music. As a pre- and post-test, children were invited to move freely to a piece of music, then to draw a visual representation of the piece and, finally, to verbally explain the link with the music. Results may offer interesting insights on the way different qualities of movement can influence the categories of visual representations, arousal and voices of the music described. Moreover, the role of visual representations emerges as a means to learn about the children musical sense making mainly when the product is analysed together with the process and the gestures employed in realizing it.

Mattia Rossi | Two in one sphere. A geometrical model for interpersonal coordination.

June 15th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Analysing dyadic coordinative behaviour implies dealing with complexity. In such complexity, a crucial decision for the researcher is whether to focus on individuals or collective dimensions of the interaction. Depending on the choice, different paradigms would be designed and different measures would be operationalised to best quantify the dimension of interest. One example of this is the divergence between dynamical accounts, rooted in the coordination dynamics literature and inclined to describe system's behaviour as a whole by means of collective variables, and studies who tackle coordination strategies in terms of leader-follower dynamics, based on individual variables and their correlation.
Crucially, combining the approaches within the same study for the sake of completeness can be cumbersome and hardly elegant, and I have recently been dealing with this in my own analyses. Moving from such issue, I present here a parametric model for dyadic rhythmic behaviour explicitly meant to account for individual and collective behaviours in a unified framework. The model is under development in collaboration with Ole Adrian Heggli from MIB (Aarhus University), and is being tested on simulated and real data from my joint-tapping study.

Margo Baele | European funding possibilities

June 15th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

An overview of current and coming possibilities.

Max Montgomery | Effects of music therapy and exercise on spasticity symptoms

June 19th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Background: The use of music therapy and exercise in symptom management of spasticity has shown promising initial results. Few studies have looked at the effects of the two interventions in combination.
Methods: We will employ a mixed repeated measures design study where participants either complete either a one-time exercise or a music-feedback exercise paradigm. Outcome measures are (1) measures of spasticity using a KINARM robot, a modified Tardieu scale. (2) mood as measured by the MDBF questionnaire. (3) perceived spasticity related pain as measured by the SAAPS questionnaire. (4) measures of quality of life as measured by the AQoL8D and (5) measures of perceived musical agency. The intervention will take approximately one hour.
Significance: Developing non-medical interventions for spasticity has become more pressing over the years due to increased awareness of patient discomfort due to the gradual decrease in botulinum A effectiveness between injections. Developing an intervention that can reduce symptoms in the critical period between the middle and end of the injection cycle could have potential positive benefits on patient everyday quality of life and perceived pain.

Max Archibald Montgomery spent a year studying psychology in the arctic at the University of Tromsø just for good measure before pursuing a Bsc in psychology from Lancaster University and an Msc in psychological research methods from the University of Exeter He currently is pursuing a PhD as a collaboration between IPEM and the music-evoked brain plasticity group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.

Kelsey Onderdijk | Impact of Lockdown Measures on Joint Music Making: Playing Online and Physically Together

June 19th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

In this Think Tank I will present the results of a survey study that was conducted from the twentieth of April 2020 till first of May 2020. Edith and I set up this survey to investigate how people were making music with others while lockdown measures were restricting people's mobility. A focus was set on feelings of togetherness. In light of this we asked participants to assess online 'live' platforms and alternative remote methods in their ability to facilitate successful joint music making, as well as feelings of togetherness. Interestingly, a lot of people were not aware or did not even try platforms that are specifically made for joint music making. In the Think Tank I will present possible reasons on why this is the case. Next to this, I will present further findings on people's musical behaviour during the lockdown measures, and the role of social connection.

dr. Joren Six | PaPiOM: Patterns in Pitch organization in music

September 18th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Music is present in every culture in the world. We as a species seem to have an urge to make music. While the diversity of music cultures around the world is phenomenal, they do seem to have patterns in common. Especially for pitch, one of the fundamental building blocks of music, there are strong reasons to believe that there are commonalities amongst cultures on how pitch is organised A better insight in these common patterns may help to answer questions on the definition, origins and evolution of music.
Common patterns in pitch organisation can be studied from two perspectives. Firstly, the perspective of how humans perceive and make music can be gained from systematic, experimental work. Over the years this has yielded insights in which pitch organisations might be most fit for our perceptual, neurophysiological system. Secondly, these patterns can be observed directly in large-scale, corpus-based, cross-cultural studies which has a potential that is not exploited as of yet.
During this fellowship a large-scale global corpus with field recordings will be compiled in collaboration. Music Information Retrieval techniques will be employed to describe how pitch is organised in the corpus. More specifically, it will support claims on the use of discrete pitches, octave equivalence, the number of pitch classes in use and the pitch interval structures. The uncovered fundamental properties of pitch will be confronted with findings from experimental work.

Mohamad Talebi | Choreomusicology: Interaction between Dancers and Musical Rhythm in Classical Ballet Female Variations

September 25th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Classical ballet is a form of dance-theatre striving to narrate a fairy tale by nonverbal dialogue between dancers and musicians or music. However, there is a general agreement that rhythm is the fundamental component of both music and dance. So that dancers usually move according to the regular temporal patterns embedded in musical rhythm. This case study designed to describe and explain how dancers interact with the musical rhythm in classical ballet female variations by using both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
My hypothesises are, this communication is a dynamic, systematic, and complex process in which the dancers receive musical cues physiologically by their hearing system through intentional listening mechanisms. Then, detect and process them mentally through cognitive and predictive coding mechanisms. After mental visualisation, the dancers interact with music physically by bodily movements according to the temporal structure prediction of the music through beat induction and synchronisation mechanisms. They also, interact with the music emotionally by expressive bodily gestures regarding the descriptive structure of the music through emotion induction mechanisms. These interactions construct dance symbols based on musical, choreographic, and dramatic cues to generate new meaning in the mind of the audience. All the process influenced by intervening variables and multiple contexts. This research aims to enhance the theoretical principles of the dance and CB’s Choreomusicology studies. And in practice, develop dancers’ musicality skills and support them to fine-tune their entrainments with music for better performance.

Mohammad holds a Bachelor in Production Film and Television Program, a Master in Research on Communication, and a Master in Social Communication Sciences. He worked in Iran’s National Television (IRIB) as a producer, director, and film editor. He also employed as the manager of the video editing unit, while keeping the position substitute for the supporting director of the IRIB News department for 10 years. Moreover, founded and managed the supervision and evaluation unit in there. Simultaneously, he collaborated with the various TV training departments as a Coordinator, Teacher, and one of the Course and Questions Designers for news occupations.
Mohammad is also a musician and music teacher and researcher. So that one of his master’s theses and his books are about News music recognition. He currently is working at the Institute for Science in Society (ISiS) at Radboud University Nijmegen as a PhD researcher with the collaboration of IPEM Ghent University. His research project is Choreomusicology: Interaction between dancers and musical rhythm in classical ballet female variations.

dr. Adriaan Campo & Aleksandra Michalko | CONnected through roBOTS (CONBOTS)

October 9th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Learning to play a music instrument implies that the student develops skills for a fine-grained control of hand and fingers. The control of bowing gestures for violin playing, or the control of gestures for drum playing, for example, requires the development of very precise sensorimotor control in time and in space. The acquisition process of these fine-grained motoric skills requires many hours of focused practice and is accompanied by fatigue, physical and mental stress, which is evident especially at the early onset of musical apprenticeship. To reduce learning time and fatigue, and to improve the efficacy of learning music, CONBOTS will develop and test an innovative modular robotic platform, which will allow teachers and students to communicate directly through motion. We hypothesize that this new take on education can improve and facilitate the learning process especially during the training of new motor skills.

Marc Vidal Badia | Modelling brain network synchronicity in coupled systems

October 30th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

In music, a dynamical system (DS) can be represented by agents whose interaction generates sample information that resumes the state of the system. A coupled DS in music consists then of interacting subsystems (agents) of the same kind whose state affects the time-evolution of others. We propose to discuss two statistical techniques in shaping EEG brain coupled networks activated by external stimuli to model neuronal or causal connections between two brain subsystems. The first consists of a functional PCA decomposition based on a covariance operator derived from the dominant eigenpair of the second moment to reconstruct two neural networks on ERP basis. The second uses functional data analysis of ODE models to infer the underlying differential equation from EEG data to model system dynamics whether to describe how the "interaction structure" affects stability, as well as stabilizability of the system in a continuous-time setup.

Max Montgomery | The development and validation of the Sense of Musical Agency (SOMA) questionnaire.

November 13th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Musical agency is a concept first introduced by the music evoked brain plasticity group at MPG CBS, but has currently not been well explored, and there is no standard way to measure it. In the next Denkdank on Friday the 13th I will present the questionnaire (Sense of Musical Agency (SOMA)) that we developed to address the issue with measurement, and the experiment I have devised to validate the SOMA questionnaire. One of the issues we experience with the Jymmin loop selection paradigm is that certain loops give an immediate sense of control, whilst others do not. The ultimate goal of the Denkdank is to explore some pre-recorded Jymmin songs as well as look into them when played live to try and determine which musical aspects heightens agency, and which ones inhibits it.

Georgia Nicoloau | Moving towards Resilience: joint creation through music and motion with children at risk

November 20th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Facing one of the biggest refugee crises in history, our world is continuously challenged in numerous ways. Worldwide, children face adverse experiences, being exposed to risks ranging from exposure to political violence and forced migration (Unesco, 2019). As a socially engaged artist and educator, I cannot remain passive. I feel the urge to apply my educational and artistic experiences, skills and insights to stimulate the younger generations and help them to build resilience.

In my educational practice, I have experienced so many times how “the power of music” helps children to connect, open their minds and creatively engage with music. Therefore, I want to thoroughly investigate the potential of movement-based musical activities to promote social inclusiveness and resilience. To realise this, I want to take a specific stance as a researcher: rather than developing a method “for” children at risk, I will develop it “with” the children and their environment, by jointly engaging in an artistic process where their needs, ideas and creative aspirations get a voice.

Drawing on theories about embodied music interaction (Leman, 2016), participatory sense-making (De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007), and non-linear learning (Abrahamson & Sánchez-García, 2016) as well as using my own experience, I will develop a methodology for the co-design of activities that stimulate participants to engage with music and movement. To do so I will use methods such as joint storytelling (De Schauwer et al., 2017) over drawing (Fortuna & Nijs, 2019,2020) to interviewing (Fargas-Malet et al., 2010), from semi-structured observation to video-stimulated recall (Morgan, 2007) in which we look back together to what was happening. This approach will allow discovering whether the creative process extends into their daily reality and in the way they position themselves towards “the other”, whether an individual, culture or tradition.

Georgia Nicolaou (1990) is a Cypriot composer, musician and educator based in Rotterdam. She holds a master’s degree in Composition from Codarts University of the Arts, and a Bachelor’s degree in Composition from Utrecht Conservatory.
She is currently a teacher at Musica Impulscentrum voor Muziek in Belgium and a piano instructor in Rotterdam. Besides, she is actively involved in projects promoting social inclusiveness and she presented her work at conferences such as the Social Impact of Making Music (SIMM) Symposium 2018 in Porto. She is a member of the monitoring team of the recently acquired Creative Europe Project “Resilience in resonance. Teaching children at risk to play an instrument through music and movement”, coordinated by dr. Luc Nijs.
Further, she is an acclaimed composer, pianist and singer. She was awarded the Tera de Marez Oyens prize during the Gaudeamus Muziekweek Utrecht 2016. Georgia’s works have been performed in prestigious music festivals, such as November Music 2018, Transit 2018, Operadagen Rotterdam 2019, De Parade 2019, among others.


Sanne Verbogt | SAN-application: external feedback on motor skills in music.

December 4th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Musicians spend many hours practicing, but the practice process doesn’t always seem efficient. The aim of this research is to develop education that promotes the practice process for motor skill learning. The focus of the research is on transfer of learning, a general problem in education.
A realistic practice environment can increase the transfer of learning. Performing music consists of a number of different facets. The intention is to automate the motor skills, so the musician can focus on those other facets of performing music.
Since there is no form of external feedback available in the individual practice sessions of musicians currently, the musician has to focus on the movement to receive feedback. Because the musician is focussing on the movement, he or she cannot focus on other facets of performing music. This means that the current practice environment isn’t a realistic practice environment, which could be hindering the transfer of learning,
With the aim of making practicing in a realistisch practice environment possible, we’ve build an application that gives the musician direct and visual external feedback while playing. The camera of a smartphone or tablet is used to scan the body parts, after which the movement is analysed and after that, feedback is given to the musician by the screen of the same smartphone/tablet. In short, the application does the following: Scanning, Analysing and Notifying (SAN).
In this presentation, I am going to show the SAN-application, tell in more detail how we got to this design and tell about the plans for testing the application in the near future.

Sanne Verbogt studied Bass guitar at the Codarts conservatory in Rotterdam, bachelor and master. Afterwards she attended for her masters and currently doctoral studies at the Instructional and Educational Sciences. University of Antwerp

Lukas Pairon | Social Impacts of Music Making (SIMM)

December 11th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

SIMM is an independent international scholarly association, a research platform, focusing on the Social Impacts of Music Making. SIMM organises and accompanies international annual symposia as well as research-seminars for scholars and practitioners who have in common their interest to develop, welcome or support research on the role music making may play in social and community work.
Building on the incubation support given since 2015 by the University and the University College of Ghent, SIMM was from 2017 on - thanks to the financial input from the Belgian Baillet-Latour Fund - established as an independent international scholarly association, with its head office in Brussels. Its management as well as its advisory boards are composed though of persons coming from 7 different countries. Since 2018 SIMM is – besides the continuing support of the Baillet-Latour Fund - also sponsored by the Belgian Fondation Futur 21, and special support is since 2017 provided by the UK based SEMPRE for participants needing help to enroll in SIMM-posia or -seminars. And SIMM has also been subsidised by the Minister of Culture (2018-2019) and by the Minister of Social Economy and Innovation (2020-2022) of the Flemish Community of Belgium and by the Minister of Finances of Brussels Capital (2020).

Lukas Pairon founded the international research platform SIMM (on Social Impacts of Music-Making) which since 2017 focuses on the development of research on social music programmes, in order to better understand what the role of music-making can be in social work. He is himself especially active in Gaza (Palestine) and in Kinshasa (DR Congo) with the philanthropic organisation Music Fund. In 2020 Routledge New York published his book ‘Music Saved Them, They Say’ on his research findings on social music in Kinshasa, DR Congo.

Prof. dr. Marc Leman | The Augmented Humanities.

December 18th at 13.30PM, IPEM online

Academics at UGent have in fact 3 tasks: (i) education, (ii) research, and (iii) valorisation/dissemination (formerly called: service). In this short briefing, I focus on (iii) and more specifically: the dissemination of ASIL in view of the creation of Augmented Humanities. After a brief historical sketch of the ASIL’s origin and its current activities, I focus on a strategic initiative, invented by the IPEM-staff and supported by the board of directors fo the Humanities Faculty, to call for innovative research in the humanities, using ASIL as a springboard for exploring the new methodologies needed for the future Augmented Humanities. My goal is to briefly explain this strategic initiative as it will engage the entire IPEM crew during the coming year (2021). One of the outcomes we envision, namely, a major public event for the post-Corona period at the Krook, for example in the form of an open house activity, and to celebrate the end of the Methusalem project (in 2021), is already strongly supported by the rector of UGent. My talk will be short but I’ll ask in return that everybody comes up with inspiring ideas ;-)