Companion thinking in improvised musicking practice (2023)

Journal Article

“Companionship implies with: In this paper, we discuss how companions are vital to our improvisatory music practices by considering the co-creative relationships in which we operate. we analyse our artistic research from our perspectives as performers and improvisers and consider the processes of making music with beyond-human entities. Instead of the human-focused concept of collaboration, we posit companionship as an approach to thinking-with and sounding-with the more-than-human, other-than-human, and nonhuman. Our former selves, experiences, environments, and nonhuman critters and objects are always-already part of our musicking practices and communities. Performance is thus ecological, political, and personal; it is through this lens that we analyse the entanglements of our varied communities and explore how this concept can stretch beyond a music practice, to consider what it means to engage in creative practice as migrant-settlers on stolen Aboriginal land. This paper includes an investigation of what it means to be a companion and a discussion of a practice-based case study in which we implement—or practice—companion thinking.”

Jodie Rottle and Hannah Reardon-Smith

Companion Thinking Symposium (2023)

Symposium

In March 2023, I invited 10 artists and researchers working across different creative mediums to gather and consider what it means to think and creative in-company. We questioned: Who are my companions, and how do I communicate, work-with, and respond-to their cues within a creative practice? This event was supported by the Creative Arts Research Centre at Griffith University.

Sounding the everyday: Working with everyday objects in new music practice (2021)

Dissertation

A PhD dissertation investigating how to expand the possibilities of instrumental music practices with everyday objects. In this exegesis I discuss resonant theories with objects, analyse exisiting musical works that include everyday objects, and describe my own portfolio of 15 new pieces exploring the musical relationships between human performer, nonhuman object, and more-than-human elements.