Projects

Groningen residents walk on water (Project by Dr. A. Kok)

On the 28th of August 1972, there is a party going on in Groningen. The 300th anniversary of Groningen Liberation Day (Groningens Ontzet) is celebrated and the Vereeniging voor Volksvermaken has organised a programme of numerous events for the city’s residents to mark the occasion. Part of the celebrations includes the installation of the so-called Waterwalk Tube by the Eventstructure Research Group (ERG), an art collective that was founded in 1967 by Theo Botschuijver, Jeffrey Shaw and Sean Wellesley-Miller. The inflatables of ERG focus on audience participation and activation and are envisioned to give people an unexpected and enchanting experience. But who were the people who wanted to participate and dared to step onto the water on 28 August 1972? What were their experiences inside the tube? Was their participation truly enchanting? This research project searches for the stories of these people to gain more insight into the collective creation process and experience of this kind of participatory art. Moreover, these stories can play a role in (thinking about) the ‘after life’ of ephemeral aerial art like the Waterwalk Tube, which disappeared from the water in Groningen after only one day. Read more on the project Groningen residents walk on water.

Vroege Nederlandse gemeenschap op YouTube [Engels: Early Dutch community on YouTube] (Project by Prof. S. Aasman, 2019).

The research is conducted by Susan Aasman, in collaboration with Rob Wegter, focuses on the collection of internet videos that the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision manages. It explores the question: what did the early community of Dutch YouTubers look like? The research distinguishes itself in that it uses various digital methods to retrieve data and traces of data. This can be from YouTube itself, but also data from the Internet Archive and the Sound and Vision collection. YouTube is more than just videos, think of comments, likes, recommendations and all interactions between users and the platform with its users. Although YouTube seems like a stable archive, it is not: a lot of content is removed, by users and by YouTube's active removal policy. An important part of online history is poorly documented and archived. This research contributes to the Sound and Vision archive by identifying gaps in the current collection. For more information, see the project website. 

Lavender Sounds: The Aeshetics and Politics of Queer and Feminist Soundwork (Project by Dr. S. Copeland)

An ongoing research project by Dr. Stacey Copeland, Lavender Sounds explores the cultural and political production of queer and feminist radio and podcasting. Today as ‘diversity’ becomes an increasingly valued part of the culture industries in across the globe, online searches for lesbian and queer podcasts return a rich listing of shows for our consumption. But how did we arrive at this particular moment? And what makes a radio show or podcast ‘queer’ anyway? Highlighting the voices and experiences of past and present soundmakers, this project queers our senses across media time and space, weaving its way through the campy sounds of Vancouver Co-Op Radio’s The Lesbian Show (1979-2014) and CKUT Montreal’s Dykes on Mykes (1987-2017) and, into the erotic politics of modern queer podcasts. From Canada, the U.S., and the Netherlands, this project invites us to turn a feminist embodied ear to the past to uncover the ways gender, race, and sexual orientations are embedded in our everyday media listening practices. Read more on the website of Stacey Copeland.

School Transition Project (Dr. B. Peter, 2023 - present)

This project supports pupils transitioning from primary school to secondary education through engagement with Hip Hop. In collaboration with Unity Radio, we are working with two primary schools and two secondary schools in deprived areas of Greater Manchester. As part of the provision, young people are engaging with all elements of Hip Hop (MCing, DJing, breakdancing, graffiti, knowledge ) through workshops both in the physical world and through Virtual Reality (VR). Aiming to increase levels of efficacy in participants, we aim to evidence that through Hip Hop education school attainment rates increase. Beate oversees the music-making (rapping) component of the project, analysing the use of voice both in the rapping and in workshop participation (focus groups). Funders: One Education, Manchester City Council Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF). Read more on the website of Beate Peter.