Artistic Research in Jazz and Popular Music - An Artistic-Scientific Cartography of Current Music Practices in Vienna

Brief description

From July 2024 through to July 2028, the project Artistic Research in Jazz and Popular Music - An Artistic/Scientific Cartography of Current Music Practices in Vienna will be conducted at the Centre for Artistic Research at the JAM MUSIC LAB Private University for Jazz and Popular Music (JMLU) with substantial support from Stadt Wien Kultur. The overarching aim is to further develop the young research discipline of Artistic Research (AR), with a particular focus on the diverse musical practices in jazz and popular music in the various urban spaces of the city of Vienna.

In collaboration with a group of researchers and artists from JMLU and stakeholders from Vienna's music scene, the project investigates the potentials and challenges of artistic creation in jazz and popular music for the processes of understanding in academically and socially relevant contexts. In four successive, thematically defined work phases (inventory and historical dimension - cooperation and participation - urban space and technology - cartography), the diversity of artistic knowledge, positions, theories and methods will be explored in collaborative and participatory translation spaces and reflected upon with reference to their historical dimension. The research project thus involves a creative momentum in terms of the development of the arts, whereby ‘cartography’ manifests itself as an artistic research method in and through current musical practices in jazz and popular music. The processual ‘re-description’ of a musical map of jazz and popular music in the city of Vienna will take place over the four-year period through ongoing artistic interventions in various performance and production spaces for jazz and popular music and with the involvement of local cultural institutions, members of the independent music scene and the audience (citizen science). The research results will be incorporated into the academic discourse in the form of publications and research events in accordance with the quality standards of the relevant international research community and will also be documented and made available for public use by means of a web-based, multimedia and interactive cartography of artistic music practices in the city of Vienna. Users will be able to search the digital map for information on the current music scene in the city of Vienna and independently add further content after the end of the project.

This project is the first to place socially widespread, popular and improvisational forms of music-making at the center of comprehensive artistic research in an academic context.

The project emphasizes the collaborative and participatory dimension of current music practices in the city of Vienna as forms of knowledge and understanding. It also contributes to the formation of identity in the music city of Vienna as a center of popular music in the 21st century. With the multi-year funding for the project Artistic Research in Jazz and Popular Music - An Artistic/Scientific Cartography of Contemporary Music Practices in Vienna, the City of Vienna reaffirms its support for the ongoing pioneering work at the Centre for Artistic Research at the JMLU, the establishment of which was already made possible in 2022 with start-up funding from Stadt Wien Kultur. 

Principal Investigator: Michael Kahr (kahr@jammusiclab.com) 
Funding body: Stadt Wien Kultur
Duration: July 2024 - July 2028
Funding volume: € 2.000.000,-

Project goals

• Inventory of contemporary creative processes and further development of AR in jazz and popular music as a participatory, collaborative and diverse practice of academic and non-academic communities in Vienna
• Creation of an online cartography for knowledge transfer and increasing the visibility of jazz and popular music in Vienna
• Strengthening aspects of sustainability, health, diversity and gender equality as cross-cutting issues in artistic research
• Enriching the identity profile of the city of Vienna as a center of popular music in the 21st century

Keywords

• Artistic Practice 
• Artistic Research
• Jazz and popular music in the city of Vienna 
• Contemporary music practice 
• Cartography (digital map for the documentation and visualization of data on music practice, musicians and bands)
• Participation, collaboration, diversity

Principal Investigator – Dr. Michael Kahr

Michael Kahr – Website JAM MUSIC LAB Privatuniversität
Contact - kahr@jammusiclab.com