This paper examines 20th-century instruments that translate visual forms into sound, focusing on Daphne Oram, Iannis Xenakis, and Fernando von Reichenbach. Emerging from diverse socio-cultural contexts, these devices offer alternative art-technology configurations that challenge dominant computational paradigms. By analysing their artistic intent and technical innovation, the study positions them as speculative tools for rethinking human-machine relations and generating new technological paradigms. Extending this lineage, the author's practice-L'UPIC Ludique-reimagines Xenakis' UPIC as a tactile, playful instrument for children, emphasising drawing-based interaction, haptic engagement, and accessible musical creativity. Demonstrated at NIME 2024 and Rogue Open Studio 2025, the project shows how revisiting historical technologies can reconnect users with the magical, playful qualities of early drawn-sound instruments. The paper highlights the need for public investment in collaborative spaces where artistic experimentation can shape technology, reflecting Yuk Hui's vision of art as a catalyst for epistemic transformation.
This article explores the depiction of galloping horses in ancient art, focusing on a Greco-Bactrian gilt bronze finial known as the “Heavenly Horse.” By systematically classifying artistic gallop motifs—rearing gallop, flying gallop, landing gallop, and the anatomically accurate V-gallop—the study traces the evolution of equine imagery across Eurasia. Detailed analysis of the Heavenly Horse finial shows that its pose, musculature, and anatomical features closely correspond to the true suspension phase of a horse’s gallop, a finding supported by modern motion studies. High-resolution 3D scanning, surface diagnostics, and computational modeling indicate that the sculpture’s mass distribution was intentionally designed for dynamic balance and realism. The artifact’s stylistic features, such as the frontal forehead protuberance and S-shaped neck, align with descriptions of elite horse breeds in ancient Chinese and Central Asian sources. Symbolic motifs, including the vine-and-cloud scroll, further connect the object to broader Eurasian traditions of imperial and celestial symbolism. Comparative analysis with Saka and Chinese artifacts highlights both shared conventions and unique technical achievements. The study demonstrates how the Heavenly Horse finial integrates empirical observation, artistic tradition, and symbolic meaning, reflecting the exchange of ideas and technologies along the Silk Road.
Differing perspectives on the ephemerality of performance have led to debates since the 1980s regarding its ontology. Sondra Fraleigh and Peggy Phelan, for example, believe that performance's 'only life is in the present'. Others have disagreed. For example, Rebecca Schneider believes that performance remains in the body of the spectator in a complicated manner and Miranda Joseph, drawing on Marxist theory, argues that performance is in fact material because it produces social relations which have material effects: they affect our thinking and behaviour. In alignment with Joseph, this text begins with the presupposition that performance, and, specific to this text, the object we might call dance performance-the dance performance event and its particular contours, in other words, the performance event as an entity which emerges in the space-time where/when the onlooker and the work meet-is material because it is social. I discuss two dance performance objects, my work Martyro (2011) and J & eacute;r & ocirc;me Bel's (2005) Veronique Doisneau, as (im)material affective objects. I examine each work individually, providing first a thick description of each in order to communicate how they used affect to connect to their spectators and to critique the contexts of their presentation, the worlds in which the Subject in each of these performances worked. Drawing on understandings and theories of affect (from Deleuze and Guattari, Gilbert Simondon, and Brian Massumi to Lauren Berlant) and political economy (including David Harvey, Cedric Robinson, Jeremy Gilbert, Ashok Kumar, and Katerina Paramana), I then argue that both works used affect to remind their audiences, their witnesses, of the power of revealing one own's experience of 'suffering' as Subjects, whilst simultaneously critiquing the wider economies in which these works, these affective objects and their Subjects, are embedded. It is this production of affect, I suggest, that potentiated action for change, by affecting others' perspectives and behaviours.
The pipe organ, unlike many other instruments used in so-called classical music, is inextricably entwined with technology and contemporary improvements throughout its history. The craftsmanship of organ building is closely related to the evolution of organ music, as can be seen in musical literature. These two fields have always propelled each other. This article provides a view of the author's invention and its effect on music. The described project comprises two parts and closely links two supposedly distant fields. The first part is the instrument: a pipe organ equipped with a prototype mechatronic programmable key action. The other is the recording of the interpretations of existing baroque and contemporary literature and original improvisations, which constitutes research material and demonstrates the improved elements of artistic expression enabled by the enhanced capabilities of the prototype. Two methods of research were used: perceptual evaluation of the innovative means of expression and simplified FFT analysis of selected samples. Research results prove that automating the key action in the described manner leads to a significant expansion of the range of means of artistic expression achievable on the pipe organ.
The Singaporean government’s Green Plan 2030 aims to “galvanize a whole-of-nation movement and advance [its] national agenda on sustainable development,” transforming the Garden City into a City in Nature. The state’s #OneMillionTrees campaign, which intends to plant a million trees over a decade, seems less focused on climate adaptation, given Singapore’s unresolved environmental issues such as oil refinement, terraforming, and hyperconsumption. Instead, it appears to superficially address deeper socioenvironmental wounds inflicted on the postcolonial people and land. In this article, I explore the visual culture of Singapore’s ableist-nationalist greening campaigns alongside artworks such as Marvin Tang’s A Guide to Tree Planting and History of 39 Cuttings—Hybrids, and Woong Soak Teng’s Ways to Tie Trees and Rules for Photographing a Scoliotic Patient. I argue that Tang and Woong highlight adaptation issues in the face of eco-ableist sustainability in Singapore, challenging simplistic notions of climate adaptation by attending to vulnerable, sexed and gendered more-than-human bodies. The field of art history has an opportunity to probe ableist visions of ecological sustainability—within an emerging discourse between environmental justice and disability studies—by historicizing and interpreting such art, as it speaks to enduring, more-than-human impairment and climate adaptation.
