Karin Søndergaard

Karin Søndergaard

education

20072015

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Curriculum vitae

 

 

Karin Søndergaard                                                                   Curriculum Vitae 

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Introduction

 

Karin Søndergaard is a performance and installation artist. Early in her carrier she founded the production company Boxiganga Performance Theatre. Boxiganga has served as a production environment for her investigations that include new media installations, performance artworks, and theatrical events in the line of postdramatic theatre. Within her production environment Karin has produced a large number of performances, multi-media events, site specifics, theatre productions, operas, videos, multi-media and installations. Most of these productions have been realized in collaboration with other artists, such as musicians and composers, dancers and actors, scenographers and architects, designers, engineers and programmers.

 

As part of her PhD Karin has increasingly researched into, and designed installation artworks, participatory events, and responsive environments. Her research specialises in compositional methods and strategies for participatory design, aesthetics of interaction, and theoretic discourses on social engagement as site for artistic creation. PhD title: Participation as media: a compositional system for staging participation with reflective scenography.

 

 

Education

 

2010             Ph.D. - completion March 2010, at CAiiA (Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Integrative Arts), Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University, UK.

2003-2007    M.Phil., Art and Media, - on route to Ph.D. Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Integrative Arts, Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University, UK. (On part-time basis)

1982-1985    BA (Hons) (equivalent to) , Performance and Directing. A three year training and practise study, directed by performance artist M. Lexa, Sun & Moon Company, San Francisco, US.

1978-1980    BA, Theatre Studies (upgraded 2007) Copenhagen University, DK.

 

 

Resent positions / engagements (past 10 years)

 

2009-10     Conceptualisation and production of a DaylightEvent and masterclass. A collaboration between Velux, Denmark and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen.

2008         Design and production of the responsive installations. Zen-Sofa-Arrangement, and Mirror-Zon-Site. Exhibited in a co-operation between Boxiganga and Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark.

2007-08     Curator assistant and special event guide, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark.

2006          Production management and dramaturgy on the performance Still I Know Who I Am, a co-production between Boxiganga Performance Theatre and Plex Theatre Venue, Copenhagen, Denmark.

2005-2006   Guest Professor, research in sensation of light, telematic presence and practice-led research methods. The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark.

2004-2005   Telematic Performance Laboratories. Co-production Boxiganga and Kanonhallen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

2003-2010   Part-time PhD candidate at CAiiA, Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth, UK.

2002-2004   Visiting Lecturer, teaching theatre composition integrating reflective scenography, National Theatre School, Denmark.

2003-2004   E-turn, an audio-visual composition of synaesthetic experiences in digital media, a Boxiganga Production.

2002          Design and production of big scale interactive installation Revisit Reality. Production by Boxiganga, Exhibited at Kunsthal Nikolaj, Copenhagen, Denmark

2000          Design and dramaturgy of the opera Operatorium. Co-production Boxiganga, The Other Opera and Kanonhallen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

2000          Design and production of the exhibition Flesh Machine. Co-production between Boxiganga and Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark.

 

 

Honorary Appointments

 

2000-2002     Member of the board. The Development Fund, Cultural Ministry, Denmark.

2000-2001     Member of the board. The Digital/Interactive Film, The Film Institute, Cultural Ministry, Denmark.  

 

 

Teaching Experience

 

Karin Søndergaard has given master classes, taught skills and theory, realized laboratory workshops, and has been involved in the education of architects, designers, scholars, performers, dramaturges and directors. She has taught practice and theory within the field of performance and installation art. She has structured learning environments and scheduled curriculum, educating artists, designers and theoreticians. Among other institutions her teaching has been related to: The National Theatre School, Denmark; Institute of Dramaturgy, Aarhus University, Denmark; School of Stage Art, Vordingborg, Denmark; Art-Tech, Gothenborg University, Sweden; Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Denmark.

 

 

Grants Received (past 10 years)


2008 – Exhibition of Zen-Sofa-Arrangement and Mirror-Zone-Site – £8.000

2006 – Performance-led-research Still I Know Who I Am –  £54.000

2004/5 – Practice-led-research Telematic Laboratories – £14.000

2004 – E-turn, Composition of synaesthetic experiences in digital media – £12.000

2002 – Revisit Reality, interactive installation – £120.000

2000 – Rejse Operatorium Rejse, co-production with total budget of £350.000

2000 – Augmented Reality Project, interactive installations – £60.000

 

 

Productions and Research Projects

 

2008 – Zen-Sofa-Arrangement & Mirror-Zone-Site. Two participatory installations exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark. Part of the exhibition Total_Action.

 

2008 – Very Simple Actions – investigating methods for practice-led research in performance and participatory installation. Performance-as-Research Working Group sessions. At the conference:  The International Federation for Theatre Research, IFTR-FIRT, Re-constructing Asian-ness(es) in the Global Age. Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea (South Korea)

 

2007-8 – Participation as Media. Development of strategies for participatory events, integrative design and installation interface design, formatting the behavioural conditions for the participatory engagement. Development of a dramaturgy through design of operational interfaces, such as telematic performance presence, complex surveillance systems and visual feedback environments.

 

2007 – Open Source Project. Practice-as-Research workshop by Richard Foreman, investigating sequential performance strategies, crossing between live sculpture as performance and edited video performance, and further investigating combined video and live performance. Exploring a dramaturgy of video imagery driven by a text source, instantly chosen within the process of production from a fixed pallet.

 

2006 – Still I Know Who I Am. Visual-physical performance. Investigations of the aesthetic and dramaturgical potentials of combining live performance processes with real-time feedback media, devising ways to create several simultaneous realities through combinations of virtual and actual performers. Different possible modes of bodily presence are negotiated: as virtual representations, fictive characters, transparent illusions, and as physical and very actual people. Dramaturge. Performed in Copenhagen, October 2006, PLEX Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

2006 – Dramaturgical and compositional investigations in relation to close-circuit scenography. Dramaturge. Centre of Performance Research, Odsherred, Denmark.

 

2006 – Compositional investigations of text development (writing of text and speech of text) for integrated performance machines. Plex Venue, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

2006 – Laboratory investigations on the relation between composition, dramaturgy and performer technique when integrating performers in feedback media scenography. Dramaturge. Plex Theatre Venue, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

2006 – Cantina Intervention. Intervention with installation of close-circuit media operation within an every-day site, the cantina used by staff and students. Practice-led research into situating devises for participation. The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

2006 – Daylight Light Zones. Research into the sensation of daylight light-zones and the compositional parameters of using light-zones to stage participation. Architect Day Light Laboratories, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

2006 – Artificial Light Zones. Research into the sensation of artificial light-zones and the compositional parameters of using light-zones to stage participation. Plex Theatre Venue and Architect Day Light Laboratories, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

2005-6 – Telematic living project. Investigation of compositional parameters in telematic relationships.  Online research cooperation between artist-researchers in Denmark and UK.

 

2005 – Investigation of the possible architectural parameters and models of telematic space, using practice-led methods and real-scale prototyping. Architect Day Light Laboratories, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

2005 – Traffic-Light – External behavioural structures. Method developed to situate the relationship between movement instructions, external behavioural structures and the sensation of inner/outer states of experiencing.

 

2005 - Telematic Performance Laboratory 3, June 2005. Practice-led Research. dramaturgy, situating constructions with telematic and close-circiut media operations. Within this laboratory, composition structures for telematic narratives were investigated, particularly exploring theatrical montages of re-combined and transformed digital/corporeal realities. Produced in collaboration with Boxiganga at Kanonhallen Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

2005 -  Telematic Performance Laboratory 2, February 2005. Practice-led Research. 12 separate installations were developed and staged within the same space, and arranged in terms of a progression of phenomenological complexity. The laboratory investigated how different scenographic environments can generate multiple notions of site, space, parallel realities, and visual/somatic/bodily interrelationships. The developed scenographic installations were visited by 24 leading academics in fields spanning phenomenology, performance studies, psychology, semiotics, and philosophy, and interviews were conducted and documented relating to each of their fields of expertise. Produced in collaboration with Boxiganga at Kanonhallen Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

2004 - Telematic Performance Laboratory 1, November 2004. Practice-led Research. The participants explored the relationships between performing and experiencing through a series of scenographic installations with mirrors, cameras, projectors and light-shapes. Each constellation delineated a different relationship - for example, between remote, mirrored, virtual and delayed presences. Produced in collaboration with Boxiganga at Kanonhallen Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

2004 – The Turn. Internal behavioral structures, Turn. Method developed to situate the relationship between movement instructions and the sensation of inner/outer states of experiencing.

 

2004 – E-Turn.    an electronic performance, at the festival ‘Cinema for the Ear’, East of Paradise Cinema, Aarhus, Denmark, and at CyberArt Conference/Festival, Bilbao, Spain & Goteborg, Sweden.  Synaesthetic cinema, performed through audio and visual interference of the audience sensation.‘E-Turn’, an electronic performance, Århus, CyberArt Spain, Goteborg Sweden

Real-time generated audio-visual textures that evokes inference in the audience sense-perception.

 

2002 – Revisit Reality, an interactive installation that invites the exhibition guest to enter a physical dialog with the work. Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, DK. The research investigates possible formal situating structures for visitors in installation art, and incorporates an interface sensing their presence and behavioural activity which prompts real-time processing of visual and sonic materials. The core research objective was to involve the visitors as actors, enabling them to become active agents of composition and interpretation within an ‘open structure’ installation.

 

2000 – Rejse operatorium Rejse. Opera Performance. Full-scale professional performance with a scenography of complex video and audio mediating operations. DenAndenOpera/Kanonhallen/KIT, 12 opera singers, 10 musicians and video projections. Written by Claus Høeg, composed aby Anders Brødsgaard and organised by DenAndenOpera/Kanonhallen/KIT. 12 operasangere, 10 musikere and 3 store video projektorer.

 

2000 – Flesh Machine. Participatory and interactive installations. Designed furniture with build-in mediating structures, situating the visitors in intimate relationships. Exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark. Electro Hype, Sweden/Denmark, 2001+2003+2004. Presented at Cast01, Bonn, Germany, 2001, and ISEA, Nagoya, Japan, 2002.

 

 

Publications   

 

Søndergaard, Karin & Petersen, Kjell Yngve (2009) ‘Art as a Social Site – Participation as Medium – An introduction and discussion of the works Mirror-Zone-Site and Zen-Sofa-Arrangement’, in Søndergaard, Morten (ed.)(2009) RE_ACTION : the Digital Archive Experience . Aalborg: Aalborg University Press.

 

Petersen & Søndergaard (2007) ‘Digitalt Bauhaus’. Edited interview. Kulturkontakten. Periodical from Cultural Ministry of Denmark.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2006) ‘Artistic Strategies for using the Arts as an Agent through the Creation of Hyper-Reality Situations’, in Ascott, Roy (ed.) (2006) Engineering Nature: art and consciousness in the post-biological era. Bristol: Intellect.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2005) An attempt towards a poetics of performative involvement: art as situated experience. In Ascott, Roy (ed.) (2005) Liquid Reader™ v3.1. [Altered States: Transformations of Perception, Place & Performance], DVD-book. Plymouth:  University of Plymouth.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2003) ‘Notas sobre a criação de uma ruptura na consciência pelo movimento, geradora de um agenciamento artìstico’, in Marciel, Katia & Parente, André (eds.) (2003) Redes Sensoriais, arte, ciência, tecnologia, Rio de Janerio: Contra.

 

 

Conference Papers

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2008) Action Research in Performance, At the conference: Re-constructing Asian-ness(es) in the Global Age. The International Federation for Theatre Research, IFTR-FIRT. Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea (South Korea)

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2008) Performing Experience: Realising the Inner Virtual. At the conference: INTERREGNUM: In Between States. PSi # 14. University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2008) Experience and Performativity. At the conference: Nordic Summer University, Practice-as-Research working group. Konstepedemin, Goteborg, Sweden.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2007) Practice-Based Research in Performing Arts. At the conference: Nordic Summer University, Practice-as-Research working group. Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2006) The Performative Visitor. At the conference: Consciousness Reframed 8, Altered States: Immatereality, University of Plymouth, UK, 21-23 July 2006.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2005) Generative performance: a reflexive space. At the conference:  Transmodalities: Mind, Art, New Media, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2005) An attempt towards a poetics of performative involvement: art as situated experience. At the conference: Altered States - Transformations of Perception, Place and Performance. University of Plymouth, UK.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2005) Installations that situate the visitors as performers: generating 3rd order states of consciousness. At the conference: Shaping Consciousness: New Media, spirituality, and identity. The Dallas Museum of Art, 1717 N. Harwood St., Dallas, Texas, USA

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2004) Performativity and Bio-Techne. At the conference: Consciousness Reframed 6: QI and COMPLEXITY. Academy of The Arts, Beijing, China.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2004) Performance as Articulated Agency. At the conference: Researching the future – art, technology and emergent media. Planetary Collegium conference at Plymouth University, UK.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2004) Performance as articulated agency. At the conference: CIBER@RT-BILBAO: International Festival of New Technologies, Art+Communication, Bilbao, Spain.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2003) Notes on the creation of a split state in consciousness through movement, thus generating an art agency. At the conference: Redes Sensoriais Symposium, Sensorial Net, Fortaleza - CE, Brazil.

 

Søndergaard, Karin (2003) Artistic Strategies for using the Arts as an Agent through the Creation of Hyper-Reality Situations. At the conference: Consciousness Reframed 5: Art & Consciousness in the Post-biological Era, UWCN, Caerleon Campus, Wales, UK.

 

Søndergaard, Karin & Petersen, Kjell Y. (2002) Augmented Reality Project. Presented at the conference ISEA 2002, 11th International Symposium on Electronic Art, Nagoya, Japan.

 

Søndergaard, Karin & Petersen, Kjell Y. (2001) Augmented Reality Project part 1: situations for augmented relationships. At the conference Cast01 // Living in Mixed Realities: Conference on Communication of Art, Science and Technology, Bonn, Germany.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research area

  • Aesthetics and form
  • Process and method