AMP42318 Master Project (Autumn 2021–Spring 2022)

The course is connected to the following study programs

Mandatory course in Master in Performance (120 ECTS)

Absolute requirements

Passed all exams in 3rd semester (for delivery of the Master Thesis).

Lecture Semester

3rd and 4th semester (autumn and spring)

The student's learning outcomes after completing the course

The student:

 

• will know how to initiate, organize and realize their own research-based performance practice and the necessary development process for new work

• will gain skills in innovation and leadership, budget management and project planning, as well as marketing abilities for representing and funding their own work, including grant application writing

• will learn about the structures and methods for funding within Norway and meet curators and professionals in the field relevant to their professional development

• will learn to function as a leader and strong communicator in structuring their own artistic visions within the context of a collaborative structure, responding to generative input and critique

• will have competence in responding to a chosen space with their own original performance production, based on emerging questions and proposals for the performance field

• will learn to develop, experiment with, and propose their own vocabulary and methods for documentation of their work

• will learn to critically reflect and evaluate their own artistic work in relation to others' in the field, and can communicate their research interests publically - both posing and answering questions together with their peers through contextualized methods of documentation.

Content

The course Master Project (Phases 1 and 2) is the student's formal realization of their artistic research and questioning process within the programme. The Master Project consists of two public presentations, either as one project in two versions or as two separate projects both realized as performative productions. Starting at the end of the third semester, students are expected to produce Phase 1, as a public presentation, which the second phase of the Master Project in the last semester builds upon or responds to. Phase 2 is also a public presentation which is a result of the research undertaken in the first phase. The presentation in the second phase will be assessed for passing the study in relation to according critical reflection materials also submitted at that time

At the start of Master Project unit, a mandatory workshop will be given in project planning and artistic entrepreneurship. This means, through lectures and independently tutored work students will practice mapping the project calendar, project descriptions, budget management and general preparation for the field, including mock application writing. Internal faculty and staff at the Academy will lead this workshop (1-2 weeks) together with input from invited guest speakers from the Academy's institutional and artistic network who represent the industry (curators, members of arts council, etc.). At this stage, students will be introduced in detail to the model for grant application writing within Norway and standards for the style of writing and planning relevant for such funding.

The first phase of the Master project (3rd semester) will lead into a first performance of researching in space and realizing the student's unique practical artistic questions for the field of performance. This can happen either in the Academy's own locale or an outside museum, gallery, theater space, public space etc., the space will be chosen depending on the nature of the research. The production and planning process will be followed up by a number of individual tutoring sessions. The course will culminate in a public presentation followed by a group evaluation session with peers and tutors where further research questions based on the live experience, will be presented in plenum.

The second phase of the Master project, students will reflect upon and analyze the work completed during the first phase. The second phase will be a continuation of the research undertaken in the first phase. For this reason it can be a completely different composition or a development of the first phase presentation. The critical reflection on and assessment of how the second phase should evolve, emerges from an ongoing verbal critique and advising apparatus between the staff and student, and between students and their peers.

During the course Performativity 3: Ethics, the progress of the 2-phase project will be reflected upon in a collectively organized (students and staff) public discursive event/seminar where students are required to present aspects of their research in dialogue with other artists and scholars, co-curated whenever possible with a partner institution (i.e. Black Box Teater). During this discursive event each student's documented and live work is shared publicly under the advice of staff tutors. The aim of the event is to contribute to the field by sharing reflections on their practice, perform or show aspects of the work, intervene in public space with their work if relevant, and engage with their peers in the field through critical discussion of their research interests. This practice also contributes to the students competence and development of artistic innovation in relation to ethical and critical engagement with the public through their means of production and artistic practice. Students will further work on methods of documenting their practice in the Master project in various formats such as text, images, video, drawings, short events/interventions etc. in the course, Performativity 3 Ethics.

The aim with conducting the Master project in two phases (with two public presentations) is to question and critically re-examine the sustainability, impact and scale of production in the arts field, while also re-focusing students on actual research into exploring new methods rather than only on manufacturing final results. It is assumed that students entering into the programme are looking to question their practice and their approach to the field as producing and performing artists, often regularly caught up in hectic production schedules with no reflection time. In this Master in Performance, the values focus on two smaller rather than one large masterwork, as an invitation to interrupt the industry's usual model and tendency toward hectic festival calendars and perhaps less reflected compositional relations and material uses. This two-part Master Project works in accordance to with HiØ's focus on artistic research, performance ethics and process-based work. This model encourages one to conduct a deeper approach to artistic research: where the experience from one public presentation/event guides the methodology further into a laboratory approach, and provokes alternative aesthetic choices in form, space, dramaturgy, material and audience relations.

HiØ is dedicated to provoking ethical inquiry within artist methods as a direct challenge to a classical model of performance making as mastered through creating unidirectional, resource heavy, monolithic or unsustainable 'masterpieces'.

Forms of teaching and learning

Semester 3:
1-2 week workshop on project planning and artistic entrepreneurship leading to independent production development. In this context entrepreneurship is understood as the skills needed to budget, plan, start up and manage their own artistic projects as leaders in the professional field. It is also critically acknowledged that there is a difference between artistic entrepreneurship as ethical innovation, project management and according sustainability of artistic work, and the models of entrepreneurship from the commercial business world. In the unit of study 'Performativity: Ethics' modes of leadership and methods of working will be more critically examined, whereas in this intro workshop to the Master Project production the skills acquired will be organizational and practical in scope, including meetings with relevant members of the professional network.

Students will present their first phase performance in a space appropriate for their research, i.e. a gallery, stage, museum, public space, or Academy's own spaces. The Master project will be independent work supported by tutoring and peer review discussions held across the Master student platform. The Master projects (first and second phase) must be their own independent art works in order to give the student the possibility to research and work deeply, challenging their unique approaches to the field in relevant group collaborations and public spaces.

Semester 4:
Students will present their second phase performance in a space appropriate for their research, i.e. a gallery, stage, museum, public space, or Academy's own spaces. The Master project, second phase is considered a continuation of the research and a further practical articulation of the student's research questions. As the second part of a whole consisting of two components, the second phase will be independent work supported by staff tutoring and peer review discussions held across the programme´s student platform. It must be their own independent art works in order to give the student the possibility to research and work deeply challenging their unique approaches to the field in relevant group collaborations and public spaces.

The second presentation of the Master project will be supported by tutored group sessions, and where necessary, feedback from additional external experts in the field with relevant competence. During the last semester time is given for individual preparation for the public event/seminar, and to individually work on a relevant format for documenting and reflecting the experiences in the Master project (phase one and two).

Workload

Approx. 1200 hours

Practical training/internship

See the description above.

Coursework requirements - conditions for taking the exam

Realize two art works open to a general public. The Master Project can either be two wholly separate pieces or one piece developed and presented in two versions. Realization and delivery of the above tasks will be approved by faculty before the student can reach final assessments.

A key element of the Master project will be precise communication with involved production partners and artistic collaborators throughout the process, including demonstration of skills learned during and after project planning workshop. Students are expected to learn methods of management and creative problem solving of ethical and collaborative challenges within the frame of research they have chosen.

It is expected that students will successfully complete oral presentation of the Master project in an international seminar during the course Performativity 3: Ethics, presenting the research both theoretically and practically through demonstrating the ability to pose relevant critical questions to the research results, and find relevant forms of documentation to present the practice undertaken. The presentation is to be documented and the documentation contextualized, edited and submitted as a critical reflection portfolio with the Scrapbook archive to be assessed with the Master Project phase 2. This documentation can be digital where applicable.

Examination

Public presentation and portfolio.

An expert assessment committee, composed of one internal and one external examiner with competence as Professors/Associate Professors from the professional artistic field, will assess the public presentation of the second phase of the Master Project, and will review this work together in context with:

• Scrapbook archive submitted before MA Phase 2

• the portfolio of critical reflection materials collected and documented after the public seminar in Performativity 3: Ethics.

Assessment of the Master project and its accompanying Scrapbook archive and critical reflection portfolio will be based on:

• the student's willingness to articulate, communicate and risk unique ideas and concepts

• the student's ability to lead relevant, sustainable methods of project management and creative problem solving of ethical and collaborative challenges connected to their topic of research

• compositional and dramaturgical innovation within the frame of questioning set out by the student.

Students will be assessed on their willingness and ability to create a conscious reflection on their own artistic research and its context, impact and relationship to the field both through the materials given to the committee and through verbal interview with them.

The student's progress overall will be examined by assessment of the relation between the Scrapbook archive and its role in defining contextually significant and theoretically informed practical artistic research tasks to explore in/as performance, through to the results of the event Master Project phase 2 and the role the critical reflection portfolio plays in unfolding student's understanding of their research process as a collaborative practice informed both by contemporary theoretical and compositional methods. Students will be expected to have precise communication with involved production partners and artistic collaborators throughout the process, in addition to demonstrating leadership and entrepreneurial skills (budget management, marketing and contexualizing their work) throughout the project period.

Uses the grade pass/fail.

Examiners

One internal and one external examiner.

Conditions for resit/rescheduled exams

The student will not be permitted to re-sit the exam or be given a new assessment if he or she is awarded the grade Fail.

Course evaluation

See the programme description.

Literature

References to current literature, video material, websites, theatre productions and exhibitions, art catalogs, film, music, art and theater criticism in the media and other relevant references are supplied in part by the Programme Coordinator and are partly the responsibility of the student to research independently under tutoring.