Department of Music

Ingmar Bergman's The Magic Flute is a film that not only represents a performance of Mozart's opera but also reflects on the experience it generates in the theatrical audience. The opera becomes the means through which Bergman explores the magic of theatrical illusion by displaying the artifice behind it. I examine the film's take on the representation of theatrical illusion from two perspectives. First, with reference to the famous sequence of the overture, I demonstrate the crucial role of the audience's imaginative engagement. Second, I zero in on Bergman's role as omniscient director who not only uncovers the artificiality of the theatrical source but also plays tricks with the film audience. Yet our observing the ‘constructed naturalness’ of the magic flute and Papageno or the theatricality of the Queen of the Night's performance does not hinder the film's ability to engage us. Rather, witnessing the workings of illusion strengthens its grip on us.

"How should the artist approach practice and research without becoming so overly abstract that the grounded, proprioceptive concreteness of art becomes mired inside oppressive, draconian intellectualism? The reciprocal processes of researching artistic practice and practicing artistic research require actively synergetic, symbiotic sensory and cognitive engagement, the interaction and inter-reaction of the bodily senses with theoretical, philosophical insight and invention.

Sensorial contemplation, that is, “thinking through the body,” is an inherent trait of Autism Spectrum Condition. How do autistic sensory, proprioceptive and cognitive idiosyncrasies affect creative motivation and process? May the model of autism inspire a fresh perspective for research and praxis? As an artist with Autism Spectrum Condition, the aims of my paper are to provide an ‘insider’ view of how sensory and cognitive idiosyncrasy shape my creativity, and using the autistic body-mind model, suggest an alternative milieu for creating visionary collaborative research, and mutually empathic platforms."

For full paper, please access via link to my website (http://dawnjoyleong.com/2013/01/14/thinking-through-the-body-a-multimodal-approach-from-autism/).

"Culture is the agglomeration of values, customs, and communication systems identifying groups of people, where demarcations can be geographic, economic, intellectual, or even neurological predisposition. In this paper, I shall discuss Autism Spectrum Condition as a mental culture, and investigate Self-Other identities from the perspective of a researcher-artist with Asperger’s Syndrome. Autism is widely portrayed by the general media as stereotypes exhibiting bizarre behaviour. Why is autism considered an aberrant existence? In reality, autistic individuals grapple daily with the complexities of Self and Other. Assimilation and communication is very much based on the autistic individual’s ability to grasp and ‘perform’ alien systems and realities. How much should we conform to the cultural tenets of Other at the expense of Self for the purpose of convivial integration, and how much to attend to Self for the sake of intrinsic preservation and need?
In the push for a more enlightened co-existence, some questions require address. When is co-existence considered cultural migration and when imposition? We are often strangers even in our own ‘homes,’ perennial actors and performers of Other, and thereby losing understanding and appreciation of Self. Should it be a complement or insult when someone declares, ‘But you can’t be autistic, you don’t look or behave autistic’?
Perhaps a transdisciplinary approach to this conundrum is in order – with science as syllogism and artistic research and praxis as agency – to facilitate understanding and reciprocity between Self and Other."

For draft paper, please visit link provided. Thank you.

This is the first study to investigate instrumental activities of daily living in older autistic adults. We conducted interviews with fifteen adults (mean age = 60.1, SD = 7.4, range = 50–73) from Australia with no intellectual disability. Analysis included both deductive and inductive steps, to categorise responses using the Occupational Performance Model Australia and identify themes across participants’ experiences. Strengths and challenges were unique to the individual, as were the methods they had developed to manage tasks. Challenges occurred mostly at the interaction between aspects of the environment (sensory, cognitive, social and cultural) and personal factors such as health conditions and sensory sensitivities. Enhanced person-environment fit is needed, as is a shift in wider sociocultural attitudes to enable comfort and autonomy in later life.

This research establishes the basic capability for an in-depth analysis and interpretation of tropical fish remains in Philippine archaeology. This primarily involved the construction of a facility for the identification of fish bones with a sizeable number of modern specimens. The applicability of the collection is determined through the analysis and interpretation of fish remains from Batanes Islands, northern Philippines which date between 3500 and 600BP. The subsequent results show continual exploitation of marine inshore fishes and a proclivity towards pelagic fishing for the common dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus (Coryphaenidae), a taxon rarely found in archaeology. Methodical treatments in ichthyoarchaeology were employed to assess differences in preservation conditions and different recovery methods between the three sites covered in this study: a wider selection of fish taxa and sizes figured for the Savidug and Pamayan sites where sieving has been done and preservation conditions were more favourable than Anaro hilltop site. Significant fish bone anthropogenic signatures were observed and reported for the first time in the Philippines. These were primarily recorded on Coryphaenidae and suggest the removal of meat through scraping along the vertebrae and transverse cutting of individuals into pieces as evidenced by the numerous cut marks and chop marks found. The methods of fish processing drawn from the analysis suggest similarities to those practiced by the local inhabitants of modern-day Batanes which propel further investigation.

This article discusses a previously unknown tradition of board zithers among the Ifugao and related peoples of the Cordilleras, northern Luzon. These zithers have two to four strings, improvised resonators and can sometimes be tuned by movable bridges. They are used primarily for personal entertainment. As a musical tradition, they are severely endangered and are now played only in remoter areas. The paper describes instruments encountered during fieldwork in 2010, but also those in museum collections in the Philippines. The research also uncovered an undescribed zither-type, provisionally named the ‘strip zither’, where the strings are made from two stretched metal bands about 2cm in width. The bands pass over bridges and are nailed to the ends of the wooden board, but cannot be tuned except by moving or increasing the height of the bridge. These instruments must be
struck with light sticks and evidence suggests they were used to rehearse rhythmic patterns played on flat gongs. An unusual anthropomorphic strip zither without exact provenance is described. The authors suggest that these instruments originate with the idiochord half-tube zithers found in this
region, but that their organology changed as a result of the availability of new materials. A parallel instrument occurring among the Kachin people, now in the National Museum of Myanmar, is described, but its connection with the Philippines instruments is as yet unclear.