Three Propositions for Sounding: Decentering Human Exceptionalism in a Sonic Practice

Public PhD defence by Jenny Gräf Sheppard.

 

This practice-based PhD investigates how a sonic practice might create conditions for decentering human exceptionalism. It develops sound-ing-sound understood not as a fixed object, but as a relational, energetic, and processual field – as both a conceptual framework and a methodological approach.

Beginning from the author’s own artistic practice, the research treats practice as a testing ground for exploring how we orient through sound, and how orientation might be destabilized to foreground relations and interdependencies between bodies, technologies, and environments.

The project is structured through three Propositions for Sound-ing: Dialogue with Electromagnetic Fields, Inhabit Thresholds, and Become Ground. These function as orientation devices that guide artistic experiments across performance, installation, instrument design, and writing. Rather than applying theory to practice, knowledge emerges through their continuous interaction.

The dissertation demonstrates how sonic practice can redistribute agency, challenge distinctions between subject and environment, and support more relational ways of sensing and participating in the world. Rather than offering a fixed model, it proposes a flexible methodological approach grounded in attention, experimentation, and collaboration.

 

 

Denne praksisbaserede ph.d. undersøger, hvordan en sonisk praksis kan skabe betingelser for at decentralisere menneskelig exceptionalisme. Den udvikler sound-ing-lyd forstået ikke som et fast objekt, men som et relationelt, energetisk og processuelt felt – som både et begrebsligt rammeværk og en metodisk tilgang.

Med udgangspunkt i forfatterens egen kunstneriske praksis betragter forskningen praksis som et afprøvningsrum for at undersøge, hvordan vi orienterer os gennem lyd, og hvordan denne orientering kan destabiliseres for at fremhæve relationer og indbyrdes afhængigheder mellem kroppe, teknologier og omgivelser.

Projektet er struktureret gennem tre Propositions for sound-ing: Dialogue with Electromagnetic Fields, Inhabit Thresholds og Become Ground. Disse fungerer som orienteringsredskaber, der guider kunstneriske eksperimenter på tværs af performance, installation, instrumentdesign og skrivning. Frem for at anvende teori på praksis opstår viden gennem deres kontinuerlige samspil.

Afhandlingen viser, hvordan sonisk praksis kan omfordele agens, udfordre skel mellem subjekt og omgivelser og understøtte mere relationelle måder at sanse og deltage i verden på. Frem for at tilbyde en fast model foreslår den en fleksibel metodisk tilgang forankret i opmærksomhed, eksperiment og samarbejde.

 

Assesment committee 

  • Rune Gade, University of Copenhagen (chair)
  • Salomé Voegelin, University of the Arts, London
  • Juliana Hodkinson, Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium, Aarhus

Head of defense

  • Mikkel Bogh, University of Copenhagen 

Copy of the thesis will be available at the Royal Library’s faculty library.