Lilja María Ásmundsdóttir will introduce how she approached designing a few living sound sculptures she made while collaborating with artists from various fields. The living sound sculptures do not represent a specific end product but rather something that takes on a life of its own and creates a space to explore the improvisational creativity of a world that is always in the making. This means that the sculptures can continue to develop, change, merge with other materials, and become separated from parts of themselves throughout their lifeways.
The sculptures are made with the intention of giving artists from different fields a common ground to work within. They are actively designed to elicit a continuous dialogue and to encourage artists to explore how to move freely between their disciplinary expertise and extend their practices into other disciplinary realms. Lilja María will explain how working with various artists guided the design process. She will then discuss how the sculptures can take on different roles within the collaborations and are perceived differently since the artists have various ways of making connections based on their training and backgrounds.
Lilja María Ásmundsdóttir’s artistic practice is centred on explorations of collaborative creativity. Working with sculptural elements of sound and matter, she creates installations, audio-visual pieces, and performances. The works are actively designed to facilitate continuous processes that highlight how ideas surface from correspondences with materials, between individuals, and in context to one’s surroundings. Her works include the sound and light sculpture Hulda, which was nominated for the President’s Student Innovation Award, and the living sound sculpture Lurking Creature, which she developed in collaboration with the dancer Inês Zinho Pinheiro.
Lilja María recently finished a PhD in composition at City, University of London where she researched collaborative creativity within artistic practices. She also holds an MA degree in composition from the same school and a B.Mus degree in piano performance from Iceland University of the Arts.