My collaboration with visual artist Barbara Philipp started with a simple scheme of ‘improvisation’ and ‘conversation’ between music and visual arts. From that starting point we developed an effective and inspiring artistic/ reflective process and method of research that follows some clear steps. It is worthwhile writing it down to make the working process more concrete:

• The beginning of each session is with an appointment in email or by phone exchanging just some small possible options: explore a room in the Walter Maas Huis, connect with a theme or a story that came across. The personages, musician and visual artist, are separated but in state of unconscious preparing.
• The improvisation itself. Music, images, sound, space, white papers, quick drawings, poses from the personages, performance aspects, film images form the hand camera come together in what could be called ‘free play’. There’s strong interaction between the players. They use all kind of languages like body language, symbolic language, sound language and so on but no regular language.
• Then follows the conversation part. The conversation can be characterized as first steps in interpretation, starting a process of meaning. By means of exchanging experiences and moments that created a strong memory the interpretation deepens. This language is the language off a personal kind of conversation. Obvious no meta-language is used because it stays close to the improvisation, the senses and their actual experience.
• The next step is the written reflection at home. The personages are separated again and write down a reflection. This is, still staying close to the actual improvisation, another layer in the process of meaning. The language now is written language, thought-of language. Metaphors and narrative starts to come in.
• Then follows a second meeting to see the video recording together and read the texts. At that moment in the chain improvisation-interpretation the next step, creation, is starting.
• The last connection in the chain improvisation-interpretation-creation is off course presentation. The work however is still under construction. So the presentation is not yet finished.

This methodical approach constantly balances on the edge of imagination and language. The reflection or research part never stands alone but is always integrated as much as possible in the artistic process itself. What I expect to happen is that the creation and presentation parts that will follow always will deal with this precious balance between intuition- cognition, improvisation-conversation, art and language. I expect the outcomes to be a work of ‘art as research’ that by its spontaneous as well reflective nature engages audiences and participants in new forms of conversation.