Rebecca leads and organises events, is interested in para-institutional practices and the instigation of invisible yet generous infrastructures for holding thought, sharing knowledge. She explores the creative and critical potential of composing unexpected encounters between artists, scholars, experts, and individuals who might share curiosity for being in process together. To date Rebecca has found formats to bring together theoretical particle Phsyicists, fluxus scholars, artists, residents on the East Coast of the UK, political theorists, interdisciplinary specialists, dentists. Some details for each set of unlikely encounters can be found below.
- Parametres for Understanding Uncertainty: Interdisciplinary Seminar Series (2022-23)
- Sonic Study Series (2019-20)
- Radical Notations (2019-20)
- Critical/Fictional Investigations: Site, Sound & Listening (2019)
- The Friday Lecture Series (2017)
Parametres for Understanding Uncertainty: Interdisciplinary Seminar Series (2022)
A four-part interdisciplinary seminar series to bring creative practice researchers, cultural workers, technologists, media & communications specialists, and theoretical particle physicists into dialogue. Each session is convened thematically to investigate and open debate on overlaps, inconsistencies, and uncertainties encountered within sonically-inflected searches for dark matter, the intersection of the quantum world with everyday realities, artistic processes & practises, and interdisciplinary laboratory conditions.
Where might lending an ear to the Universe and its technical nuances lead us? Can we attune ourselves to quantum mechanics if we listen long and hard enough? If something is out of ear shot that does not mean that it does not exist – what are the limits of the world we can access with our senses and what are the emergent technologies that enable us to investigate the unknown?
The thematics are chosen by Rebeca Collins, they are prepared in advance with the invited speakers and relate to her ongoing research Royal Society of Edinburgh funded project ‘Parameters for Understanding Uncertainty: Creative Practice and Sonic Detection as Strategies for Scientific Outreach’ (2022-2023).
The Sonic Study Series (2019-2020)
The Sonic Study Series brings interdisciplinary scholars, students and the general public together to share current research on sound and listening. Sound, vocal acts, and listening are of vital importance in today’s political climate when the use of language (e.g.hate speech), affect and atmosphere require urgent attention. This series addresses issues of care, community and companionship at a time of crisis. The Sonic Study series aims to connect student activity with research and leading cultural institutions in Scotland. The Sonic Study Series is organised into three acts to address practice, making and thinking through sound and listening.
Act I : Lisa Busby seminar & concert 6th Feb 2020
Act II : Stolen Voices 001 Album Launch, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, 8th Feb 2020
Act III : Ella Finer seminar 20th March 2020 [online due to COVID19 restrictions]
Are these women listening or being listened to? Are these women summoning or being summoned?
Parry, Owen (2020)
[Stolen Voices is] an intriguing hybrid of humour, DJ-ing, field recordings and sonic adventures.
The Tempo House (2020)
Radical Notations (2020)
Radical Notations is a public forum that brings together national and international scholars, curators, designers and thinkers to explore the relationship between literature, technology and design, and to question how these interactions shape cultural change. It extends conversations between the School of Literature, Language and Culture (LLC), Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) and other interested individuals/organisations.
Looking to research in related fields, such as the history of art & architecture, anthropology, the history of science & technology, media studies, and the medical humanities, the series will ask: what creative and critical approaches to test, sign, sound, structure and self, have arisen in answer to ethical, social and political pressures of the age? How have developments in contemporary culture transformed the ways in which designers and writers contemplate past moments in the history of invention and communication? What is at stake for new forms of expression?
The series was organised by Rebecca Collins and Natalie Ferris [suspended in March 2020 due to COVID19], funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
31 Jan 2020 | To See and Know More
Speakers: Maria Fusco, Joyce Dixon, Nami Pearce
Channelling proto-feminist mystics, writing in-situ, writing colour and theopoetics this event will create a space for thinking about translation in its widest sense, sending crossing signals between languages, cultures, concepts, registers.
Pig Rock Bothy, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
27 Feb 2020 | Typography as Resistance
Speakers: Colin Herd, Vaibhav Singh
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust, 77 Brunswick Street
26 March 2020 | Sonic Study
Speakers: Ella Finer, Sarah Neely, Rebecca Collins
29 April 2020 |
Speaker: Sarah Hayden
28 May 2020 | The Long Form
Speaker: Kate Briggs
25 June 2020 | The Future(s) of the Essay
Speakers: Amanda Thomson, Elizabeth Reeder, Emily LaBarge
Critical/Fictional Investigations: Site, Sound, and Listening
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Research Room, 10am – 5pm, Monday 4th February 2019
Critical/Fictional Investigations: Site, Sound and Listening brings a panel of international, interdisciplinary scholars together to share research on the politics and poetics of place. The communicability of place and its affects through creative methodologies is particularly timely as it coincides with the exit of the UK from the European Union: a time when borders between countries, individuals, materials and nation states take on greater significance and, I would argue, require creative approaches to think through the complexity of our contemporary political condition.
This day-long event featured a series of presentations and readings from leading artist researchers who share concerns for how writing, sound and listening can contribute to the communicability of place and its affects. Split into two halves, the afternoon is dedicated to sharing writing methodologies and extended informal discussions as well as a round of sandwiches.
Invited speakers/artists included:
Prof Lytle Shaw, Dr Rebecca Collins, Dr Natalie Ferris, Dr Jane McKie, Dr Alexander Campbell, Yulia Kovanova, Louisa Love, Matthew Zurowski
The Friday Lecture Series Curated by Dr Rebecca Collins (2018-2019)
Edinburgh College of Art, West Court Lecture Theatre
The School of Art Friday Lectures is a public series of talks by leading national and international artists and thinkers. The School of Art’s practice-led research embodies and critically reflects upon new registers of contemporary art, whilst re-articulating processes and practices associated with established artistic media.
The artists invited for this iteration of the series are concerned with finding and exploring, through artistic practice, issues related to spirituality, technology, the figure of the individual, and dominant modes of being. The use of diverse mediums alongside institutional critique leave seemingly stable positions under scrutiny. These concerns intersect with the research interests of many staff and students at the School of Art.
27th Sept 2018 Angelo Plessas ‘The age of the Noosphere‘
2nd Oct 2018 Kristen Kreider ‘The Figures are Falling, the Ground’
26th Oct 2018 The White Pube ‘The White Pube: Origin Story‘
16th Nov 2018 Ruth Ewan ‘Sympathetic Magick‘
25th Jan 2019 Linda Stupart ‘A Spell to Bind All-Male Conference Panels: On Incantation, Embodiment, Abjection, and Queer Speech Acts‘
8th Feb 2019 Marie Thompson ‘Sonic reproduction, uterine space and the politics of ambience‘
1st March 2019 Margaret Salmon [cancelled]
22nd March 2019 Alberta Whittle ‘Other refusals‘
