About the Artistic Research

Tipping Points is an Artistic Research project by Tijs Ham, situated in the field of live electronic music. The research focuses on the exploration of tipping points in chaotic processes. These tipping points are thresholds within the chaos that, once crossed, cause unpredictable chains of differences to play out. They affect myriad aspects of his artistic practice, including but not limited to notions of anticipation, intentionality, time perception, play, ergodynamics, cybernetics, and wonder. The unpredictable nature of chaos causes the music to emerge from nonlinear feedback loops. Instead of predefining musical form, the practice engages with processes of formation, allowing surprising yet captivating sonic behaviors to come into existence and to subside again, following a chaotic logic that is just out of grasp. Supervised by Dániel Péter Biró and Kristina Andersen, the project touches upon a wide range of questions regarding electronic music, instrument design, compositional strategies, and performance, each of which becomes entangled at the edge of chaos.

Personalia

Tijs Ham ('81, NL) is a sound artist and researcher living and working in Bergen, working primarily with composition, instrument design, live electronics, and audio-visual performances. In his work, he explores the complex and intricate sonic behaviors of chaotic processes, embracing the unstable and unpredictable nature of the music that emerges. As part of this practice, he develops and builds his own electronic instruments based on cybernetic feedback loops, on which he performs within audiovisual contexts. Before moving to Norway, Ham worked at STEIM, the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music in Amsterdam, as an organizer and as a member of their artistic board. Using the moniker Tapage, he has been releasing music for more than a decade on labels such as Moving Furniture Records, Point Source Electronic Arts, and Ant-Zen. Currently, he is on the boards of PlayDate and nyMusikk Bergen and organizes a new noise concert series called Bulldozer.