Digital Day 2024: Lucas Fels and Anssi Karttunen in a video interview

How will we work with sheet mu­sic and no­ta­ti­on in the fu­ture? To mark the na­ti­on­wi­de Di­gi­tal Day on June 7, 2024, the HfMD­K's re­se­arch de­part­ment as­ked cel­lists Lu­cas Fels and Ans­si Kart­tu­nen to give a vi­deo in­ter­view about their "Cel­lo­Do­cu" pro­ject.

Di­gi­tal Day is ta­king place for the fifth time this year and aims to pro­mo­te di­gi­tal par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on in Ger­ma­ny. Di­gi­ta­li­za­ti­on is to be ex­p­lai­ned and brought to life with nu­me­rous ac­tivi­ties. The Di­gi­tal Day is ba­cked by the "Di­gi­tal for All" in­itia­ti­ve - a broad al­li­an­ce of 28 or­ga­ni­za­ti­ons from ci­vil so­cie­ty, cul­tu­re, sci­ence, busi­ness, wel­fa­re and the pu­blic sec­tor. This ye­ar's fo­cus is on de­ve­lop­ments in the field of ar­ti­fi­ci­al in­tel­li­gence.

The Ger­ma­ny-wide Di­gi­tal Day aims to bring very dif­fe­rent as­pec­ts of di­gi­ta­li­za­ti­on to life. For the third time, Hes­si­an uni­ver­si­ties have put tog­e­ther a va­ried pro­gram to make di­gi­ta­li­za­ti­on a tan­gi­ble ex­pe­ri­ence for ever­yo­ne. The di­gi­ta­li­za­ti­on mea­su­res at Hes­sen's uni­ver­si­ties have pro­ven their worth and have be­co­me an in­te­gral part of day-to-day busi­ness. The uni­ver­si­ties in Hes­se are using the po­ten­ti­al of col­la­bo­ra­ti­on to their ad­van­ta­ge, have mo­ved even clo­ser tog­e­ther and are sha­ping the di­gi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on of the uni­ver­si­ty land­s­cape tog­e­ther in coope­ra­ti­ve pro­jec­ts. Re­gu­lar ex­ch­an­ges about suc­ces­ses - but also about chal­len­ges - and the trans­fer of know­ledge have be­co­me an in­te­gral part of this coope­ra­ti­on. Hes­se's uni­ver­si­ties are once again joi­ning forces for Di­gi­tal Day and of­fe­ring ex­ci­ting for­mats that, true to the mot­to, not only in­form but also in­spi­re and en­cou­ra­ge all in­te­rested par­ties to get in­vol­ved.

In this in­ter­view, the two mu­si­ci­ans Lu­cas Fels and Ans­si Kart­tu­nen talk about what dri­ves them in their re­se­arch and the dif­fi­cul­ties they en­coun­ter.

The tit­le of their di­gi­tal re­se­arch pro­ject is "Cel­lo­Do­cu". The star­ting point was the ob­ser­va­ti­on that in many ca­ses, in ad­di­ti­on to the very spar­se play­ing in­st­ruc­tions they give for their pie­ces, com­po­sers hard­ly re­cord much that is ab­so­lute­ly ne­cessa­ry for rehe­ar­sals - and if they do, it is of­ten in­a­de­qua­te.

Fels and Kart­tu­nen­'s aim is to crea­te their own au­dio-vi­su­al do­cu­men­ta­ti­on and use it to build up an ar­chi­ve of ex­ten­ded play­ing in­st­ruc­tions. Com­po­sers, ce­lists and mu­si­cal thin­kers can be seen and heard. Ae­s­the­ti­cal­ly dif­fe­rent works and at­ti­tu­des are traced "by hand" by try­ing them out on the cel­lo and ma­king no­ta­ti­ons com­pre­hen­si­ble. Prac­ti­cal ways of rea­ding and play­ing that have emer­ged from ex­pe­ri­ence as well as ap­proa­ches to aca­de­mic di­sci­pli­nes con­cer­ned with mu­sic help on the way to in­di­vi­du­al in­ter­pre­ta­ti­ons of the pie­ces. The ar­chi­ve with the­se di­gi­tal play­ing in­st­ruc­tions, "Cel­lo­Do­cu", is to be made di­gi­tal­ly ac­ces­si­ble.

In con­ver­sa­ti­on: Lu­cas Fels, Ans­si Kart­tu­nen
In­ter­view: Are­vik Be­gla­ryan, Bern­hard Sie­bert
Re­cord­ing and edi­t­ing: Da­vid Schmitt

In Eng­lish with eit­her Eng­lish or Ger­man sub­tit­les.
Du­ra­ti­on: ap­prox. 30 mi­nu­tes.