Berlin University of the Arts

Professional musicians are often confronted with multiple profession-related stressors, which may be associated with an increased risk of mental strain, but empirical evidence focusing on clinical samples of musicians is limited. The aim of this study was to examine clinically confirmed mental disorders and personality accentuations in musicians attending a musician-specific outpatient service, to better understand how occupational and person-related stressors may impact their mental health. We performed a cross-sectional secondary data analysis of diagnoses and sociodemographic data of 678 professional musicians (including music students) that were routinely collected in the outpatient clinic. Of the 678 patients, 110 (16.2%) received a tentative psychiatric diagnosis, and 46 presented themselves to the psychiatric outpatient clinic for extensive diagnostics (using ICD-10 and SKID-II). In these 46 musicians, depression (39%) and music performance anxiety (26%) were the most frequent diagnoses, followed by adjustment disorders (13%) and somatoform disorders (11%). Twenty-eight percent of the sample fulfilled the criteria of either a personality disorder or accentuation. The frequency rates emphasize the importance of targeting the mental health of professional musicians with preventive and therapeutic measures. Further research with larger sample sizes is needed to validate and extend our findings and develop individual preventive measures.

Deckensysteme sind aufgrund ihres Volumens und ihrer Materialität – neben der Gründung – zentrale Schlüsselkomponenten für nachhaltiges Bauen. Innovationen in diesem Bereich können den Ressourcenverbrauch und die Treibhausgasemissionen erheblich reduzieren, während gleichzeitig die regionale Vielfalt im Bauwesen gestärkt wird. Der vorgestellte Forschungsansatz zielt nicht nur auf Materialeinsparungen ab, sondern strebt mithilfe digitaler Technologien eine umfassende Optimierung an. Dabei dienen historische Bausysteme mit bewährten zirkulären Eigenschaften als Grundlage für die Entwicklung. Im Rahmen des Projekts Minimal Mineral werden digitale Fertigungsmethoden erforscht, um einen Katalog innovativer, multimodaler Deckensysteme zu entwickeln. Die konsequente Anwendung computergestützter Entwurfs‐ und Analysewerkzeuge sowie digitaler Fertigungsverfahren wie 3D‐Druck und Robotik ermöglichen neue ressourcenschonende Bauweisen und den Einsatz nachhaltigerer Materialien. Der resultierende Bauteilkatalog basiert auf erprobten historischen Bauweisen und sichert so eine schnelle mögliche praktische Anwendung. Der Fokus des Berichts liegt auf Voruntersuchungen für eine prototypische Anwendung für ein aktuelles Bauvorhaben in Nordfrankreich, das sich derzeit in der Planungsphase befindet. Das geplante neuartige Deckensystem besteht aus vorgefertigten mineralischen Schalungskörpern mit integrierten Schallabsorptionsfunktionen.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1098/rsos.241311.].

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many journals swiftly changed their editorial policies and peer-review processes to accelerate the provision of knowledge about COVID-related issues to a wide audience. These changes may have favoured speed at the cost of accuracy and methodological rigour. In this study, we compare 100 COVID-related articles published in four major psychological journals between 2020 and 2022 with 100 non-COVID articles from the same journal issues and 100 pre-COVID articles published between 2017 and 2019. Articles were coded with regard to design features, sampling and recruitment features, and openness and transparency practices. Even though COVID research was, by and large, more ‘observational’ in nature and less experimentally controlled than non- or pre-COVID research, we found that COVID-related studies were more likely to use ‘stronger’ (i.e. more longitudinal and fewer cross-sectional) designs, larger samples, justify their sample sizes based on a priori power analysis, pre-register their hypotheses and analysis plans and make their data, materials and code openly available. Thus, COVID-related psychological research does not appear to be less rigorous in these regards than non-COVID research.

Interest in haptic perception is growing within the food design community due to the expanding knowledge of multi-sensory experiences across the design spectrum. Our aim was to investigate how haptic perception can be explored, defined and illustrated by interweaving our professional experiences and methods that reflect creative strategies from our aesthetic disciplines: industrial design, culinary arts and hospitality. We developed and conducted a series of practice-based research methods starting with three playful ‘aesthetic labs’ (A-labs), followed by the ‘five basic features-method’ (FBF). This resulted in unfolding four distinct ‘haptic attribute models’: the first three are designed for the ‘hand’, ‘mouth’ and ‘nose’ with the gestalt intention to ‘make’, and the fourth model is designed to guide an ‘embodied presence’ session to facilitate ‘awareness’. The configuration and definition of attributes in each model relate to each author’s professional experiences and emotions, which strengthen the connection between our respective aesthetic disciplines. The models serve as creative instruments to inspire a hybrid food design community for food and non-food applications and support practitioners, educators and researchers interested in haptics. We are dedicated to prototype new haptic attribute models to support research in haptics that are rooted in professional subjective experiences and facilitate ways of connecting disciplines within and beyond the field of aesthetics. We invite readers to share insights gained from applying these models to further their development and relevance.

In this paper, we explore the usability of generative artificial intelligence in music production through the development of a digital instrument that incorporates diffusion-based sound synthesis in its sound generation. Current text-to-audio models offer a novel method of defining sounds, which we aim to render utilizable in a music-production environment. Selected pretrained latent diffusion models, enable the synthesis of playable sounds through textual descriptions, which we incorporated into a digital instrument that integrates with standard music production tools. The resultant user interface not only allows generating but also modifying the sounds by editing model and instrument-specific parameters. We evaluated the applicability of current diffusion models with their parameters as well as the fitness of possible prompts for music production scenarios. Adapting published diffusion model pipelines for integration into the instrument, we facilitate experimentation and exploration of this innovative sound synthesis method. Our findings show that despite facing some limitations in the models' responsiveness to specific music production contexts and the instrument's functionality, the tool allows the development of novel and intriguing soundscapes. The instrument and code is published under https://github.com/suckrowPierre/WaveGenSynth.

This article delves into the collaborative work of the interspecies dance collective, Mapped to the Closest Address (MaCA), focusing on our living archival practice and exploration of choreography with other-than-human persons. Through encounters with various species and environments, MaCA seeks to shift anthropocentric perspectives, interrogate their orientation towards modernity and coloniality, and question their understanding/administration/entanglement/devotion of, with, and to nature. The collective’s journey, from a digital residency during the COVID-19 pandemic to site research, installations, and performance at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2022, is documented and analyzed. The collective’s collaborative process involves relinquishing control to allow for the emergence of disobedient movements and the exploration of choreography from the perspective of other-than-human persons. This includes encounters with kudzu vines and mountains, weaving their movements and patterns into performances and installations. The article discusses the immersive performance “Turn Off the House Lights,” in which MaCA integrates stories from local communities with gestures inspired by the landscape. Through our living archival practice, MaCA aims to transmit a collective memory of interactions among organisms and environments and highlight the interconnectedness of humans and the other creatures of the Earth. The article reflects on the significance of choreography beyond human-centric notions, emphasizing the emergent forms of ecological performance and the dissolution of boundaries between human and non-human realms. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives including dance, visual art, and theatre, MaCA’s work exemplifies a cross-disciplinary approach to expressing the choreography of other-than-human persons. This approach not only presents audiences with immersive experiences but also responds to the future ecosystem through artistic exploration. Ultimately, MaCA’s living archival practices contribute to awareness of the collective lives of other-than-human persons and offer insights into navigating our enmeshment with the natural world.