International Forum on Artistic Research
17th Conference of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR)
Submission Number: 193
Submission ID: 248
Submission UUID: 843b21df-bbe0-4de7-9da0-6fbef65b4d55

Created: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 - 18:25
Completed: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 - 19:26
Changed: Wed, 13 May 2026 - 08:12

Remote IP address: 109.132.121.88
Submitted by: Anonymous
Language: English

Is draft: No
Current page: webform_confirmation
Given name Mariske
Surname Broeckmeyer
Email mariske.broeckmeyer@luca-arts.be
I understand that by submitting this form, I consent to the use of my data for the purposes of the 2026 Forum on Artistic Research'. Yes
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Title Failing the Pornic Voice - Autotheoretical Fiction as Artistic Research
Format Project presentation
Main language English
Abstract This project studies the failing singing voice as a minoritised sonic language through the development of an autotheoretical novel centred on a singer who attempts, and fails, to create a pornopera. Situated at the intersection of vocal performance, exposure, and excess, the project uses autotheoretical fiction as an artistic research method to examine how the singing voice collapses under conditions of hyper-visibility and desire.

The novel follows a singer whose voice, once aligned with control and erotic capital, begins to falter. What fails is not only a vocal instrument, but a network of expectations regarding femininity, sexuality, artistic labour, and excellence. The rehearsal process of the opera becomes a laboratory in which questions of consent, representation, and spectatorship surface, even as the work itself appears increasingly unlikely to reach the stage.

By staging failure at the heart of this project, the research foregrounds vocal breakdown as a form of situated knowledge. The failing voice emerges not as lack, but as a voice that cannot sustain heightened exposure, and thus reveals its limits within artistic forms structured around intensity and control. In this sense, the voice becomes a lens onto broader tensions of audibility and desire in a culture that is simultaneously hyper-sexualised and hyper-vigilant.

Drawing on feminist theory, cultural studies, and artistic research in and through voice, the novel operates as a research apparatus rather than a narrative illustration. Writing becomes a way of thinking with and through vocal failure, allowing the research to remain with exhaustion, shame, pleasure, and interruption without resolving them into stable concepts or outcomes. Presented as a work-in-progress, the project reflects on autotheoretical fiction as a fragile research language; one that makes space for breakdown, opacity, and embodied knowledge, and that resists both academic abstraction and performative virtuosity.
Link to the Exposition https://www.researchcatalogue.net/shared/b953f32cdf39070b67fed84936f2bde1
Image Vocal Cords.jpg
Short biographies of the presenter(s)
  • Mariske Broeckmeyer is a Brussels-based vocalist, composer, and artistic researcher. Deeply informed by long-term research on voice, illness and the aesthetics of failure, her artistic practice unfolds at the meeting point of voice collage, intimate (song-)writing and electronic sound. Broeckmeyer holds a Doctorate in the Arts from LUCA School of Arts and KU Leuven (2022). She is Head of the Jazz Department at LUCA School of Arts and teaches in the fields of voice theory, artistic research, and cultural theory as a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Cultural Studies at KU Leuven.
Previous presentations or iterations of the research Not to date.
Additional information NA
Spatial and technical requirements NA
Potential risks or ethical concerns Explicit language might be used in this lecture.
Create a user account for SAR 2026 Yes
Create new user Mariske Broeckmeyer