Beyond the Physical: Research, Music and the Arts

Music and the Arts have played an important role during a year of physical distancing. In fact, in the early days of the pandemic, music was featured as the new language connecting us across balconies, streets, and geographies. These forms of social connectivity and mental well-being went beyond music and involved all forms of the arts. Thus, it is worthy to remind ourselves of the agency of the arts; as a tool to understand and communicate, as a tool to conduct research through, and as a tool to translate our research into artistic languages to reach larger audiences. In this conversation session on music and the arts, we would like to reflect on music and the arts not only as mediums of production but more importantly, as modes of understanding and communication that connect people through the other senses and beyond the physical.

Facilitated by Nick Tyler (Musician)

Professor Nick Tyler is Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering at UCL. His work investigates the ways in which people interact with their immediate environments, for which he created the multisensorial Person-Activity-Environment Research Laboratory, which is part of the UK Government's CoLaboratorium for Research on Cities and Infrastructure. He set up the Accessibility Research Group within the UCL Centre for Transport Studies, which investigates accessibility and public transport.

Speakers: Fouad M. Fouad (Poet), Mayssa Jallad (Musician), Youmna Saba (Musician and Graphic Designer), and Leen Charafeddine (Graphic Designer)

Professor Fouad M. Fouad, MD, is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut. His research focuses on refugees' health and the Syrian refugee crisis, including displacement inside Syria and the neighbouring countries. Professor Fouad currently serves as a commissioner on two Lancet Commissions; AUB Lancet Commission: Syria and the crises in global governance, health and aid, and UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health.

Mayssa Jallad is an urban researcher and musician based in Beirut. After having graduated in Architecture from the American University of Beirut in 2013, she pursued a Master’s in Historic Preservation at Columbia University's GSAPP, where she graduated in 2017. Mayssa worked in Historic Preservation for a year in New York, then returned to Beirut to pursue urban research and a new music project entitled Marjaa, or reference. She has been a researcher and Citizen Science coordinator at RELIEF Centre since 2019. She is currently recording a new solo album about architectural events that shaped Lebanon's history, in collaboration with a range of local musicians.

Leen Charafeddine is a graphic designer based in Beirut, Lebanon. Her practice is mostly focused on creating alternative pedagogical tools. She graduated with a BA in Graphic Design from the American University of Beirut, and an MA in Visual Communications from the Royal College of Art, London. She is a self-taught creative coder in Processing and attended online courses at The School for Poetic Computation in New York to learn OpenFrameworks.