Jacob Thompson-Bell is a composer, curator, and researcher based in the United Kingdom. He creates music and multimedia work, across live performance, release, and installation formats. Jacob’s work is often inspired by issues and ideas from areas beyond music, such as food, science, and other art forms. He works in close collaboration with other artists and practitioners to play on these connections. Jacob is a founder member of multi-sensory collective Unusual ingredients, and a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Lincoln, U.K. He is interested in how arts practices can be applied towards social and ecological issues, including the political and ethical challenges of this, and how artists can work across disciplines to extend the reach of their work. More and Contact.
Photos: (C) Megan Roe 2017; (C) Adam Martin 2018.
Music (Excerpts)
Photos: (C) Belinda Ackermann 2016; (C) Belinda Ackermann 2020; (C) SHARP 2018
Projects
Climate Hackathon
Holding Space
Unusual ingredients
music for ONE
Artistic
Citizenship
Fresh Yorkshire Aires
Photos: Climate Hackathon (C) Leeds Conservatoire; Unusual ingredients (C) Angus McDonald 2019; ONE (C) Adam Martin 2017; a lot like this (C) Belinda Ackermann 2016.
Research
Thompson-Bell, J. (2023). The Epistemic Case for Sci-Art: Toward a Posthuman Praxis. Leonardo, 212–218. https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_02317
This article seeks to strengthen the epistemic case for sci-art by demonstrating how partnerships across paradigms can combine methodologies rooted in multiple knowledge traditions. Drawing on Robin Nelson’s multimodal conceptualization of artistic research and Bruno Latour’s model of science as a circulatory system of heterogeneous human and nonhuman phenomena, the author characterizes sci-art as a form of posthuman praxis, which opens new epistemic positions through transversal forms of inquiry, thereby revealing shared human/nonhuman cultures. Sci-art is thus proposed as a means of drawing together humans and nonhumans into more productive, empathic associations.
Thompson-Bell, J. (2022) Artistic Citizenship: Co-Creating a Flexible Definition. Leeds: Leeds Conservatoire. December 2022. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.33909.86242
This report summarises and develops themes discussed at the Artistic Citizenship Forum: Co-Creating a Flexible Definition for 2022, hosted at Leeds Conservatoire, on 16 - 17 June 2022. The report expands upon delegate discussions to develop a professional development framework based around four key themes for would-be artistic citizens (p.18); and, proposes six recommendations for centres of arts practice, education or research (p.20), designed to strategically support these themes.
Thompson-Bell, J. (2022). Student-centred strategies for higher music education: using peer-to-peer critique and practice as research methodologies to train conservatoire musicians. British Journal of Music Education, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265051722000080
This article presents some arguments in favour of a student-centred learning and teaching approach for higher music education (HME), with specific reference to conservatoire settings in the United Kingdom. In support of student-centred pedagogy, theoretical modelling is undertaken to offer a model of motivation accounting for both individual and group learning environments, thus drawing together diverse pedagogical research into learner “self-efficacy,” “distributive” classroom agency and partnership models of learning and teaching […]
Thompson-Bell, J., Martin, A., & Hobkinson, C. (2021). ‘Unusual ingredients’: Developing a cross-domain model for multisensory artistic practice linking food and music. International Journal of Food Design, 6(2), 233–261. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijfd_00032_1
This article explores linkages between sensory experiences of food and music in light of recent research from gastrophysics, 4E cognition (i.e. embodied, embedded, extended and enactive) and ecological perception theory. Drawing on these research disciplines, this article outlines a model for multisensory artistic practice, and a taxonomy of cross-domain creative strategies, based on the identification of sensory affordances between the domains of food and music […]
News
Working Together Well: Amplifying Group Agency and Motivation in Higher Music Education.
Book chapter in: Correia, Dalagna, Minors and Östersjö (eds.) Teaching Music Performance in Higher Education: Exploring the Potential of Artistic Research. Open Publishing, June 2024
Climate Hackathon Evaluation Report
Leeds Conservatoire, August 2023
The Epistemic Case for Sci-Art: Toward a Posthuman Praxis
Journal article, Leonardo, June 2023
Life in the Posthuman Condition: Critical Responses to the Anthropocene edited by S.E. Wilmer and Audronė Žukauskaitė
Leonardo Reviews, April 2023
Pink Lady® Sensploration, Unusual ingredients multisensory soundscapes
Commission from Pink Lady®, January 2023
Artistic Citizenship: Co-Creating a Flexible Definition
Research Report, Leeds Conservatoire, December 2022.
Review of Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge by Hannah Star Rogers
Leonardo Reviews, November 2022
Unusual ingredients live multisensory show, KiKK Festival
Namur, Belgium, 27 October 2022
Panellist, Freedom of Speech
Conservatoires UK Conference, October 2022
Conference paper, REACT Symposium
Piteå School of Music at the Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, September 2022
Invited speaker, Social Role of the Artist
Centre for Cultural Value, University of Leeds, September 2022
Unusual ingredients live multisensory show
Tolbooth Stirling, Scotland, 3 September 2022
Review of Artistic Collaboration in Performance Research
Leonardo Reviews, August 2022
Podcast feature on multisensory sound-flavour interactions
The Scran, April 2022
Student-centred strategies for higher music education: using peer-to-peer critique and practice as research methodologies to train conservatoire musicians
Journal article, British Journal of Music Education, April 2022
Unusual ingredients live multi sensory show, Sonica Festival
Tramway, Glasgow, 11 March 2022
Preview of Unusual ingredients @ Sonica 2022
The Scotsman Food and Drink, March 2022
‘Unusual ingredients’: Developing a cross-domain model for multisensory artistic practice linking food and music
Journal article, International Journal of Food Design, October 2021
Magnum’s Pleasure Sensorium, Unusual ingredients flavour soundscapes
Commission by Magnum UK, June 2021
Everything you need to know about … tasting music
Feature on Unusual ingredients, The Times, December 2020
Unusual ingredients live multisensory show @ Sounds Like This Festival
Leeds, 18 March 2020
Unusual ingredients live multisensory show @ Kings Place
London, 11 March 2020
Unusual ingredients: new immersive dining night to explore how music affects flavour
Evening Standard, March 2020
New release: Unusual ingredients - collaborative multisensory album combining food and music
March 2020
Erasmus staff exchange at Iceland Academy of the Arts
March 2020
Erasmus staff exchange at HK Utrecht
February 2020
Broken Pirouette, broadcast
BBC Radio 3, 14 February 2020
Graphic scores exhibition, British Music Collection
August 2019
Arts Council England Project Grant for Unusual ingredients
2019
Help Musicians Fusion Fund award, Unusual ingredients
June 2019
New release: ONE - music for solo piano, recorded by Ben Gaunt
April 2019
ONE short UK tour of solo piano played by Ben Gaunt
September 2017
Postcards from Eyemouth, community project
Eyemouth, Scotland, April-May, 2017
New release: A lot like this…, solo cello, played by Joely Koos
January 2016
Fresh Yorkshire Aires: graphic score performances, commissions and exhibitions
June 2016