My project “Metamodernism and the Ambivalent Aesthetics of Contemporary Popular Music" examines a particular ambivalent aesthetic in contemporary popular music through the theoretical framework of metamodernism.

Metamodernism is often characterized as an oscillation or pendulation between modernist and postmodern sensibilities such as irony/sincerity, hope/melancholy, and meaning/meaninglessness. This both-neither dynamic gives rise to deeply ambiguous and ambivalent aesthetic experiences that resonate with the affective conditions of the 21st century, marked by global crises and polarization, but also by a persistent search for hope, meaning, and affirmation.

The project aims to (a) develop music-analytical methods to address metamodernist aesthetic expressions, (b) investigate how contemporary musical practices negotiate the production of meaning in relation to sociopolitical realities, and (c) expand the field of metamodernist research with a specific contribution grounded in music analysis.

The project focuses on popular music from around 2020 onwards, using diverse musical cases and analytical approaches to explore the many ways in which metamodernist aesthetics are manifested.

I teach the course "Music representation and description" at the BA of Musicology at Aarhus University. The course introduces the students to the different representational forms of music (sound, notation, multimedia ect.), their ontological and experiential differences, and their cultural use and meaning in a contemporary as well as a historical perspective.