ASIM HALWARVI

ASIM is a talented composer whose research interests lay in perceptions of sound. He is a third-year Codarts student in classical composition and is participating in the RASL minor this year. In this minor, he explores what it means to collaborate transdisciplinarily on topics such as intersectionality, smart cities and surveillance.

Why did you choose this minor?

A teacher of mine recommended it to me. And then I did some research on it and I found it very interesting. The reason I wanted to join the minor was that it is very collaborative with students of other disciplines. That gives a different perspective towards reality around us, when we talk about different topics. Being at Codarts is great as a musician, but at the same time, it's a bubble. We don't talk about social, ecological and political issues. 

How do you experience the minor and transdisciplinary collaboration?

I do enjoy it a lot! We're now working in a group of eight people on a project, and there’s a lot to learn. The students I'm working with are really enthusiastic about these topics. They're good at reading academic articles and comprehend them really well. Personally, I never did that being a student of music. So I sometimes find that the vocabulary of academic articles is quite difficult for me. But I can participate with other skills, I can share ideas artistically. In our group, we are very much aware of each other’s abilities.

What is the topic that you’re working on in the minor project?

Our project is about gentrification, intersectionality and discrimination in Rotterdam. We are focusing on the idea of smart cities and how it affects the area of Afrikaanderwijk. And we are discussing how surveillance by the government, the concept of smart cities and AI algorithms affect some people more than others and create social divisions. This project involves reading a lot of articles about how algorithms can be racist, for instance. We’re still in the process of researching. We’re also gathering information from the community and from people who are working with the idea of smart cities to hear what they have to say about it.

What are your most valuable learning experiences so far?

The minor is different in terms of content and the way we work together. In the minor, different students come together and everyone brings something else to the table. You need to try to find different ways of working and there is some level of discomfort you will never find in a more mainstream course because you don’t know what you're going to do, there is no end goal. At the beginning of the project, I felt a bit lost in terms of what we were going to do with our minor group. We gathered a lot of information and didn’t know where that would lead us. But I think that's the whole idea of the minor, that it's about learning, it’s about the process, it's about gaining a lot of knowledge on something that you don't know much about and working on it together. And I think it's important to be in that 'gray zone' for a while, in which you have to figure things out together. It's a big part of learning because you learn how to collaborate.

What effect or affect does the minor bring about?

It's difficult to answer this because I am still in the process. Right now, what I can say is that it's nice to be aware of so many topics that I never really discussed before. I was concerned about discrimination, I was concerned about ecological issues, social issues. But I never had a setting in which to discuss such things. In the minor, we sit together for a few hours and talk about these issues. There's a lot that I can learn. For example, I knew what discrimination meant, but now I know on which level it happens, where it happens, how it happens in my city, which people have to deal with these problems, and what the government's approach is. Through this, I got into a research mindset that I wasn't in before. Everything becomes more detailed and I become more aware of these issues in that way.  

What could be the next step for the Dual Degree and RASL?

In general, I think that more students should have the opportunity to engage with these issues and with RASL. Because I feel RASL is a great environment to be in, and it's something that I would never have known about without participating in it. It’s very open, there's no right and wrong, you are free to express yourself and your ideas. That makes this learning experience very meaningful and I am grateful to work in this team with great people.