Guillermo Bocanegra

Guillermo Bocanegra is a Colombian artist-researcher whose practice lies at the intersection of musical performance, contemporary creation, teaching and artistic research. A guitarist, composer and full-time professor at the Faculty of Arts ASAB at Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, his work focuses on contemporary Latin American music, new music and performance as a space for knowledge production. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Artistic Creation at the University of Aveiro, where his research explores interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to the production of relational knowledge. In this context, his profile is defined less by a separation between artistic and academic activity than by an integrated practice in which performing, creating, documenting and communicating are all part of the same research process.

His academic background brings together performance, composition, pedagogy and methodological reflection. He studied classical guitar at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, pursued composition studies at CEAMC in Buenos Aires, complemented by further training in guitar performance, attended master’s seminars in 20th-Century Latin American Music Performance at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, and completed a master’s degree in Education with Technologies at Universidad Distrital. This background has contributed to a broader understanding of musical practice, not merely as specialised performance, but also as critical mediation, situated experience and a means of transferring embodied knowledge. This perspective extends into his teaching and research, where performance, chamber music, improvisation, composition and artistic practice converge.

As a performer, Bocanegra has developed a discography focused on contemporary repertoire, with solo works including La otra guitarra (2002), …círculo de tierra roja… (2009) and Ciclo del Exilio (2018). He is also a member of two prominent ensembles in the Colombian contemporary music scene: Trip Trip Trip and Ensamble CG.With Trip Trip Trip, he has performed Colombian and Latin American repertoire through original creation, arrangements, international touring and ongoing recording projects. With Ensamble CG, he has participated in premieres, monographic concerts and experimental practices dedicated to promoting Colombian composers. Rather than being complementary achievements, these collective experiences provide spaces for experimentation in which listening, collaboration and performativity become artistic creation processes.

Doctoral project

Title
Outro Ritual. Performance musical y conhecimento relacional

Advisor
Horácio Tomé Marques (advsior)

Jorge Salgado Correia (coadvisor)

Abstract

This doctoral proposal investigates the contemporary ritual of musical performance as the set of protocols that regulates the aesthetic experience of the concert, driven by a decisive dissatisfaction: the growing distance between audiences and contemporary arts. This concern points to a broader problem: insufficient attention to relationships among ourselves and with the human and non-human environment, as well as to the ways in which certain rigid, hierarchical, and elitist artistic formats erode the possibility of encounter. In response, the project proposes rethinking the concert as a territory of copresence, care, and interaction through the creation of a corpus of works that tests other rituals for performers and audiences. Its singularity lies in intervening in the protocol of the event itself, de-hierarchising space, and articulating performance, body, listening, scenography, multimodality, and active participation as the core of experience. Methodologically, the artistic research unfolds through laboratories, rehearsals, public performances, documentation, and critical reflection. As an output, the project seeks to expand the field of action of performance and contribute to relational and sensitive knowledge. Its relevance lies in the fact that, amid complex crises, strengthening relationships is an urgent task for artistic practice, common life, and contemporary social imagination today more broadly.

Keywords
Artistic research; Musical performance; Ritual; Relational knowledge; Active participation; Multimodality.