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This practice led Fine Art investigation of the North Sea develops new approaches to situated arts practices within the context of the changed relationships between humans and the environment, proposed by the Anthropocene. The proposition of this new geological epoch suggests an un-grounding of the Earth, where 'Nature' can no longer provide a stable background for human actions, demanding alternative narratives of human interactions with the planet. By bringing human histories into proximity with geomorphic change, the North Sea makes these complexities apparent, and calls for new approaches to a site that becomes delocalised, mobile and distributed across different temporal and spatial scales. Through my artworks, this research proposes a speculative methodology to address the North Sea as a complex assemblage of human and nonhuman actants. It approaches the North Sea through the vibrant materiality of Jane Bennett (2010) and explores ideas of composition put forward by Bruno Latour (2010, 2014) and Donna Harraway (2016), to expand spatial understandings of site. By asking how sites emerge within the material interactions of an assemblage, this research offers insights into how multiple sites of the North Sea are composed in time, engaging with its historic past as Doggerland, the methods and technologies through which it becomes apparent today, and possible futures that are proposed in the context of rising sea levels and the end of North Sea oil production. This thesis develops original understandings of a distributed site within which agency is shared across multiple actants; moving from a singular representation of the North Sea, towards a situation in which multiple instances of it are composed temporarily, before being recomposed into new sites. As such, this thesis argues that a site can no longer be understood as a spatially limited local concept. Instead it is realised as a generative position that presents an effective way to investigate the animated interrelations within the assemblage of the North Sea, that can inform new understandings of site in the context of the Anthropocene.

Wonderbrass is a community big band that was created in 1992 through the amalgamation of two projects, Welsh Jazz Society's Jazz Workshop Band and The Taff Ely Streetband, which was formed to perform at community carnivals around South Wales. Wonderbrass has been through numerous personnel, leadership, committee-member, musical and artistic changes but continues to be strong until today. Drawing inspiration from such musical collectives as The Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (Chicago), The New York Composers' Orchestra, Willem Breuker Collective (Netherlands) and Loose Tubes (London), as well as groupings such as The Scratch Orchestra, The Skatalites and Sun Ra, the band has developed a large repertoire of compositions, arrangements and improvisational practice in its mission to prove that 'musical excellence is not the exclusive property of professionals', to quote from its aims and objectives. It has adapted to changing conditions in order to survive but retains a core philosophy that runs through its twenty year history, initially this was a philosophy shared by its instigators but latterly, in 2006, the band debated and worked out its own priorities and preferred way of operating, creating a mission statement and a set of musical, social and administrative priorities. This submission will present three of my compositions and one of my arrangements as case studies to illustrate how the pieces themselves are free-standing musical structures, brought to life in performance via the performers' contributions, notably improvised solos. But the case studies also examine the compositions and arrangement as 'inclusive musical structures', facilitating participation in the music and, in some senses, the creative process. They are also examined from the participants' or band members' perspectives. This data is drawn from interviews, focus groups and responses to questionnaires. This material from interviews, focus group and questionnaires seeks to establish members' reasons for joining the band, their aspirations, both personal and musical, through participation in the band as well as investigating notions of personal and musical identity, cultural capital and relationships with musical instrument, musicality and creativity as expressed through participation in Wonderbrass.