Archives for category: Public Presentation

Lecture Announcement

09/09/2025 //

What can improvisation contribute to artistic research?
RMIT Vietnam Saigon South Campus, Building 1, Level 1, Theatre Bowen
10:00, Sunday 21 September

This presentation by Marcel Cobussen will deal with improvisation and what it can contribute to artistic research. How can artistic research benefit from improvisational strategies? How can artistic research be improvised, and what would that imply in terms of its methodology? Can improvisation, regarded as a process of continuous experimentation and exploration, become a method through which artistic research is executed? Improvising as a research method implies opening up a field of possibilities and trying to keep it open – by allowing risks, misunderstandings, and ambiguity – instead of aiming at a clearly demarcated and pre-established endpoint, solution or answer. Perhaps this is what artistic research should be all about …

To register via Humanitix, please visit: https://events.humanitix.com/what-can-improvisation-contribute-to-artistic-research

Marcel Cobussen is Professor of Auditory Culture and Music Philosophy at Leiden University. He is author of e.g. Engaging With Everyday Sounds (2022), The Field of Musical Improvisation (2017), Thresholds: Rethinking Spirituality through Music (2008), and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art (2016)

Categories artistic research, Improvisation, Music, Public Presentation, Sound Art

Sounding (Non-)Art: A Difference That Makes a Difference

09/03/2024 //

Mid November 2023 I had the pleasure of being invited for a keynote presentation at the kick-off of the Applied and Experimental Sound Research Lab (AESR) in Vienna (Austria). In this presentation I combine insights from my book Engaging With Everyday Sounds with my advisory work for (non)governmental organizations on the sound design of public spaces, and some ideas about the extended role artistic research might play in contemporary society.

Categories artistic research, Conference, Public Presentation, Sound Art, sound studies

The Role of Sound Art in Soundscape Design

08/02/2024 //

Reworked text of a presentation I gave in Torino during Forum Acusticum 2023: “The Role of Sound Art in Soundscape Design.”

Categories Conference, Public Presentation, Sound Art, sound studies

Leiden (Un)Heard – Soundwalk

18/09/2023 //

Yesterday, September 17 2023, finally, the official launch of my soundwalk “Leiden (Un)Heard,” developed together with Sharon Stewart, Michiel Huijsman, and Caeso. “Leiden (Un)Heard” contains underwater sounds, sounds of electromagnetic fields, sounds as heard by mice, sounds from the past, sounds from underground, and many more.

More info can be found here: https://soundtrackcity.nl/leiden-unheard/ (in English) or https://soundtrackcity.nl/ongehoord-leiden/ (in Dutch)

Categories Blog Posts, Public Presentation, Sound Art

Announcement Keynote on Artistic Research, Music, and Society

16/09/2023 //

What is the relationship between society and music? Everyone will agree that a society’s economic, social, technological, and political situation, as well as its norms and values affect which music can be listened to, and how, where and when music is produced, distributed, and experienced. However, the fact that music depends on technological, economic, and social developments does not mean that it is simply and solely a causal effect of these developments. Music plays an active and dynamic role in the formation of a society. Each society is constituted by and through many different practices, and music is one of them. Through music we get certain experiences – Bach’s *Matthew Passion* might evoke religious or spiritual feelings. Music gives us access to specific emotions, from sad to pleasant ones. It influences our behavior – think of how deejays can make us dance. It can express and distribute certain ideas – ideas about politics, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. Music can create communities but also destroy them; it demarcates spaces and creates specific atmospheres. The list can easily be expanded.
Taking the idea that music *co-creates* our society as a point of departure, I will investigate in my presentation what this means for professional music education. What roles can conservatory alumni play in our contemporary, everyday lives? Is it necessary to rethink and perhaps expand those roles? And how can artistic research be helpful here? What new perspectives can be developed so that music will be regarded (again) as crucial to our well-being, as indispensable for a reorientation on our civilization? Yes, this is going to be a lecture that can make a difference!

Categories artistic research, Blog Posts, Music, Philosophy, Public Presentation

Report Sonic (Re-)Design Hofbogen Park Rotterdam

14/10/2021 //

Quite recently the city council of Rotterdam has selected 7 public sites that should be transformed in the near future into spaces where people can relax and escape the urban hectic. One of these sites is a former train line, 6 meters above the ground, running from the city center to the northern suburbs. Central idea is that this former train line should become an ecologically justified park. In order to also make it sonically pleasant, the project management asked Michiel Huijsman (Soundtrackcity) and me to come up with some recommendations. The report, which contains also several audio files, can be found here (at the moment only in Dutch).

Categories artistic research, Blog Posts, Public Presentation, Science, sound studies

Report Sonic (Re-)Design Hofplein Square Rotterdam

14/10/2021 //

In April 2021 Michiel Huijsman (Soundtrackcity) and I published a report containing several recommendations on how to improve the sonic design of a rather busy roundabout in the city center of Rotterdam (The Netherlands). Idea behind the report is that Rotterdam wants to go greener, more sustainable, attract more biodiversity, etc. The report is based on sound walks with many residents and policy makers, a workshop sound, surveys (filled in by over 800 persons), field recordings, and the input of sound artists; it contains text (of course) but also several audio files and a solid introduction about the role of sound in public urban spaces. Caveat: the report is in Dutch but we’re working on an English translation. The report can be accessed here.

Categories Blog Posts, Public Presentation, Science, Sound Art, Uncategorized

Internoise 2019 – Madrid

16/01/2020 //

Together with Vincent Meelberg I organized a special session entitled Soundscapes from a Humanities/Arts Perspective during the Internoise 2019 Conference in Madrid. Find here a short text I composed for the conference proceedings. In the text I rethink the role sound art can play in relation to soundscapes, a role that exceeds the merely audible.

Categories Blog Posts, Conference, Public Presentation, Sound Art

Musical Performance are (not) Artistic Research

01/04/2018 //

2015-06-12 18.15.02

This text is a slightly reworked version of a keynote speech I gave in Aveiro (Portugal) during the PERFORMA 2015 Conference on Musical Performance, organized by the University of Aveiro, the Institute of Ethnomusicology (INET-MD), and the Brazilian Association of Musical Performance (ABRAPEM).

Categories artistic research, Conference, Music, Philosophy, Public Presentation, Uncategorized

“Fluisterende Wind”

03/12/2017 //

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Find below a link to a short text, an audiofile with interviews with Edwin van der Heide and me, and lots of photos made during the opening ceremony of “Fluisterende Wind”

http://sleutelstad.nl/2017/12/01/auditief-kunstwerk-nieuwe-passage-leidse-hortus/

Categories Blog Posts, Philosophy, Public Presentation, Science, Sound Art