Archives for category: Sound Art

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

URBAN SOUNDSCAPES

24/03/2025 //

Recently published in The Journal of Sonic Studies: my review of Usue Ruiz Arana’s very inspiring book Urban Soundscapes. A Guide to Listening for Landscape Architecture and Urban Design.

Tags sound art, sound studies

Categories Books, Review, Sound Art, sound studies

A Sound Approach to Noise and Health

25/10/2024 //

A Sound approach to Noise and Health (book-cover)

Just published and open access: a rich overview of the current discourse on sound, health, and well-being. My own contribution deals with the role sound art can play in creating a more liveable environment. An important opportunity for improvement can be found in sound’s supportive role in establishing more attentive interactions between human (and non-human) beings and their (sonic) environment. Here’s a link to the book.

Tags sound art

Categories Books, Sound Art, sound studies

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

Report Sonic (re-)Design Feijenoord City/Getijdenpark

10/06/2023 //

After reports on the Hofplein square, the new ecological city park Hofbogen, and the Rijnhaven area, find here the fourth report I have composed for the City of Rotterdam. It consists of several recommendations to protect and/or improve the sonic quality of this part of the city. Besides the already beautiful sonic atmosphere of the Brienenoord Parc, the report concentrates on sonic ecologies in and around the future residential area of Feijenoord City.

The report (in Dutch) – which also contains audio files – can be found here

Categories Report, Sound Art, sound studies

New Paradigms for Music Research

01/06/2023 //

Today, I found this book on my doormat: New Paradigms for Music Research: Art, Society and Technology, edited by Adolf Murillo, Ines Monreal, Jesus Tejada and David Carabias and issued by the University of Valencia (Spain). Contributors are participants to the first International Conference on the Intersection of Art, Society and Technology in Musical Innovation in 2021, organized by the same university.

My contribution consists of a text on soundwalking, mostly concentrating on my development of a soundwalk in Leiden, the Netherlands in 2021. My claim is that this art form takes in fact place between art and non-art and as such has both artistic and societal significance.

Categories Books, Music, Philosophy, Sound Art, sound studies

Podcast on Engaging With Everyday Sounds

07/03/2023 //

Last week I’ve recorded a podcast together with Francesco Aletta, Tin Oberman and Andrew Mitchell in London based on my latest book Engaging With Everyday Sounds. Will be broadcast soon.