Improvisation and Its Role in Artistic Research- Guest Lecture Prof. Dr. Marcel Cobussen (Leiden University) online and on-site
Guest lecture by Prof. Dr. Marcel Cobussen (Leiden University) as part of the JMLU Research Colloquium Series (All details here) on Tuesday, January 20, 2026, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Spielraum, Gasometer B, Guglgasse 8, 1110 Vienna
(https://us02web.zoom.us/my/michaelkahr), 0,25 ECTS, Registration via JAMOnline
This presentation will basically consist of two parts. In Part 1, Cobussen will elaborate on musical improvisation and why it can be regarded as a complex system, that is, as an interactive network of various human as well as non-human actants. Besides he will touch upon the question what other cultural fields and discourses can learn from improvisation in music? Part 2 will deal with the issue what improvisation 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. And perhaps this is what artistic research should be all about …
Prof. Dr. Marcel Cobussen is Full Professor of Auditory Culture and Music Philosophy at Leiden University (the Netherlands) and the Orpheus Institute in Ghent (Belgium). He studied jazz piano at the Conservatory of Rotterdam and Art and Cultural Studies at Erasmus University, Rotterdam (the Netherlands).
Cobussen is author of several books, among them The Field of Musical Improvisation (LUP 2017), Music and Ethics (Ashgate 2012/Routledge 2017, co-author Nanette Nielsen), and Thresholds. Rethinking Spirituality Through Music (Ashgate 2008). He is editor of The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art (Routledge 2016, co-editors Barry Truax and Vincent Meelberg) and Resonanties. Verkenningen tussen kunsten en wetenschappen (LUP 2011). He is editor-in-chief of the open access online Journal of Sonic Studies. His PhD dissertation Deconstruction in Music (Erasmus University Rotterdam 2002) is presented as an online website.
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/marcel-cobussen#tab-2
Share:
