Research Catalogue

A new filigrane sound object (or series of objects) in the making, w.i.p.

Improvised ambient music making is a multi-dimensional process where the musical and the artistical skills are implemented into a dance between the mind of the performer and the creative use of technology. Both the mind and the machine together create a symbiotic relationship which over a course of a longer improvisational process produces a calming effect on the body and the mind, a sensation which in this artistic research is referred to as ”the slow buzz”. Over an 18-month period from June 2023 to December 2024 I practiced the creation of improvised ambient music by keeping a routine which included mechanical guitar warm ups, a meditation session and a recording session for an improvised ambient music track. This routine laid a solid foundation for my artistic work, generating all in all 360 improvised ambient tracks, which were all listened and analysed along the way. All the know-how and the musical style that emerged from this routine eventually led to the creation of a continuous, flowing form of improvisational live-ambient music. I then rehearsed, filmed, and analysed the resulting ambient music 40 times during the autumn of 2024 in order to gain insight into the mindstates that are affiliated with the creation of improvised ambient music. The final outcome of this artistic research process was then to be presented in the form of a solo concert during the Global Spring Festival, on the 15th of May 2025.

What senses arise from sensing? How does sensing affect the processes of sense-making? How can the density of senses be navigated through writing? This exposition retraces a specific sequence of thinking-in-the-making designed to address such questions in a collective workshop setting, where writing and sensing alternate in an iterative process.

Alexander Holm have been developing the artistic research project 'Sworld' on the APD program at RMC in Copenhagen 2021-2024. The project seeks to explore how simultaneous experience of sounds with- and without a visible cause can evoke human experiences of ghosts, absence and lost memories. The project researches and expands on composer and theorist Michel Chion's audio visual concept of Synch Points, examined through a versatile compositional praxis including choreography, text, voice, walks and live performance.

This artistic research explores a performance practice that integrates the phenomena of gravity and breathing as extensions of musical expression in improvisation. The aim is to develop a musical language that translates the qualities and characteristics of gravity and breath into sonic gestures, examining how they generate tension and release through both musical actions and silences. The project draws inspiration from traditional Korean music and dance, in which an embodied awareness of gravity and breathing constitutes a foundational approach to performance and interpretation. These cultural references serve as a framework for rethinking musical practice and transcultural awareness. As part of the research process, I undertook studies in traditional Korean dance, the vocal tradition of Pansori, and the percussion instrument Soribuk to understand how gravity and breathing are communicated artistically, verbally, and methodologically across these three disciplines. Insights from this embodied practice were then translated into the context of Western contemporary improvisation. The resulting concept is designed to enhance the performer’s awareness and is specifically conceived for a solo drum set context.

Can an acoustic grand piano be sonically and conceptually reimagined so as to re-negotiate its foundational assumptions around tuning and timbre? Why should the piano continue to be so accustomed to only one tuning system? In contrast, how can “pure sounds” (ratios found in the harmonic series) co-exist with ethnically diverse microtonal tunings? Spanning a period from 2020-2022, “Unburying, from Liminals, Emerging” explores a microtonal prepared piano in three artistic contexts. These include: a solo project called “Postcards of Nostalgia; a chamber ensemble consisting of saxophone trio, percussion and piano; and a “percussion ensemble with soprano saxophone called Juniper Fuse. Dialoging with a newly invented tuning system, what emergent properties might we find when magnetic piano preparations are used to evoke specific timbral effects from Balinese Gamelan and Indian Karnatik music? Collectively, how can this expanded notion of “piano” merge with spatialization to facilitate interactive experiences for audiences? How might a process-oriented Jungian-inspired dream work communicate itself so as to distill and coalesce a fertile musical landscape?