Concert for Double Bass ‘In Absentia’
(2022)
author(s): Ivar Roban Krizic
published in: Research Catalogue
The project “Concert for Double Bass ‘In Absentia’” explores the effects of spatial displacement between performer and audience on the production and reception of free improvised practices. An instrument fitted with contact speakers and placed in a space becomes a conduit for sound, creating a reversal of roles–the audience is present in the performance space while the performer streams an improvisation from another location. This setting breaks established conventions and expectations of a performance situation, and therefore allows for a thorough analysis of the various ways in which improvisatory practices are perceived and conceptualized. The framework of the performance provides stimulation resulting in a series of qualitative interviews with members of the audience on the topics of absence, classification, perception of musical form, distraction, and interaction. Through these interviews, clear irritations in relation to the absence of a performer have been observed. These initial irritations in turn stimulated heightened levels of imaginative thinking and listening during the performance. This project shows how an experimental performative setting can provide a starting point for subsequent theoretical research.
Performing Reflection: Improvisation in Word, Thought and Action
(2025)
author(s): IRK
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition contains the complete artistic output and accompanying reflective documentation of the artistic research doctoral project I conducted at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna between 2021 and 2024.
Free improvisation in music offers a unique field for exploring how artistic practices develop through embodied engagement, critical reflection, and collaborative experimentation. This research focuses particularly on the process of practicing within this context, tracing the evolution of specific exercises and preparatory methods. These were initially tested in collaborative projects with other musicians and later refined through a series of workshops. A central theme that emerged throughout this process is the role of reflection—both musical and verbal—as a vital component of artistic development. This realization culminated in the project Performing Reflection, which established a dialogical relationship between musical improvisation and reflective discourse. The work contributes to a deeper understanding of how structured exercises and reflective practices can support and expand the art of free improvisation, offering new perspectives on its preparation, pedagogy, and performance.
ESP Duos: Imagined Co-Presence in Remote Improvisation
(last edited: 2026)
author(s): IRK
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This exposition presents the audio recordings produced within the ESP Duos project, a series of remote improvisations performed by long-term collaborators under conditions of complete acoustic and visual separation. Each duo was recorded simultaneously in isolated spaces, without any form of real-time interaction, and later combined into a single auditory perspective available only to the listener.
Rather than testing whether musical interaction can be sustained at a distance, the project explores how residual traces of collaboration continue to shape improvisatory behavior when the other performer is imagined rather than perceived. The recordings foreground imagined co-presence as an enacted orientation grounded in embodied memory, shared history, and relational expectation.
As artistic outputs, the ESP Duos invite listening not for coordination or synchronization, but for emergent coherence arising from contingency, alignment, divergence, and retrospective sense-making. The exposition situates these recordings as both documents of a research process and autonomous aesthetic artifacts, offering access to a mode of togetherness that persists beyond physical co-presence.
