Improvisation as a versatile and humble interaction with our surroundings, embodied landscapes and things. Intuition as a situated listening articulated by our voices and bodies.
In my practice as a sound artist I apply field improvisation as a form of field recording where objects tell a story in sound – what I call objectal narratives. In dialogue with the natural soundscape, objects can be sounded through interaction. Similar to instruments, objects are capable of producing sounds that have certain textures, timbres, pitch and speak of its materiality.
Recording field improvisations starts from positioning yourself in relation to things, place and to other users of that place, and considering that all have agency. This situated listening helps us to reflect on our engagements with our surroundings and its implications beyond the human and more than-human dichotomy. As a method, field improvisation invites us to transcend the disciplinary boundaries of field recording and acoustic ecology as it involves an improvised intervention and instances that do not necessarily involve documenting.
The research project proposes field improvisation as a method for acknowledging the relationships between space, instrument and mediator, researching its potential of site-specific and pluralist representation in both electroacoustic music and transdisciplinary collaborative practices.
The anthology compiles the phenomenological study of field improvisation mediated through several interdisciplinary projects, exercises and activities in which field improvisation is explored as a methodology for field work, site-specific interaction and transdisciplinary gatherings in the fields of acoustic ecology, contemporary archaeology, sound art and visual art.
Sound artist Andreas Kühne (b. 1988) utilises electroacoustic music, collaborative audiovisual performances and interactive installations to explore non-idiomatic field improvisation as a methodology for interdisciplinary and site-specific art production, presentation and participation.
Andreas is a doctoral research fellow at the Musikkonservatoriet, UiT The Arctic University of Norway. He completed his BA jazz drums at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and MFA in free improvisation at ArtEZ University of Arts. Kühne’s work has been exhibited and performed at Landmark, Bergen Kunsthall (NO), Sonic Acts Festival (NL), HYBRID Biennale (DE), Baltic Circle Festival (FI), Inversia Festival (RU), Lofoten International Art Festival (NO), Lighthouse (UK).