Sound Studies and Research-Creation
Artistic researcher working in and through sound, sonic (non-)related theories, and (non-)digital media.
About
I am Senior Artistic Research Associate in Sound Studies at the University of the Arts Bremen. My teaching combines studio-based practice with theory-led inquiry, and I supervise students at master’s and bachelor’s level in the Faculty of Art and Design. I hold an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a doctorate from Leiden University, where my research focused on sound and aesthetics within artistic research.
My current practice has been closely connected to Sound and Research-Creation, an initiative I have been developing as both a pedagogical framework and a research-creation approach. Through this work I explore how writing, composing, and listening can serve as ways of thinking with sound – treating it not only as aesthetic material but also as a means of inquiry and knowledge-making. I am particularly interested in what emerges when practice-based projects are told in sonic form – such as in audio essay format – and in practice as a process where ideas are adapted and reframed in different media to generate new forms of expression and insight.
CV (selected)
- Senior Artistic Research Associate in Sound Studies (Integrated Research and Teaching), Digital Media, University of the Arts Bremen.
- Artistic Research Associate (Program Coordination and Teaching), Digital Media, University of the Arts Bremen.
- Freelance Graphic Designer; Independent Art Practice, 2000—present.
- Doctor of Philosophy, Leiden University, 2019.
- Master of Fine Arts, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1999.
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Graphic Design), Arizona State University, 1993.
Works
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Sonic Fictioning: Podcasting as a Lure for Feeling
About this audio essay (and research exposition)
The audio essay Sonic Fictioning: Podcasting as a Lure for Feeling introduces the concept of sonic fictioning through Schizopodcast – a sonic artwork first presented as a web application and later published on Research Catalogue. Schizopodcast: A Podcast is a Podcast is a Podcast builds on Deleuze–Guattari’s ontology of immanence, viewing nature as an autopoietic force, and frames sonic fictioning not as an abstraction but as a resonant dispositif shaped by physical, cultural, and political contexts.
Rather than opposing lived experience in late capitalism, sonic fictioning enacts a speculative flight, a lure for feeling in the Whiteheadian sense. Fictioning, taken as a verb, is a practice of fabulation that connects to the real through sound, challenging the opposition between fiction and reality, producing — or altering — worlds.
Schizopodcast asks how one might live, and how sonic fictions affirm this question. It explores the philosophical and practical implications of sonic thinking in reflecting on perception, understanding, and loopholes. The audio essay continues this line of inquiry, attending to sonic fictioning’s aesthetic and epistemological dimensions as a lure-for-feeling. Speculation may not reveal truths, but it highlights fiction’s aesthetic force and its capacity to carry corporeal knowledge.
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Tangles I-IV
Liner notes
A voice-led work in which sonic threads weave traces of loss, childhood refuge, and a forlorn legend – suggesting grief, fading presence, and misplaced responsibility.
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Schizopodcast: Podcast is a Podcast is a Podcast
About this exposition
The experimental sonic artwork Schizopodcast: Podcast is a Podcast is a Podcast employs the concept of the rhizome and explores what I term sonic fictioning through a generative podcast. Its methodology combines art writing and autotheory with elements of sound design and composition. The work was commissioned for the exhibition Material Girls, developed collaboratively, and shown online. (Note: the web application itself is no longer active.)
This exposition outlines the project’s conceptual and methodological framework, and proposes that sound is not only a medium for narrative but that sonic fictioning is a sound-led approach, one that appeals to intuition and speculative flight in the making of possible worlds. In taking sonic thinking seriously, the exposition maps interrelated themes and concerns that illuminate the philosophical and practical implications of the project.
Teaching
Sound Studies is an inherently interdisciplinary field, bringing together diverse methods, ideas, and creative practices. Since 2007, I have been teaching and shaping this area in the Digital Media program, with a focus on Research-Creation since 2019 following my doctoral work in artistic research. My courses span master’s and bachelor’s levels, combining studio practice, critical reflection, and collaborative exploration through lectures, seminars, and thesis supervision within the Faculty of Art and Design.
Imprint
Dr. Petra Klusmeyer
p.klusmeyer@hfk-bremen.de
University of the Arts Bremen
Am Speicher XI 8
28217 Bremen, Germany