Dr. Petra Klusmeyer

Dr. Petra Klusmeyer has been an art practitioner since the 1990s – initially in the visual arts, then shifting focus on exploring sound as medium and the sonic in philosophy. She holds a researcher position of Sound Studies at the University of the Arts Bremen, where she teaches studio-based and theory-led courses and acts as supervisor to master students in the Faculty of Art and Design. She has an MFA in Fine Arts (1999) from the School of the Art Institue of Chicago and researched sounding art at the University of East London (2010–2011), University College Dublin (2011–2013), and Utrecht University (2013–2018). Under the guidance of Prof. dr. Marcel Cobussen and Dr. Sher Doruff, she concluded her doctoral research on sound and aesthetics in the context of art research and philosophy (as practice) at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) of Leiden University in 2019. Her artworks have been internationally performed and exhibited at ZKM Karlsruhe; Podewil, Berlin; Trampoline, Tokyo; Weserburg, Bremen; Canard Galeria Central, Mexico City; Galerie Herold, Bremen; Guangxi Arts, Nanning; GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen; among others. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including several GEDOK grants, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Stipend, the School of The Art Institute of Chicago Trustee Scholarship, and the John Quincy Adams Fellowship. Her sound works are published on Staalplaat, Boxmedia, Experimental Sound Studio Chicago, and her independent label. Between 2008 and 2013, she curated Sonic Peripheries: a series on contemporary sonic practices, working with artists from the U.S. and Europe. Petra Klusmeyer resided in the U.S. between 1988 and 2001; currently, she lives in Bremen.
 

Philosophy, Art Practice, Research-Creation: Sound Studies

Sound Studies, here, is concerned with a critical and research-led approach to sonic practices in art, design, and music. This perspective entails a philosophical and socio-cultural/-economic slant that enfolds the exploration of art-and-tech historical and contemporary contexts relevant to art research practices in an expanded (transdisciplinary) field. It is understood that students learn to contextualize, reflect on, and experimentally develop their work that is of the sonic or related thereto. The uniqueness of sound as an evanescent medium demands the cultivation of listening, observing, and a sonic-thinking that enables the student’s competence in practical know-how on the one hand and theoretical undertakings on the other, which, combined, might fall under the auspice of research-creation. Following her doctorate, Petra Klusmeyer continues to research the conjunction between philosophy and art practice seeking to forge in her teaching an expanded notion of sound in the arts, design, and theory.