Embodied Sound: From Listening to Performance

As part of the project “Sound Experiments – Innovative Approaches to Non-Formal Learning,” and in collaboration with the Department of New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts, University in Zagreb, KONTEJNER hosted musician, DJ, sound artist, and composer Mieko Suzuki.

Suzuki began her visit in Zagreb with a presentation of her artistic practice for all interested students of the Academy of Fine Arts. She then worked with a group of New Media students, for whom she designed and prepared an intensive four-day workshop "Embodied Sound: From Listening to Performance". The workshop took place from 9 to 12 December 2025 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, and it encompassed a range of topics and practical exercises, including soundscape recording, collective composition, guided listening, creative DJing, and an artist talk.

The workshop focused on Deep Listening in the spirit of Pauline Oliveros, combining it with somatic sound practices, and provided opportunities for both creative experimentation and technical practice. Participants tuned into sound from within the body, expanding awareness, perception, and consciousness. In the first part, participants experimented with vocal resonance, body memory, and trance states, stepping into a field of unknown possibilities. In the second part, they focused on field recording, audio editing, composition, as well as sound modulation and processing using Ableton Live and CDJs. Participants worked with group improvisation, and these activities informed and supported both individual and collective composition, with dedicated time for discussion and reflection.

Mieko Suzuki (JP/DE) lives in Berlin and works as a DJ, sound artist, musician and composer. Her work is rooted in the materiality of time and space and in transformed states of consciousness, merging the raw power of sound with refined modulation. She is a member of the improvisation trio Contagious, together with Andrea Neumann (Inside Piano, Mixer) and Sabine Ercklentz (Trumpet, Processing), blending avant-garde experimentation and electronic music. Another ongoing project is Broken Vinyl, an audiovisual performance created with visual artist Claudia Rohrmoser, in which sound and image influence each other through the shared source material: vinyl. Since 2009, she has been co-hosting the bi-monthly multidisciplinary event KOOKOO with Arno Raffeiner, at OHM Gallery in Berlin.

The project “Sound Experiments – Innovative Approaches to Non-Formal Learning” is funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ programme. The project is jointly implemented by A4 from Bratislava (SK), KONTEJNER from Zagreb (HR), and Sonic Acts from Amsterdam (NL).

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