Grants and residencies

Research and art

Artistic doctorate: Embodied Algorithms: Formalising Embodied Habits to Explore and Develop Improvisation Languages

Application summary

The knowledge of a free improviser is a highly specialised, complex and embodied knowledge used to generate and elaborate musical material, musical structures, and interaction with other players, all of which at the same time of the performance. Deciphering free improvisation requires the researcher-practitioner to shed light into a complex, emergent, at times self-organising matter while being immersed in it. My practice-led research, carried out at the MuTri Doctoral School - Sibelius Academy, proposes a multidisciplinary and holistic framework that seeks to reveal, to the performers (including myself) and the audience alike, the multifaceted nature of this embodied knowledge and how it is used in an improvised performance. A series of five doctoral concerts will be the laboratory settings in which the disembodiment process will take place in real-time, with the help of interactive software, visualisations, improvising machines and machine learning algorithms. The doctoral concerts will stimulate innovation in the improvisation performance field, by creating performance settings where the live and virtual players, the audience, and the use of technology and visualisation are interweaved. New improvised music will emerge and, together with the work with highly respected Finnish and international collaborators, it will help to dynamize the Finnish free improvisation community and its relevance in the contemporary and experimental music scene. In parallel, my doctoral work puts the artistic practice of improvisation in relation with societal issues via the theoretical tools of postmodernism and critical theory. I consider free improvisation as a model for a present-day critical theory, for its support to alternative social constructions and values, freedom, and equality.

In my research, I explore how to influence, displace, and decentre practitioners while they perform. In doctoral concerts, improvisers interact with virtual players implemented using music and visual technology tools. These unconventional performative spaces acts as a laboratory, and the analysis of the improvisers' reactions helps broadening the discourse around free improvisation while enhancing my artistic practice. The research has revealed the complex affective network of the improviser’s knowledge, including skills, habits, expertise, and artistic identity. These elements provide stability but can also form a "habitual cage" constricting responsiveness. The concert-laboratories decentre the improviser and reveal the deep, often pre-conscious forces guiding musical choices. Reflection on the doctoral concerts has led to a reevaluation of my understanding of improvisation, shifting from a cognitive framework to an approach where emotional, affective, and interrelational aspects are central.

Three concerts have been realised:
- 'Joy Against the Machine', a performance for improvisers and a polyphonic text score generator software. Details and credits: https://liberomureddu.net/joy-against-the-machine/
- 'Sonic Avatars', for eight improvisers and audiovisual projections. Details and credits: https://liberomureddu.net/sonicavatars/
- 'The Avatars and I', for one pianist and two live audiovisual performers. Details and credits: https://liberomureddu.net/the-avatars-and-i/
- Preparatory work for the final doctoral concert, to be performed during Autumn 2026.

These works have been performed, presented, and used in workshops at conferences and festivals including Doctors in Performance (Tallinn and Helsinki), Siena Jazz Improvisation symposium, TENOR Marseille, The Improviser’s Experience (Huddersfield), and Musica nova Helsinki.

Between 2024and 2025, a book chapter about the work on 'The Avatars and I' was written and the book will be published in 2026.

Back to Grants listing