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Embodied Research Methods in Music & Sound: practices, technologies, and spaces

Date & Time: Tuesday 19th May 2026, 09:30 – 17:00 Location: Music Department, University of Liverpool, 80-82 Bedford Street South, L69 7WW

Context:

Music, Technology and Interaction (MTI), research centre at University of Liverpool, investigates how artists, technologies, audiences, spaces, and creative processes interact, physically, virtually and creatively.  MTI and the RMA Practice Study Group are pleased to announce a study day centred around embodied research methods in music and sound.

Research methods are normatively thought of as the strategies and processes used to collect data or evidence to uncover new knowledge on a topic. This study day centres the role of the body in creative practice research using technology. What methods are specific to these practices and their research processes? How can methods from other paradigms be adapted for embodied practice research?

Practitioners are encouraged to apply who are working in arts practice/practice research methodologies or engineering/STEM methodologies in music and sound, for whom embodiment forms a significant methodology in their research process, for example:

  • where the insights of the research process are themselves embodied - e.g. new techniques, relational methods, training paradigms, etc.
  • where embodied work serves as a substantial organising principle in a research process, leading to various modes of insight - e.g., new compositional or technological approaches, frameworks of access and inclusivity, etc

 

Embodiment is an umbrella term that acknowledges the various ways of knowing that are inherent––lived, experienced, enacted, practiced––in human bodies. Embodied work is positioned at the intersection of creative and critical methodologies, emerging from the ‘practice turn’ (Schatzki et al., 2001), building on foundational work in Performance Studies (Rink, 2004; Cook, 2013), and aligning with post-textual (Small, 1998) and practice research (Bulley & Şahin, 2021) discourses in music and sound. ‘Embodied research’ (Spatz, 2017) thus proposes a wide range of activities––from performance and sonic arts to listening and 'cyborg’ musicking (Dyer & Kanga, 2023)—as spaces of being-doing-knowing (Nelson, 2022).

‘Embodiment’ and ‘embodied practice’ have become thematic hot spots in recent musical discourse, affording researchers the means to recognise and articulate technical, sensory, affective, perceptual and tacit knowledge forms as investigative territories. While these developments have paved the way for an exciting and varied wave of research projects, musicians continue to draw substantially on conceptual frameworks from theatre, dance and physical performance, as well as social epistemology and philosophy of science, in order to articulate insights. Musicians and sound practitioners are clearly asking questions, making a richness of work, and generating insights. The aim of this study day is to encounter the embodied methods at work in these practices and begin to establish the keystones that are distinct to embodied research in music and sound.

Call for Participation

We invite abstract proposals (250 words or up to 3-minute video) on the above themes to discuss how methods have been (or might be) applied for one of the following 10-minute presentation forms (live or pre-recorded):

  • A research position statement
  • A creative practice ‘think-piece’
  • A demonstration of practice-based methods
  • Any other form applicable to your research

 

We encourage submission of work that is in-process, including current projects. PhD and early-career researchers are encouraged to attend and submit work.

Day Structure

9.30am tea/coffee

10:00 Opening remarks from convenors (MTI/RMA) and provocation

11:00 Participant sessions

13:00 Lunch

14:00 Participant sessions

16:00 World Café — those who prefer to participate through dialogue are invited to share work in this informal session to end the day

16:40 Closing remarks

Note: lunch is not provided, we can direct you to cafés and shops nearby. Optional pub or café visit following closing remarks.

Submission

If you are interested in presenting at the study day, please submit an abstract (250 words or up to 3-minute video) along with a 100-word bio, to Dr Jenn Kirby and Dr Jonathan Crossley: mtiresearch@liverpool.ac.uk by Friday 13th March 2026, 5pm. Notification of acceptance will be sent by Monday 30th March.