Artistic research

Ritual Space

Since fieldwork on Gnawa music in Morocco, I have been researching how sound, repetition, body, space and group bring ritual situations into being — situations in which perception, affect, attention, social relation and embodied self-orientation can shift or become activated. I am interested in the conditions under which this happens, and in how such spaces can be shaped in secular form today.

What is ritual space?

Ritual space denotes a constellation of place and situation. A threshold emerges when sound, repetition, body, group, light and temporal structure mark a transition: attention, sense of time, affect and relation shift into another mode — in the Moroccan Gnawa ritual as much as in a club, a concert or a workshop room.

The field spans trance and ecstatic intensification as well as quiet, contemplative, meditative and socially integrating forms. It includes political, aesthetic and therapeutic ritual forms. At its core are ritual spaces of experience and the conditions under which they become effective.

The research asks about recurring structures of ritual practice: patterns that appear across very different cultures and take on different meanings there. People move between several interpretations of the world, environmental relations and references to truth. A ritual space can therefore activate several relations to reality side by side.

I am interested in the operative principles of historical rituals and in how they can be understood, designed and tested in secular form under present conditions — with clear framing, responsible intensity and open observation.

Resonance arises in the interplay of order and uncontrollability (in Hartmut Rosa's sense): a space can be carefully framed and still depends on response, listening and a course of events that cannot be fully planned.

Conditions on the outside, processes on the inside. At the centre is the human being, whose perception, body and relation are framed by the space.

Research fields

Ten lines of inquiry I am working on

These ten fields are open lines of work. Each connects a concrete question with what practice has shown so far and with my own work as a musician. The sequence forms a movement of inquiry: from frame through roles and inner states to sound, body, group, history, contemporary practice and evaluation.

Thresholds and secular ritual forms

How does a secular threshold emerge?

Beginning, entry, intensification and return as a transition without religious framing.

Figures of the ritual space

Who holds, opens and brings back?

Roles from ritual leadership and music to facilitator, DJ and space holder.

States of consciousness, trance and transformation

Which states does a ritual space alter?

Trance, ecstasy, absorption, flow and dissociation, kept conceptually distinct.

Music, repetition and perception

How does music create intensification?

Repetition, tempo and intensification as a medium of the threshold.

Sound, space, sensory perception and atmosphere

What does atmosphere consist of in concrete terms?

Sound, light, darkness, smell and arrangement as interacting conditions.

Body and Body Memory

What does the body know?

Breath, rhythm, movement, posture and stillness as carriers of bodily memory.

Group and synchronisation

How does a shared pulse emerge?

Rhythm, responsiveness, witnessing and the responsibility of collective intensity.

Historical ritual forms and transcultural translation

What does translation mean without copying?

Mysteries, Dionysus and Gnawa: it is procedures that are comparable, not meanings.

Political emotions and embodied reflection

How can political emotions become workable through the body?

Anger, grief and hope in Re_Connection: structuring, witnessing, moving.

Ritual ambition and effect

What effect does a ritual space strive for?

Transition, intensity, structure and integration as conditions of ritual practice.

Artistic research

Artistic practice as research

Performances, the instrumentarium, the workshops and Re_Connection form fields of observation, testing and reflection. Live music situations and collective settings yield experiential knowledge about sound, body, group, intensity, attention, transition, atmosphere and social framing.

I am currently developing this research further on a theoretical level and testing individual questions in my own formats: performances, listening sessions, laboratory formats and residencies. I am interested in contexts where artistic practice is taken seriously as a form of knowledge — artistic research, art universities, research programmes and transdisciplinary projects.

Field of practice

Re_Connection

Where the research becomes concrete, it is called Re_Connection: a secular field of practice in which sound, body, group and reflection come together. Many of the questions raised here can be tested in practice, together with an interdisciplinary team from dance therapy and political education.

Exchange and collaboration

Exchange with researchers, artists, curators, therapists, practitioners and institutions is expressly welcome — from an invitation to a talk or lecture performance through shared laboratory formats to longer-term research collaborations. Critical questions are welcome too.

Get in touch about research Read the thesis (PDF)