Orpheus Instituut welcomes Megan Alice Clune as visiting researcher
News January 12, 202615 January - 15 March
Her project investigates the phenomenon of the earworm as a site where technologies of sound reproduction, mass media, and intermedia composition intersect, combining practice-led composition, archival study, and theoretical reflection.
Orpheus Instituut is pleased to welcome Megan Alice Clune as a visiting researcher. During her stay, she will further develop her artistic research project Repetition Studies, part of her ongoing PhD at the University of New South Wales, which explores the relationship between sound technologies, listening practices, and intermedia composition.
Her research examines the auditory phenomenon of the earworm as both a cultural and compositional logic, emerging from the repetitive structures of mass media such as television, radio, and newspapers. By analysing works from the 1970s and 1980s, including Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives and Phillip Glass and Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach, alongside her own compositions, Megan explores how repetition and mediated listening shape the ways sound imprints itself on both the individual and collective psyche. Her work focuses on repetition as both an artistic strategy and a cultural condition. She works through early intermedia examples and composes new works that engage with obsolete technologies and archival materials.
I aim to situate the earworm as a productive concept for understanding listening, memory, and media saturation. Orpheus Instituut provides a unique environment to connect these explorations with broader debates on music, technology, and thought.Megan Alice Clune - PhD Researcher, UNSW
At Orpheus Instituut, Megan will refine the compositional and theoretical aspects of Repetition Studies while engaging with faculty, docARTES researchers, and visiting speakers. Her residency will focus on three key areas: earworm logic as a framework for intermedia composition; archival research into Hanne Darboven’s durational works; and practice-led experimentation with sound technologies, performance, and notation.
By situating her project at the intersection of composition, musicology, media theory, and cultural inquiry, Megan contributes to urgent conversations around technology, listening, and the circulation of culture. Her time at Orpheus also builds on recent dialogues with researchers in intermedia and sonic temporality, opening new possibilities for exchange on speculative compositional methodologies.
We warmly welcome Megan to our institute and look forward to the insights her research will bring to our community.