The Sound Studies Group is an international academic team dedicated to sound studies
across disciplines, regions, and institutions. From theory to practice, it explores all things related to sound. It also operates a Sound Lab in the School of Design, SUSTech Shenzhen.
Marcel Zaes Sagesser
Professor in Media Creation
Programme Director Creative Media Production (BA)
University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten
St. Pölten, Austria
Marcel Zaes Sagesser (he/him) is an artist and researcher investigating how humans are increasingly intertwined with their technologies. Focusing on the material qualities of sonic media, his work reimagines environments that let us listen to human-technological relations. Mixed practice-based and academic methods enrich this critical practice. The ongoing series, High & Low Tech Sonic Materialities, renders multiple strata of ‘tech’ audible to rethink how they shape human experience in dense urban spaces.
Marcel’s work has appeared internationally at Fridman Gallery New York, ZKM Center for Art and Media, Center for New Music San Francisco, Gray Area San Francisco, Hong Kong Arts Center, HEK House of Electronic Arts Basel, Wuhan Biennial and Shanghai Cadillac Concert Hall, but also at research-based venues such as at Columbia University, Stanford University, CHIME Fest at University of Chicago, Designing Interactive Systems at Carnegie Mellon University, ISEA at City University of Hong Kong, or ICMC at New York University Shanghai. His work has been awarded with prestigious grants such as the Fulbright Fellowship or Zhejiang Conservatory’s Keylab Grant for Digital Music. Publications include venues such as the Journal of Media Art Study and Theory, or Norient Sampling Politics.
Marcel received his PhD in Music+Multimedia Composition from Brown University (2021). From 2022-2025, he served as an Assistant Professor of Media Arts & Technology at the Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China. Starting in 2025, he is Professor in Media Creation and Programme Director of the BA Creative Media Production at the USTP University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten, Austria.
Institutional affiliation: ustp.at
Creative profile: marcelzaes.com
Publications
Auditory Materiality: Exploring Auditory Effects on Material Perception in Virtual Reality
Bocheng Zhong, Seungwoo Je, Marcel Zaes Sagesser
2025 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW)
doi | url
Soundwalking with AI: collaborative creativity as embodied learning
Martim S. Galvão, Marcel Zaes Sagesser
Frontiers of Computer Science, 16 July 2025,
Sec. Human-Media Interaction, Volume 7 - 2025
doi | open-access link
Can We Still Hear the Ocean? How the Artifact Q4 #101 Translates Shenzhen Underwater Recordings into an Interactive System.
Marcel Zaes Sagesser, Enza Migliore
Companion Publication of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 169–174. 2025
doi
The Grain No. 12/11 W4 102 1 From the City: Integrating a 3D Model with Audio Data as an Experimental Creative Method
Enza Migliore, Marcel Zaes Sagesser, Yujing Ma
In International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI), Taiwan
Conference publication, 2024
doi
I Light U Up: Exploring a New Emergent Narrative Paradigm through Physical Data Participation in AI Generative Experiences
Wu, Z., Wen, R., Sagesser, M. Z., Ma, S. Y., Xian, J., Wu, W., & Braud, T. (2024).
SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 Art Papers, 1–9.
Conference publication, 2024
doi
Metric Displacement: The Sound of Network Friction
Brian House, Annie Aries, Marcel Zaes Sagesser
The Journal of Media Art
Study and Theory
Journal article, 2023
link
Mediating Place as Staging Time in “Setting”: Sonic
Interactive Mobile Technology as an Art Performance
Marcel Zaes Sagesser
In DIS Companion ’23: ACM
Designing Interactive Systems, Pittsburgh PA
Conference publication, 2023
doi
Listening Through Technology: an Interactive
Sound Walk for a Suburb in Shenzhen
Marcel Zaes Sagesser and Binghuang Xu
In 12th International Conference on Design, User
Experience and Usability, HCI International (HCII)
Conference publication, 2023
doi
A Grain of: A Multimodal
Representation of the City’s Ecology Through Material and Sound
Enza Migliore, Marcel Zaes Sagesser, Hanyu Qu
In Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied
Interaction (TEI)
Conference publication,
2023
doi
A Digital Archive of Participatory Location Rhythm Performances:
Listening as a Way of Attending to the Pandemic
Marcel Zaes Sagesser
In Sounds of the Pandemic: Accounts,
Experiences, Perspectives in Times of COVID-19
Focal Press, Waltham MA
Chapter, 2022
Rhythms, Textures, Identities: Folding as a Technique in Kyoka’s Signature Sound
Marcel Zaes Sagesser
In IIPC International Insitute for Popular Culture, IASPM South Korea
Conference publication, 2022
link
#otherbeats: A Hypermediated Playback System in Web Audio
In ICMC International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Santiago, Chile
Conference publication, 2021
link
#otherbeats: Performing a Participatory Archive of Social Rhythm
Marcel Zaes
In New
Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), Shanghai, China
Conference publication,
2021
The Material Politics of Techno Punk
Marcel Zaes
In Sampling Politics Today, Norient Sound Series 1
Norient, Switzerland
Essay, 2020
link
doi
Schnittmuster in der
Populären Musik (in German)
Brockhaus, Immanuel, Michael Harenberg, and Marcel Sagesser.
In
Inside The Cut. Digitale Schnitttechniken und Populäre Musik. Entwicklung –
Wahrnehmung – Ästhetik
Transcript, Berlin
Chapter, 2010
Contact
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