Improvising the mind

Mood in Motion: Improvising the Mind

 

Exploring Human Creativity at the Edge of Art, Therapy, and Technology

 

The Improvisation Lab is a transdisciplinary research initiative that investigates improvisation as a core human capacity for transformation, connection, and meaning-making. Bringing together insights from neuroscience, jazz studies, psychotherapy, systems theory, and artificial intelligence, the lab explores how improvisation operates across individual, relational, and cultural levels.

 

Our research focuses on how people improvise with each other and the world—through sound, silence, gesture, emotion, and risk. We study improvisation not only as an artistic or clinical practice, but as a model for how humans adapt, heal, learn, and co-create in uncertain and changing environments.

 

At a time when generative AI is reshaping creativity and communication, the lab also asks: what makes improvisation uniquely human—and what can we learn from engaging AI as a partner, not a replacement?

 

 

Project​

Improvising the Mind: A Neuroaesthetic and Systems-Theoretical Inquiry into Jazz, Psychotherapy, and Social Change

Principal Investigators: Anja Lok & Eftychia Stamkou

 

What does it mean to improvise a mind?

Improvising the Mind explores jazz improvisation and psychotherapy as parallel practices of transformation—deeply embodied, relational, and socially embedded. Drawing on neuroscience, systems theory, relational psychology, and aesthetics, this project reframes improvisation not as metaphor, but as method: a mode of co-regulated engagement that enables change across individual, interpersonal, and cultural levels.

 

We examine how jazz ensembles and therapeutic dyads both rely on attuned listening, affective resonance, and adaptive responsiveness within dynamic systems. From neural synchrony to aesthetic risk-taking, these improvisational processes generate new meaning—not in isolation, but in concert with others.

 

Improvisation, in this context, becomes a lens for rethinking expertise, resilience, and healing. It is a way of staying with uncertainty, resisting pre-determined scripts, and co-creating futures grounded in presence, play, and relational trust.

 

Keywords: Improvisation • Jazz • Psychotherapy • Systems Theory • Neuroaesthetics • Relational Change • Co-Regulation • Social Imagination • Embodied Intelligence

 

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Project

Improvisation at the Edge: Human Creativity, Relational Intelligence, and the Limits of AI

Principal Investigators: Anja Lok & Eftychia Stamkou

Collaborators: Hannah Vera van Houten, Makiko Sadakata

 

How do we improvise the mind—and what happens when AI joins the jam?

This interdisciplinary research initiative explores improvisation as a uniquely human mode of relational intelligence that bridges art, therapy, and cognitive science. Across two complementary projects—Improvising the Mind and Beyond the Notes—we investigate what jazz and psychotherapy reveal about transformation, creativity, and the boundaries of human experience in an age of artificial intelligence.

 

Improvising the Mind examines the structural and neurobiological parallels between jazz improvisation and psychotherapy. Drawing on systems theory, relational psychology, and neuroscience, the project rethinks improvisation as a co-regulated, socially situated practice that fosters personal and cultural transformation.

 

Beyond the Notes explores whether AI can truly improvise like a human jazz musician. While generative systems can replicate stylistic patterns, we argue that they lack embodiment, emotional authenticity, cultural depth, and intentional agency—qualities that ground the human creative act. The project advocates for human–AI co-creation as a way to expand—not replace—human creativity.

 

Together, these projects position improvisation not merely as an artistic technique, but as a powerful framework for understanding relational intelligence, healing, and creativity in both human and hybrid futures.

 

Keywords: Improvisation • Jazz • Psychotherapy • Artificial Intelligence • Embodiment • Cultural Expression • Co-Creation • Relational Systems • Human–AI Interaction