"Pattern Spaces for Sound" - Josh Berson Visiting Researcher, Max Planck Institute
Channel: UCIBrenICS
Date: 2017-12-04

Josh Berson
Visiting Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences

"Pattern Spaces for Sound"

Friday, Dec. 1, 2017

Abstract: There is a tension, in the study of anything high-dimensional, between compactness and expressiveness. When the phenomenon in question is human behavior, this tension is all the more fraught. For those who prioritize experience over outward signs of behavior, any effort to reduce the dimensionality of experience in analysis can seem like an act of violence, in particular toward those whose experience has been characterized as marginal or deviant. In this talk I outline a path — maybe — to healing the epistemic rift between compactness and expressiveness. My focus is the human acoustic niche and its implications for well-being. How might we represent low-structure ambient sound in a way that is both faithful to its high-dimensional nature and at the same makes it newly available to reflection? Drawing on recent experiments at Shiro Oni Studio, Onishi, Gunma, Japan, I share sonic and visual representations to this end.

Bio: Josh Berson is an anthropologist and sound artist with a background in computer science, linguistics, history of science, and design. Since 2013 he has been visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. His 2015 book, Computable Bodies, won the 2016 PROSE Award in Language and Linguistics. Forthcoming books include Meat: From Human Origins to the Crisis of Capitalism and Envelope: The Future of Sound.