CFP – Tuning Speculation II (Toronto, 7-9 Nov. 2014)

Tuning Speculation II: Auralneirics and imaginary networked futures

7-9 November, Toronto (Canada)

Organized by The Occulture (David Cecchetto, Marc Couroux, and eldritch Priest)

Plenary Speakers: Frances Dyson, Nandita Biswas Mellamphy, and Dan Mellamphy

In the context of ubiquitous media not only is the sheer volume of data notable, but so too are the ways in which we encounter, interact with and articulate its abstract mass. This is particularly significant where contemporary social experiences are increasingly interpellated by a technical apparatus in a way that makes the former available only through the invention and deployment of extra-sensory algorithms. The implication of technology in human activity (while always present) in this instance raises new challenges, for the algorithmically negotiated data-bloom of digital networks intensifies the problem of agency by distributing its expression across material and virtual domains that belong to both organic and inorganic systems, as well as actual and fictional entities.

Building on last year’s meeting, this three-day workshop seeks to examine how aurally inflected mediations might address the complexities of agency and its relation to the counterfactual when one’s actions, feelings, thoughts, competences, desires, failures, and daydreams are implicated in the self-adjusting operation of nonlinear networks. For instance, we are interested in the ways that aurality conjures alternative sensitivities to data flows and rhythms of change that allow for both increased agency in existing networked settings but also for the envisaging and summoning of new vectors of agency itself. While several approaches can catalyze such speculations, we propose to concentrate on sounding art—broadly understood—in order to leverage the fated semiotic parasitism, differential production, relational expression, and perceived multiplicity that informs such practices. However, alongside such concentrating we also welcome various reflections on sono-distractions, phonochaosmosis, rhythmanalysis, harmelodic-prescience, audio pragmètics, chronoportation, h/Hypermusic and other invocations of impossible and/or imaginary networked aural futures.


Please send an abstract (maximum 250 words) and bio to unsound@yorku.ca no later than 21 July 2014. Notification of acceptance will be given no later than mid-August.

Song Of The Digital Flesh: Vocal Manipulation & Our Cyborg Selves

Great article by Alex Borkowski on The Quietus.

Fascinating research on voice at Durham

http://hearingthevoice.org/about-the-project/

https://www.dur.ac.uk/hearingthevoice/

Hello, Hello, Hello

From Glasgow University Voice Recognition Lab

"On hearing a novel voice, listeners readily form personality impressions of that speaker. Accurate or not, these impressions are known to affect subsequent interactions; yet the underlying psychological and acoustical bases remain poorly understood. Furthermore, hitherto studies have focussed on extended speech as opposed to analysing the instantaneous impressions we obtain from first experience. In this paper, through a mass online rating experiment, 320 participants rated 64 sub-second vocal utterances of the word ‘hello’ on one of 10 personality traits. We show that: (1) personality judgements of brief utterances from unfamiliar speakers are consistent across listeners; (2) a two-dimensional ‘social voice space’ with axes mapping Valence (Trust, Likeability) and Dominance, each driven by differing combinations of vocal acoustics, adequately summarises ratings in both male and female voices; and (3) that a positive combination of Valence and Dominance results in increased perceived male vocal Attractiveness, whereas perceived female vocal Attractiveness is largely controlled by increasing Valence. Results are discussed in relation to the rapid evaluation of personality and, in turn, the intent of others, as being driven by survival mechanisms via approach or avoidance behaviours. These findings provide empirical bases for predicting personality impressions from acoustical analyses of short utterances and for generating desired personality impressions in artificial voices."

Transmètic — 1 May

Modulating between the abstract/(in)aesthetic through the rhythmic/4-to-the-floor and back again, Transmètic is a night of schizo-disciplinary interchange.

Featuring artwork/performance/music by:

Bibliothèque
DJ Big Lasagne
Tim Dixon
|end|
Rachael Finney
Hipofonéticas
it’s la*b
Karaoke Ziensgholt
Leonardo Liccini
Plastique Fantastique
rewot wint
Leonor Serrano-Rivas
So Liar X
Harrie Skully
Neasa Terry
Maria Yashchanka
Xi Xi Zhao Zou
+ More TBC

£3 on the door

FACEBOOK
This event is brought to you by students from
Department of (Aural &) Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths

Robot Whispers

http://www.minsukim.net/The-Illusion-of-Life

http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/17/illusion-of-life-minsu-kim-synthetic-whispers/

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/the-illusion-of-life-machine-can-mimic-human-whispers

Reminds me of the Cronenbergian phone we discussed in Vocalities but also the drive to bond with machines from the Turkle book.

Notice the slight assumption that emotional subtleties are already a form of language, signs or code that can be "imprinted onto senses" - like they are consistent, homogenous and quantifiable things that can exist outside of the user - objectified.

"Breath temperature, humidity, smell, and vocal qualities. It augments emotional subtleties and imprints them onto our senses."

Marc Couroux at LGS: “Sabotage the Audiostat! Hyperstitional Paracoustics & Chronoportational Pragmètics”

For lines of communication will progressively become cross-institutional circuits, the below…

LONDON GRADUATE SCHOOL with
ART + PHILOSOPHY at CENTRAL
ST. MARTINS will be hosting

“Sabotage the Audiostat! Hyperstitional Paracoustics & Chronoportational Pragmètics”
Marc Couroux (York University, Toronto)

16h-18h on APRIL 15, 2014
Granary Building, E003 (Central Saint Martins)

Music’s amenability to cybernetics is underlined by Claude Shannon, who defined a “singing condition ” as the inability of an automata to recognize its loopy entrapment. Music’s particular affordances, vitalities, and teleological necessities could serve as a model to help ensure a preordained future through the transformation and regulation of extra-musical sound, channelling the impersonal, inhuman death drive (positive feedback) into homeostatic equilibrium (negative feedback). Noise, far from being a nuisance to such cybernetic systems, is in fact essential to periodically restart them. How might an effectively transgressive practice operate given the alien, invasive neuro-military-entertainment avant-garde; what hyperstitional, paradromic methods might hijack and mutate uncommitted affective excess, escaping the reach of capitalist territorialization? This event is intended as a conversation probing the multifarious linkages between music, affective modulation and chronoportation.

Free event, all welcome.