EVENTS

ACADEMIC EVENTS

Workshops to be held throughout 2017:

1 Exchanging Perspectives: Machine Listening and Listening Machines

April 27-28. Sussex Humanities Lab, University of Sussex, Brighton

  • What are the challenges and opportunities of working with large digital audio databases for humanities researchers, sound artists and archivists?
  • How is machine listening being applied in other areas of research and practice and what can we learn from this?
  • What are the cultural, epistemological or phenomenological implications of technologically mediated listening?
  • How can ideas from the history of philosophy of technology be applied to productively shape ethical and technical designs in the future?

2 Understanding Distributed Agency Between Listening Algorithms and Humans

May 31-June 1. Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast

  • What can improvisation and computer music performance practices teach us about human-machine agency?
  • How might this inform or challenge our understanding of how we can actively listen together with machines?

3 Future Implications and Applications of Algorithmic Listening

Sept 14-15. Sussex Humanities Lab, University of Sussex, Brighton

  • What relationship do we want to have with listening algorithms and how do we go about designing them to achieve this?

PUBLIC EVENTS

Long table – Humanising Algorithmic Listening in Culture and Conservation

Sept 14th 20:00 as part of the 2017 Brighton Digital Festival

Inspired by the work of Lois Weaver, this Long Table discussion is a theatrical open-ended, non-hierarchical format for participatory debate. Speakers and audience switch places around a dinner table. In place of cutlery, coloured pens are provided to document discussions in drawing and/or writing on the table. Debate, dinner and theatre merge.

DIY radio transmission – Pi Streambox Workshop

Oct 12th 14:00 and 18:30 as part of the Brighton Digital Festival “Technology is not neutral. We’re inside of what we make, and it’s inside of us. We’re living in a world of connections — and it matters which ones get made and unmade.” Donna Haraway - 1991

Haraway was, as ever, prophetic: Our lives are now lived out in webs of technology. And we are beginning to appreciate both the promise and perils of our technologically mediated existences. By learning to make our own listening technologies, we can choose which connections are made, how, when, with who and why.

Run by Soundcamp, a group of artist-makers interested in the potential for DIY technologies to connect different locations, spanning rural, urban and hybrid environments, this two hour workshop will centre around making a rugged Raspberry Pi based netradio — or streambox — and DIY microphones. Participants will learn how to download and install open source software, assemble the equipment, and ins and outs of live audio streaming. The workshop will also cover streaming with a mobile phone or laptop.

Dialogue & Discussion