Speakers

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES + ABSTRACTS

Salomé Voegelin, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, UK

Biographical Note	Abstract Morality of the invisible, ethics of the inaudible
Salomé Voegelin is an artist and writer engaged in listening as a socio-political practice. She is the author of Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art, Continuum, NY, 2010, and Sonic Possible Worlds: Hearing the Continuum of Sound, which was published by Bloomsbury in 2014. Other recent writings include ‘During the Night Crops will Still Grow (unless the payers sleep)’, with David Mollin, in Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, Intellect 2015, and a chapter in the The Multisensory Museum, Alta Mira Press, 2014. Voegelin’s works collaboratively with David Mollin in a practice that focuses on text and sound and establishes through written and spoken words conversations and reconfigurations of relationships and realities. Voegelin and Mollin’s collaborative installations, performances and compositions have been presented for example at Artisphere, Washington DC, US in 2014, as part of Liquid Architecture Festival 2014, at Lydgalleriet in Bergen, Norway 2014, at the Kunstraum Riehen, Basel, Switzerland 2015 and most recently as part of the Marrakech Biennale, Morocco, 2016. Voegelin is an Associate Professor in Sound Arts at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. She has a PhD from Goldsmiths College, University of London. www.salomevoegelin.net	This presentation will consider the invisible mobility of sound and discuss how listening to its unseen processes might contribute to the articulation of a contemporary morality, and how it might be able to bring the unheard understood in the sense of Rancière’s ‘les sans-part’, ‘those that have no part’, into an ethical framework not as a simple inclusion but, as Étienne Balibar suggests as ‘an enunciation of the principle of radical democracy as the power of anyone at all.’ (Balibar, Equaliberty, 2014, p297) Sound, as material and as concept, illuminates the unseen processes of the world and invites us to see things in a different light. Listening we can experience the possible slices of this world, what might be and what else there is, to hear the construction of actuality and tune into other possibilities. A sonic sensibility grasps the invisible mobility of sound and hears the world as a possible world: a world that exists as a formless and radical plurality not defined by multiple factions and opposing shapes, but produced from the variants of this world and the practice of what they are together. I will argue that the formless fluidity of this possible world gives articulation to the transitory personhood and virtual materiality of neoliberal economics and politics; and makes visible the destruction of the welfare-state, its social responsibilities and identities, and the loss of its traditional morality. Neither a sonic possible world nor the contemporary fluidity of personhood and materiality can rely on pre-existing moral principles, shared emotions, or God. Instead they must engage the responsibility of each through an ethics of participation and thus they must make the invisible count as a voice in a formless world, rather than as the terror of a fragile and uncertain thing without citizenship, determined through and legitimising a divisive and totalitarian governance. And once we are attuned to the invisible we can lend our attention to what as yet remains inaudible: those ‘that have no part’, the erased and overheard voices, that cannot make themselves count in the constitution of a current actuality or its possibilities. The inaudible is the possible impossible of this world. It is its socio-political horizon beyond which we pretend not see anything even once we start to hear it rumble. Listening to work and sounds I aim to debate the morality of the invisible and consider the ethics of admittance into its audibility, to draw conclusions on a sonic possible impossible world that does not pluralise into fragile and opposing factions but collaborates in serendipitous formlessness ‘as the power of anyone at all’.

Biographical Note

Abstract

Morality of the invisible, ethics of the inaudible

Salomé Voegelin is an artist and writer engaged in listening as a socio-political practice. She is the author of Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art, Continuum, NY, 2010, and Sonic Possible Worlds: Hearing the Continuum of Sound, which was published by Bloomsbury in 2014. Other recent writings include ‘During the Night Crops will Still Grow (unless the payers sleep)’, with David Mollin, in Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, Intellect 2015, and a chapter in the The Multisensory Museum, Alta Mira Press, 2014. Voegelin’s works collaboratively with David Mollin in a practice that focuses on text and sound and establishes through written and spoken words conversations and reconfigurations of relationships and realities. Voegelin and Mollin’s collaborative installations, performances and compositions have been presented for example at Artisphere, Washington DC, US in 2014, as part of Liquid Architecture Festival 2014, at Lydgalleriet in Bergen, Norway 2014, at the Kunstraum Riehen, Basel, Switzerland 2015 and most recently as part of the Marrakech Biennale, Morocco, 2016. Voegelin is an Associate Professor in Sound Arts at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. She has a PhD from Goldsmiths College, University of London. www.salomevoegelin.net

This presentation will consider the invisible mobility of sound and discuss how listening to its unseen processes might contribute to the articulation of a contemporary morality, and how it might be able to bring the unheard understood in the sense of Rancière’s ‘les sans-part’, ‘those that have no part’, into an ethical framework not as a simple inclusion but, as Étienne Balibar suggests as ‘an enunciation of the principle of radical democracy as the power of anyone at all.’ (Balibar, Equaliberty, 2014, p297) Sound, as material and as concept, illuminates the unseen processes of the world and invites us to see things in a different light. Listening we can experience the possible slices of this world, what might be and what else there is, to hear the construction of actuality and tune into other possibilities. A sonic sensibility grasps the invisible mobility of sound and hears the world as a possible world: a world that exists as a formless and radical plurality not defined by multiple factions and opposing shapes, but produced from the variants of this world and the practice of what they are together. I will argue that the formless fluidity of this possible world gives articulation to the transitory personhood and virtual materiality of neoliberal economics and politics; and makes visible the destruction of the welfare-state, its social responsibilities and identities, and the loss of its traditional morality. Neither a sonic possible world nor the contemporary fluidity of personhood and materiality can rely on pre-existing moral principles, shared emotions, or God. Instead they must engage the responsibility of each through an ethics of participation and thus they must make the invisible count as a voice in a formless world, rather than as the terror of a fragile and uncertain thing without citizenship, determined through and legitimising a divisive and totalitarian governance. And once we are attuned to the invisible we can lend our attention to what as yet remains inaudible: those ‘that have no part’, the erased and overheard voices, that cannot make themselves count in the constitution of a current actuality or its possibilities. The inaudible is the possible impossible of this world. It is its socio-political horizon beyond which we pretend not see anything even once we start to hear it rumble. Listening to work and sounds I aim to debate the morality of the invisible and consider the ethics of admittance into its audibility, to draw conclusions on a sonic possible impossible world that does not pluralise into fragile and opposing factions but collaborates in serendipitous formlessness ‘as the power of anyone at all’.

Brandon LaBelle, Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway

Biographical Note	Abstract The Sonic Agent
Brandon LaBelle is an artist, writer and theorist working with sound culture, voice, and questions of agency. He develops and presents artistic projects and performances within a range of international contexts, often working collaboratively and in public. His artistic work has been presented at South London Gallery (2016), Liquid Architecture, Melbourne (2015), ngbk, Berlin (2014), Whitney Museum, NY (2012), Image Music Text, London (2011), Sonic Acts, Amsterdam (2010), A/V Festival, Newcastle (2008, 2010), Instal 10, Glasgow (2010), Museums Quartier/ Tonspur, Vienna (2009), 7th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Allegro (2009). Also a prolific writer, his books include Lexicon of the Mouth: Poetics and Politics of Voice and the Oral Imaginary (2014), Diary of an Imaginary Egyptian (2012), Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life (2010), and Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art (2015/2006). He is the editor of Errant Bodies Press and Professor at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway.	The presentation considers socio-political understandings of sound, and will attempt to pose the listening subject as a means for engaging the complexity of contemporary political struggle. This is developed through speculations on the topic of sonic agency, or what I’m interested to call the sonic agent. What kinds of alliances might sound and listening enable? Are there specific insurrectionary modalities to which sound is particularly conducive? The sonic agent will be used as a guide for imagining forms of emancipatory practices. This will be elaborated through considering The Invisible, The Overheard, The Weak, and The Transient as possible figures, or agents of sonic intervention, secrecy, withdrawal and co-sounding. These agents will be used to deepen acoustical thinking and imagining, especially for moving us from the major narratives of political crisis and disenfranchisement toward new expressions of public power, association, and occupation.

Biographical Note

Abstract

The Sonic Agent

Brandon LaBelle is an artist, writer and theorist working with sound culture, voice, and questions of agency. He develops and presents artistic projects and performances within a range of international contexts, often working collaboratively and in public. His artistic work has been presented at South London Gallery (2016), Liquid Architecture, Melbourne (2015), ngbk, Berlin (2014), Whitney Museum, NY (2012), Image Music Text, London (2011), Sonic Acts, Amsterdam (2010), A/V Festival, Newcastle (2008, 2010), Instal 10, Glasgow (2010), Museums Quartier/ Tonspur, Vienna (2009), 7th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Allegro (2009). Also a prolific writer, his books include Lexicon of the Mouth: Poetics and Politics of Voice and the Oral Imaginary (2014), Diary of an Imaginary Egyptian (2012), Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life (2010), and Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art (2015/2006). He is the editor of Errant Bodies Press and Professor at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway.

The presentation considers socio-political understandings of sound, and will attempt to pose the listening subject as a means for engaging the complexity of contemporary political struggle. This is developed through speculations on the topic of sonic agency, or what I’m interested to call the sonic agent. What kinds of alliances might sound and listening enable? Are there specific insurrectionary modalities to which sound is particularly conducive? The sonic agent will be used as a guide for imagining forms of emancipatory practices. This will be elaborated through considering The Invisible, The Overheard, The Weak, and The Transient as possible figures, or agents of sonic intervention, secrecy, withdrawal and co-sounding. These agents will be used to deepen acoustical thinking and imagining, especially for moving us from the major narratives of political crisis and disenfranchisement toward new expressions of public power, association, and occupation.

Hillel Schwartz, Independent scholar

Biographical Note
Hillel Schwartz is a cultural historian, poet, and translator. His current research on the history of changing notions and experiences of emergency was awarded a Berlin Prize in Cultural History for Fall 2014 by the American Academy in Berlin. His most recent opus as an historian is Making Noise: From Babel to the Big Bang, and Beyond (Zone/MIT, 2011). His translations from the Korean, in collaboration with Sunny Jung, have resulted in two volumes of poetry: Kim Nam-jo, Rain, Sky, Wind, Port (Codhill Press, 2014); Ko Un, Abiding Places: Korea South and North (Tupelo Press, 2006; finalist, Balcones Prize), and he continues to collaborate with Sang-Wha Lee on translations of other books by Ko Un. From 2009 to 2014, in tandem with a clinical psychologist he co-founded and directed a medical case management company that helped patients deal day-by-day with complex medical problems that required coordination of care among physicians, pharmacists, social workers, disability device designers, home health aides, caregivers, family members, and friends. Out of this experience came Long Days Last Days: A Down-to-Earth Guide for Those at the Bedside (2012). A graduate of Brandeis University, Berkeley, and Yale, Hillel Schwartz is an independent scholar but has taught occasionally in departments of history, literature, religious studies, communication, and visual arts, most recently at University of California, San Diego, where he was founding director of the core curriculum for Sixth College: Culture Art and Technology. He has also been project scholar for national and regional public arts initiatives in the United States, and for the design of the theme pavilion, “The Future of the Past,” at EXPO2000 in Hannover, Germany. During the 1990s he was Senior Advisor to the Millennium Institute for international outreach concerning networks for sustainability. As co-chair of the Drafting Group of the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions, he shaped the core interfaith document for the Parliament in Capetown, S.A., in 1999, where 400 spiritual leaders and activists worked from a statement of Global Ethics toward a Call to the Leading Institutions for specific commitments to change in the next decades. Nothing came of this.

Biographical Note

Hillel Schwartz is a cultural historian, poet, and translator. His current research on the history of changing notions and experiences of emergency was awarded a Berlin Prize in Cultural History for Fall 2014 by the American Academy in Berlin. His most recent opus as an historian is Making Noise: From Babel to the Big Bang, and Beyond (Zone/MIT, 2011). His translations from the Korean, in collaboration with Sunny Jung, have resulted in two volumes of poetry: Kim Nam-jo, Rain, Sky, Wind, Port (Codhill Press, 2014); Ko Un, Abiding Places: Korea South and North (Tupelo Press, 2006; finalist, Balcones Prize), and he continues to collaborate with Sang-Wha Lee on translations of other books by Ko Un. From 2009 to 2014, in tandem with a clinical psychologist he co-founded and directed a medical case management company that helped patients deal day-by-day with complex medical problems that required coordination of care among physicians, pharmacists, social workers, disability device designers, home health aides, caregivers, family members, and friends. Out of this experience came Long Days Last Days: A Down-to-Earth Guide for Those at the Bedside (2012). A graduate of Brandeis University, Berkeley, and Yale, Hillel Schwartz is an independent scholar but has taught occasionally in departments of history, literature, religious studies, communication, and visual arts, most recently at University of California, San Diego, where he was founding director of the core curriculum for Sixth College: Culture Art and Technology. He has also been project scholar for national and regional public arts initiatives in the United States, and for the design of the theme pavilion, “The Future of the Past,” at EXPO2000 in Hannover, Germany. During the 1990s he was Senior Advisor to the Millennium Institute for international outreach concerning networks for sustainability. As co-chair of the Drafting Group of the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions, he shaped the core interfaith document for the Parliament in Capetown, S.A., in 1999, where 400 spiritual leaders and activists worked from a statement of Global Ethics toward a Call to the Leading Institutions for specific commitments to change in the next decades. Nothing came of this.

Christopher Fynsk, European Graduate School, Switzerland and Malta

Biographical Note	Abstract

PLENARY SPEAKERS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES + ABSTRACTS

Panel 1: within a distance: post-foundational reverbs

Marcel Cobussen, Leiden University, Netherlands

Biographical Note	Abstract Music and Ethics
Marcel Cobussen is Professor of Auditory Culture and Music Philosophy at Leiden University (the Netherlands) and the Orpheus Institute in Ghent (Belgium). He studied jazz piano at the Conservatory of Rotterdam and Art and Cultural Studies at Erasmus University, Rotterdam Cobussen is author of The Field of Musical Improvisation (LUP, 2016) and Thresholds. Rethinking Spirituality Through Music (Ashgate, 2008) and co-author of Music and Ethics (Ashgate, 2012) and Dionysos danst weer. Essays over hedendaagse muziekbeleving (Kok Agora, 1996). He is co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art (Routledge, 2016) and editor of Resonanties. Verkenningen tussen kunsten en wetenschappen (LUP, 2011). He is editor-in-chief of the open access online Journal of Sonic Studies (www.sonicstudies.org). His PhD dissertation Deconstruction in Music (2002) is presented as an online website located at www.deconstruction-in-music.com.	What can music contribute to current debates on ethics as well as to concrete moral behavior? What can it contribute as music, that is, as a non-discursive sonority (Derrida)? How can it contribute in a way which is inaccessible to other cultural fields (philosophy, political science, religious studies, cultural studies, sociology, etc.)? In my presentation I would like to focus on the possible contribution of musical improvisation to ethics and morality. It is my claim that the social interactions which are taking place during an improvisation might give access to an ethical space between, on the one hand, a highly individual responsibility and, on the other, a so-called communitarian and pre-established set of shared rules and principles on how to behave. In order to articulate this (musical or sonic) space between an ethics based on individual and collective responsibility, I make use of Jean-Luc Nancy’s thoughts on “being-with.” According to Nancy “being” is always a “being-with-others,” the “with” creating a double bind of both connection and division. This being-with-others imposes on each human an existential responsibility (in other words, not individual), however, without clear guidelines on how to act (in other words, not communitarian). In my opinion, Nancy expresses – implicitly and in more general terms – what is (sometimes) happening in improvised music. I will unfold my idea about a possible contribution of music to ethics and morality through the music of the second Miles Davis Quintet.

Biographical Note

Abstract

Music and Ethics

Marcel Cobussen is Professor of Auditory Culture and Music Philosophy at Leiden University (the Netherlands) and the Orpheus Institute in Ghent (Belgium). He studied jazz piano at the Conservatory of Rotterdam and Art and Cultural Studies at Erasmus University, Rotterdam Cobussen is author of The Field of Musical Improvisation (LUP, 2016) and Thresholds. Rethinking Spirituality Through Music (Ashgate, 2008) and co-author of Music and Ethics (Ashgate, 2012) and Dionysos danst weer. Essays over hedendaagse muziekbeleving (Kok Agora, 1996). He is co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art (Routledge, 2016) and editor of Resonanties. Verkenningen tussen kunsten en wetenschappen (LUP, 2011). He is editor-in-chief of the open access online Journal of Sonic Studies (www.sonicstudies.org). His PhD dissertation Deconstruction in Music (2002) is presented as an online website located at www.deconstruction-in-music.com.

What can music contribute to current debates on ethics as well as to concrete moral behavior? What can it contribute as music, that is, as a non-discursive sonority (Derrida)? How can it contribute in a way which is inaccessible to other cultural fields (philosophy, political science, religious studies, cultural studies, sociology, etc.)? In my presentation I would like to focus on the possible contribution of musical improvisation to ethics and morality. It is my claim that the social interactions which are taking place during an improvisation might give access to an ethical space between, on the one hand, a highly individual responsibility and, on the other, a so-called communitarian and pre-established set of shared rules and principles on how to behave. In order to articulate this (musical or sonic) space between an ethics based on individual and collective responsibility, I make use of Jean-Luc Nancy’s thoughts on “being-with.” According to Nancy “being” is always a “being-with-others,” the “with” creating a double bind of both connection and division. This being-with-others imposes on each human an existential responsibility (in other words, not individual), however, without clear guidelines on how to act (in other words, not communitarian). In my opinion, Nancy expresses – implicitly and in more general terms – what is (sometimes) happening in improvised music. I will unfold my idea about a possible contribution of music to ethics and morality through the music of the second Miles Davis Quintet.

Yoni Niv, New York University

Biographical Note	Abstract "Memory, Psychology—Never Again:” Cage and Lacan
Dr. Yoni Niv is a composer, sound artist, curator, and theorist. He holds a doctoral degree in composition and theory from New York University, where he concentrated on the relations between privileged modes of thinking temporality and corresponding claims to musical knowledge in the late 20th century compositional discourse from a psychoanalytic, particularly Lacanian, perspective. Yoni taught at CUNY, NYU and The New School. In Israel he co-founded the Advanced Study Program in Sound Art and Experimental Music at Musrara School of art, while he also teaches at Hamidrasha school of art. Yoni is an active member within the small sound-art and experimental music community in Israel and co-director of the Israeli new music ensemble Musica Nova. He writes acoustic and electro-acoustic compositions integrating a wide range of performance practices, often in collaboration with artists of different mediums. His music has been performed by distinguished new music ensembles such as KNM Berlin, International Music Ensemble (ICE), and the JACK Quartet, and his sound installations have been presented at the Tel Aviv Museum, the Chelsea Art Museum, and Harvestworks Digital Media.	The work of experimental composer John Cage is widely regarded as a reversal of the epistemological mandate of the Cartesian-Kantian tradition, both in concept and in praxis. Cage’s ‘emancipatory project’ involves setting artistic creation free of “taste, memory and desire,” an injunction that Cage articulated in the most precise manner in his Experimental Music: Doctrine: “memory, psychology—never again.” Curiously, the injunction to put an end to the endless metonymic representations of desire, beyond which one encounters what is, properly speaking, "the world of nature," (the Real), constitutes the bulk of what French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan had to say with regard to the end of analysis. Arguably, for both Cage and Lacan this turning point beyond "memory and desire" revolves around the question of theatricality. The paper stages an encounter between Lacan and John Cage on the question of the end of analysis. I examine the curious relationship between Cage’s notion of indeterminicity and his correlative turn towards theatricality in the wake of Lacan’s reading of Antigone. Under the sign of a return to Aristotle (particularly the Poetics), I argue for a structural affinity between the Lacanian logic of the cure and Cage’s compositional processes.

Biographical Note

Abstract

"Memory, Psychology—Never Again:” Cage and Lacan

Dr. Yoni Niv is a composer, sound artist, curator, and theorist. He holds a doctoral degree in composition and theory from New York University, where he concentrated on the relations between privileged modes of thinking temporality and corresponding claims to musical knowledge in the late 20th century compositional discourse from a psychoanalytic, particularly Lacanian, perspective. Yoni taught at CUNY, NYU and The New School. In Israel he co-founded the Advanced Study Program in Sound Art and Experimental Music at Musrara School of art, while he also teaches at Hamidrasha school of art. Yoni is an active member within the small sound-art and experimental music community in Israel and co-director of the Israeli new music ensemble Musica Nova. He writes acoustic and electro-acoustic compositions integrating a wide range of performance practices, often in collaboration with artists of different mediums. His music has been performed by distinguished new music ensembles such as KNM Berlin, International Music Ensemble (ICE), and the JACK Quartet, and his sound installations have been presented at the Tel Aviv Museum, the Chelsea Art Museum, and Harvestworks Digital Media.

The work of experimental composer John Cage is widely regarded as a reversal of the epistemological mandate of the Cartesian-Kantian tradition, both in concept and in praxis. Cage’s ‘emancipatory project’ involves setting artistic creation free of “taste, memory and desire,” an injunction that Cage articulated in the most precise manner in his Experimental Music: Doctrine: “memory, psychology—never again.” Curiously, the injunction to put an end to the endless metonymic representations of desire, beyond which one encounters what is, properly speaking, "the world of nature," (the Real), constitutes the bulk of what French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan had to say with regard to the end of analysis. Arguably, for both Cage and Lacan this turning point beyond "memory and desire" revolves around the question of theatricality. The paper stages an encounter between Lacan and John Cage on the question of the end of analysis. I examine the curious relationship between Cage’s notion of indeterminicity and his correlative turn towards theatricality in the wake of Lacan’s reading of Antigone. Under the sign of a return to Aristotle (particularly the Poetics), I argue for a structural affinity between the Lacanian logic of the cure and Cage’s compositional processes.

Ido Govrin, Western University, Canada

Biographical Note	Abstract Tears, Fears and Flashes – Theory Act #4
Ido Govrin (b. 1976) is a multidisciplinary artist and scholar whose practice includes sound, installation, printmaking and text. Govrin has studied art and philosophy in Israel, Holland and Canada. He holds a BA in philosophy from Tel-Aviv University (2012), an MFA from the University of Toronto (2014) and is currently a PhD candidate at Western University (Canada). Recent solo exhibitions include Silent Maps (2016), To return to a place, is, like dying (2015), and Vaalbara (2014). He regularly exhibits across North America, Europe and Israel. In addition to his work as an artist, he has curated a series of five contemporary art exhibitions under the title Laptopia (2005-11) and the group exhibition Mother, Ravens! (2012). Between 2008 and 2012, he was the director of Musica Nova ensemble, which has been at the forefront of Israel’s experimental music scene since the 1980s. Govrin has released two full-length studio albums, Moraine (2010) and The Revisit (2011), as well as various other EPs. Since 2005, he has run the record label Interval Recordings. www.idogovrin.net / www.interval-recordings.com	“The question of understanding is not about intelligence; it is about feeling, about entering into contact.” (Clarice Lispector) Tears, Fears and Flashes – Theory Act #4 considers the relationship between interpersonal understanding and propagandist rhetoric with respect to a sound-based aesthetic experience, as well as speculates on the ethical implications of this difficult but often present relationship.

Biographical Note

Abstract

Tears, Fears and Flashes – Theory Act #4

Ido Govrin (b. 1976) is a multidisciplinary artist and scholar whose practice includes sound, installation, printmaking and text. Govrin has studied art and philosophy in Israel, Holland and Canada. He holds a BA in philosophy from Tel-Aviv University (2012), an MFA from the University of Toronto (2014) and is currently a PhD candidate at Western University (Canada). Recent solo exhibitions include Silent Maps (2016), To return to a place, is, like dying (2015), and Vaalbara (2014). He regularly exhibits across North America, Europe and Israel. In addition to his work as an artist, he has curated a series of five contemporary art exhibitions under the title Laptopia (2005-11) and the group exhibition Mother, Ravens! (2012). Between 2008 and 2012, he was the director of Musica Nova ensemble, which has been at the forefront of Israel’s experimental music scene since the 1980s. Govrin has released two full-length studio albums, Moraine (2010) and The Revisit (2011), as well as various other EPs. Since 2005, he has run the record label Interval Recordings. www.idogovrin.net / www.interval-recordings.com

“The question of understanding is not about intelligence; it is about feeling, about entering into contact.” (Clarice Lispector) Tears, Fears and Flashes – Theory Act #4 considers the relationship between interpersonal understanding and propagandist rhetoric with respect to a sound-based aesthetic experience, as well as speculates on the ethical implications of this difficult but often present relationship.

Panel 2: Political aesthesis and sounds’ retreat

Irene Noy, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London

Biographical Note	Abstract What does the Union of Aural and Visual Representation have to do with Gender?
Dr. Irene Noy is a research fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her research explores aural and visual representations of gender in works produced in Britain and Germany. She currently works on a book project entitled Emergency Noises: Sound Art and Gender in the West German Context and Beyond. She is the founder of the inter-disciplinary research network What Sense is There in Art? The Politics of (Multisensory) Experiences which examines practices from a variety of art historical periods that challenge the hierarchy of the senses. Irene received her education from the University of Bonn (Germany), University of British Columbia (Canada) and the Courtauld Institute of Art (UK).	In spite of the term sound art only entering common usage since the 1980s, a fairly solid narrative of what this field entails already exists. This narrative proposes, on the one hand, an alternative force to the concept of absolute music and on the other, a link to visual arts’ dematerialisation. The predominant emphasis on the material of sound as a source of experience outside the symbolic system is problematic when considering the historiography of senses and feminist accounts on matter, such as those by Judith Butler. In this paper, I would like to juxtapose sources from the fields of art, music, exhibition history and feminism in order to explore a gendered reading of the unity between the visual and the aural as expressed in a number of case studies from sound art between 1960s and 1980s. Focusing and building on Germany’s rich legacy in the field, I argue that little known artists such as Gerda Nettesheim and Monika von Wedel together with more established names such as Hildegard Westerkamp and Christina Kubisch opened up alternative possibilities of self-definition and agency for women. Such communication models were made possible by exploring links between visual and aural representation.

Biographical Note

Abstract

What does the Union of Aural and Visual Representation have to do with Gender?

Dr. Irene Noy is a research fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her research explores aural and visual representations of gender in works produced in Britain and Germany. She currently works on a book project entitled Emergency Noises: Sound Art and Gender in the West German Context and Beyond. She is the founder of the inter-disciplinary research network What Sense is There in Art? The Politics of (Multisensory) Experiences which examines practices from a variety of art historical periods that challenge the hierarchy of the senses. Irene received her education from the University of Bonn (Germany), University of British Columbia (Canada) and the Courtauld Institute of Art (UK).

In spite of the term sound art only entering common usage since the 1980s, a fairly solid narrative of what this field entails already exists. This narrative proposes, on the one hand, an alternative force to the concept of absolute music and on the other, a link to visual arts’ dematerialisation. The predominant emphasis on the material of sound as a source of experience outside the symbolic system is problematic when considering the historiography of senses and feminist accounts on matter, such as those by Judith Butler. In this paper, I would like to juxtapose sources from the fields of art, music, exhibition history and feminism in order to explore a gendered reading of the unity between the visual and the aural as expressed in a number of case studies from sound art between 1960s and 1980s. Focusing and building on Germany’s rich legacy in the field, I argue that little known artists such as Gerda Nettesheim and Monika von Wedel together with more established names such as Hildegard Westerkamp and Christina Kubisch opened up alternative possibilities of self-definition and agency for women. Such communication models were made possible by exploring links between visual and aural representation.

Alison Boyd, Northwestern University, USA

Biographical Note	Abstract Seeing Music and Hearing Paintings: African American Spirituals at the Barnes Foundation in the 1920s
Alison Boyd is a Ph.D Candidate in the Art History Department of Northwestern University and a Mellon Fellow in the Gender and Sexuality Studies Cluster. This Fall she will defend her dissertation entitled: “Modernism for America: Africanism and other Primitivisms at the Barnes Foundation 1919-1951.”. She is currently living in Florence as a Doctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute/Kunsthistorisches Institut where she is a member of the Research Group “Objects in the Contact Zone: The Cross Cultural Lives of Things,” which studies the reception and social life of non-Western objects exhibited in Western art museums.	Philadelphia art collector, Albert Barnes (1872-1951), is famous for his enormous collection of modern art, with hundreds of works by Renoir, Picasso and Cezanne. However, it is less known that his foundation was equally invested in the study and promotion of music, particularly African American Spirituals. Indeed, Barnes saw these forms—modern art and black music—as inextricably linked. He would regularly play Paul Robeson records on his Victrola or invite an African American choir to sing in his art galleries, and his lectures would encourage students to see/hear formal similarities between specific paintings and songs. At the same time, Barnes differentiated between these forms, using primitivist language to describe the emotionality and vitality of black music, while he presented his art collection as sophisticated and modern. Central to this paper is my analysis of how African American spirituals made meaning at the Barnes Foundation in the 1920s and the ethical implications of these pairings. Barnes required a fundamental act of translation as audiences were asked to see the sonic in paintings and to hear the visual in songs. I argue that Barnes’s African American interlocutor W.E.B. Du Bois’s seminal text, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), serves as both the model and the foil for Barnes’s events. It famously introduced each of its chapters with transcribed musical notations from an African American spiritual paired with a stanza of canonical European poetry. The book was an important early work of what is now termed ‘sonic afro-modernity’; the emergence of modern black culture through music. Crucial to Du Bois’s musical strategy was that the aural was central to expressions of black subjectivity since racism existed under Western visual regimes. This raises the questions: what are the ethical implications of Barnes using African American spirituals to enliven and explicate paintings by (white) European modernists? If black music was a way to evade the visual regimes of racism, what then does it mean that at the Barnes Foundation they were used towards the primary goal of explaining modern European painting?

Biographical Note

Abstract

Seeing Music and Hearing Paintings: African American Spirituals at the Barnes Foundation in the 1920s

Alison Boyd is a Ph.D Candidate in the Art History Department of Northwestern University and a Mellon Fellow in the Gender and Sexuality Studies Cluster. This Fall she will defend her dissertation entitled: “Modernism for America: Africanism and other Primitivisms at the Barnes Foundation 1919-1951.”. She is currently living in Florence as a Doctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute/Kunsthistorisches Institut where she is a member of the Research Group “Objects in the Contact Zone: The Cross Cultural Lives of Things,” which studies the reception and social life of non-Western objects exhibited in Western art museums.

Philadelphia art collector, Albert Barnes (1872-1951), is famous for his enormous collection of modern art, with hundreds of works by Renoir, Picasso and Cezanne. However, it is less known that his foundation was equally invested in the study and promotion of music, particularly African American Spirituals. Indeed, Barnes saw these forms—modern art and black music—as inextricably linked. He would regularly play Paul Robeson records on his Victrola or invite an African American choir to sing in his art galleries, and his lectures would encourage students to see/hear formal similarities between specific paintings and songs. At the same time, Barnes differentiated between these forms, using primitivist language to describe the emotionality and vitality of black music, while he presented his art collection as sophisticated and modern. Central to this paper is my analysis of how African American spirituals made meaning at the Barnes Foundation in the 1920s and the ethical implications of these pairings. Barnes required a fundamental act of translation as audiences were asked to see the sonic in paintings and to hear the visual in songs. I argue that Barnes’s African American interlocutor W.E.B. Du Bois’s seminal text, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), serves as both the model and the foil for Barnes’s events. It famously introduced each of its chapters with transcribed musical notations from an African American spiritual paired with a stanza of canonical European poetry. The book was an important early work of what is now termed ‘sonic afro-modernity’; the emergence of modern black culture through music. Crucial to Du Bois’s musical strategy was that the aural was central to expressions of black subjectivity since racism existed under Western visual regimes. This raises the questions: what are the ethical implications of Barnes using African American spirituals to enliven and explicate paintings by (white) European modernists? If black music was a way to evade the visual regimes of racism, what then does it mean that at the Barnes Foundation they were used towards the primary goal of explaining modern European painting?

Ruthie Abeliovich, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Biographical Note	Abstract A Russian Biblical Play Performed in Hebrew with Oriental Melodies: On the Ethics of Voice in Dramatic Recitation
Ruthie Abeliovich is a Post-Doctoral researcher at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Social Sciences and Humanities, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, were she also teaches at the Theatre Studies department. Her research focuses on audio-visual aesthetics in 20th century theatre and performance art. She has published articles in The Drama Review, Performance Research, Theatre Journal, and Theatre Research International. Her current research project focuses on a sound archive of audio recordings of theatre productions from the early modernist Hebrew theatre. ruthie.abeliovich@mail.huji.ac.il	This presentation focuses on the ethical reverbs of dramatic recitation in a radio recording of Yaackov and Rachel, a Biblical play written in Russian by N. Krasheninnikov, then translated into Hebrew and performed by the Zionist Workers’ theatre “The Ohel” (1928). The sound recording reveals an intriguing vocal ethics embedded in this performance: The Biblical figures recite the text in Hebrew with a melodious rendition that combines Sephardi and Yemenite cantillation patterns with Arabic pronunciation, in East European accents. This complexity unfolds the meta-cultural debate regarding the self-definition of the new Hebraic culture during its formative years: How did the reviving Hebrew language manifest the connection of the Jewish people to their historical homeland? What was the guiding logic of the Ohel actors when combining oriental rhythmical patterns, and Arabic phonetic pronunciations within their Hebrew speech? This presentation probes into the ethical issues grounded in the language and sound organization presented in this recording, and interrogates how the act of listening bears the potential to carve a communal identity and consciousness.

Biographical Note

Abstract

A Russian Biblical Play Performed in Hebrew with Oriental Melodies: On the Ethics of Voice in Dramatic Recitation

Ruthie Abeliovich is a Post-Doctoral researcher at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Social Sciences and Humanities, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, were she also teaches at the Theatre Studies department. Her research focuses on audio-visual aesthetics in 20th century theatre and performance art. She has published articles in The Drama Review, Performance Research, Theatre Journal, and Theatre Research International. Her current research project focuses on a sound archive of audio recordings of theatre productions from the early modernist Hebrew theatre. ruthie.abeliovich@mail.huji.ac.il

This presentation focuses on the ethical reverbs of dramatic recitation in a radio recording of Yaackov and Rachel, a Biblical play written in Russian by N. Krasheninnikov, then translated into Hebrew and performed by the Zionist Workers’ theatre “The Ohel” (1928). The sound recording reveals an intriguing vocal ethics embedded in this performance: The Biblical figures recite the text in Hebrew with a melodious rendition that combines Sephardi and Yemenite cantillation patterns with Arabic pronunciation, in East European accents. This complexity unfolds the meta-cultural debate regarding the self-definition of the new Hebraic culture during its formative years: How did the reviving Hebrew language manifest the connection of the Jewish people to their historical homeland? What was the guiding logic of the Ohel actors when combining oriental rhythmical patterns, and Arabic phonetic pronunciations within their Hebrew speech? This presentation probes into the ethical issues grounded in the language and sound organization presented in this recording, and interrogates how the act of listening bears the potential to carve a communal identity and consciousness.

Performance

Joseph Sprinzak, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Biographical Note	Abstract Poetic intersections between Sound, Maps and Performance
Vocal and Performance artist living and working from Tel-Aviv. Among the first sound poets in Israel. Performs in various events of music, performance art, visual art, poetry and theater in Israel and in Europe. His Ph.D. degree in the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev dealt with the history and poetics of text sound art. Currently conducting his post-doc research in “Daat Hamakom” Center for Modern Jewish Culture.	A short performance and talk. The performance is an embodied mapping of an architectural space through sound. The work was created in Hansen House, a former leper’s hospital in Jerusalem, and it responds to the narratives and power struggles embedded in the architecture of the site. I examine the relationship between cartography and sound, referring to performative practices such as the Aboriginal Songlines as well as vocal instructions of contemporary GPS systems. I made a sound map of the Hansen House compound by recording my footsteps in different locations. The clips, sorted according to sonic and thematic parameters, were hooked up to a keyboard. I can play my walks on the keyboard and also play impossible walks that I imagine. This action can be viewed as a sonic implementation of the urban practice of walking which Michel de Certeau referred to as a “chorus of idle footsteps”. An additional vocal layer consists of verbal walking instructions that are transformed into a poetic text evoking the place’s invisible borderlines and memories. The short talk following the performance presents the relationship between sound and maps as one constantly shifting between cooperation and resistance. It also points out the way the sense of orientation and the construction of memories are bound together. As an artistic action, mapping places through sound offers new poetic possibilities to tell spatial stories in a way that reflects upon the effect of contemporary location-based technologies on our relationships with the surrounding space.

Biographical Note

Abstract

Poetic intersections between Sound, Maps and Performance

Vocal and Performance artist living and working from Tel-Aviv. Among the first sound poets in Israel. Performs in various events of music, performance art, visual art, poetry and theater in Israel and in Europe. His Ph.D. degree in the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev dealt with the history and poetics of text sound art. Currently conducting his post-doc research in “Daat Hamakom” Center for Modern Jewish Culture.

A short performance and talk. The performance is an embodied mapping of an architectural space through sound. The work was created in Hansen House, a former leper’s hospital in Jerusalem, and it responds to the narratives and power struggles embedded in the architecture of the site. I examine the relationship between cartography and sound, referring to performative practices such as the Aboriginal Songlines as well as vocal instructions of contemporary GPS systems. I made a sound map of the Hansen House compound by recording my footsteps in different locations. The clips, sorted according to sonic and thematic parameters, were hooked up to a keyboard. I can play my walks on the keyboard and also play impossible walks that I imagine. This action can be viewed as a sonic implementation of the urban practice of walking which Michel de Certeau referred to as a “chorus of idle footsteps”. An additional vocal layer consists of verbal walking instructions that are transformed into a poetic text evoking the place’s invisible borderlines and memories. The short talk following the performance presents the relationship between sound and maps as one constantly shifting between cooperation and resistance. It also points out the way the sense of orientation and the construction of memories are bound together. As an artistic action, mapping places through sound offers new poetic possibilities to tell spatial stories in a way that reflects upon the effect of contemporary location-based technologies on our relationships with the surrounding space.

Panel 3: Making an expanse: Topologies of poiēsis

David Nowell Smith, University of East Anglia, Norwich

Biographical Note	Abstract Devocalisation and the fate of poiesis
David Nowell Smith is Senior Lecturer in Poetry/Poetics in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia. He is author of Sounding/Silence: Martin Heidegger at the Limits of Poetics (Fordham UP, 2013), and On Voice in Poetry: The Work of Animation (Palgrave, 2015), and co-editor, with Abigail Lang, of Modernist Legacies: Trends and Faultlines in British Poetry Today (Palgrave, 2015).	‘But poetry makes nothing happen’, wrote WH Auden in his 1939 poem ‘In Memory of WB Yeats’. These lines are often invoked as a reminder of the political ineffectiveness of poetry (Auden is reflecting both on Yeats’s own commitments to the Irish independence movement, and on the rise of Nazi barbarism leading up to World War II), and particularly significant in this regard is the choice of the word ‘makes’ in Auden’s phrase: ‘making’, after all, points back to the Ancient Greek poiesis. Poetry, would run Auden’s provocation, has been deprived of the ancient vocation from which it first received its name. And yet, searching for consolation, he continues: ‘it survives, a way of happening, a mouth’—perhaps it no longer makes, but it happens nonetheless. My paper will takes as its starting point Auden’s final image: ‘a mouth’? Why should Auden invoke orality at this juncture? I will suggest that the poietic vocation of poetry, and of art more generally (its ability to ‘make things happen) is intricately bound up with its ‘mouth’. It reads three accounts—from Hegel, Heidegger, and Marcel Detienne—of how poetry lost its claim to speak ‘truth’, and show how in each the central motif is that of what Adriana Cavarero has called ‘the devocalisation of logos’: the metaphysics through which linguistic meaning is extricated both from its body of flesh, and from the event of its utterance. It was as embodied act that poetic/poietic language could be conceived of as ‘making’, and when the paper reflects on what contemporary poetry might be able to ‘make’, or ‘make happen’, it will suggest first and foremost that poetry remakes our own inhabitation of our voices, to grasp voice both as ethical site of our openness to otherness, and political site for the construction of a collective subjectivity.

Biographical Note

Abstract

Devocalisation and the fate of poiesis

David Nowell Smith is Senior Lecturer in Poetry/Poetics in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia. He is author of Sounding/Silence: Martin Heidegger at the Limits of Poetics (Fordham UP, 2013), and On Voice in Poetry: The Work of Animation (Palgrave, 2015), and co-editor, with Abigail Lang, of Modernist Legacies: Trends and Faultlines in British Poetry Today (Palgrave, 2015).

‘But poetry makes nothing happen’, wrote WH Auden in his 1939 poem ‘In Memory of WB Yeats’. These lines are often invoked as a reminder of the political ineffectiveness of poetry (Auden is reflecting both on Yeats’s own commitments to the Irish independence movement, and on the rise of Nazi barbarism leading up to World War II), and particularly significant in this regard is the choice of the word ‘makes’ in Auden’s phrase: ‘making’, after all, points back to the Ancient Greek poiesis. Poetry, would run Auden’s provocation, has been deprived of the ancient vocation from which it first received its name. And yet, searching for consolation, he continues: ‘it survives, a way of happening, a mouth’—perhaps it no longer makes, but it happens nonetheless. My paper will takes as its starting point Auden’s final image: ‘a mouth’? Why should Auden invoke orality at this juncture? I will suggest that the poietic vocation of poetry, and of art more generally (its ability to ‘make things happen) is intricately bound up with its ‘mouth’. It reads three accounts—from Hegel, Heidegger, and Marcel Detienne—of how poetry lost its claim to speak ‘truth’, and show how in each the central motif is that of what Adriana Cavarero has called ‘the devocalisation of logos’: the metaphysics through which linguistic meaning is extricated both from its body of flesh, and from the event of its utterance. It was as embodied act that poetic/poietic language could be conceived of as ‘making’, and when the paper reflects on what contemporary poetry might be able to ‘make’, or ‘make happen’, it will suggest first and foremost that poetry remakes our own inhabitation of our voices, to grasp voice both as ethical site of our openness to otherness, and political site for the construction of a collective subjectivity.

Roi Tartakovsky, Tel Aviv University

Biographical Note	Abstract The Poetic Mode of Hearing and Listening
After two years as a visiting scholar at NYU, Roi Tartakovsky is now a member of the Department of English and American Studies at Tel Aviv University. His teaching and research are in the field of British and American poetry, and he works on issues of sound, prosody, and poetic form. He recently guest-edited a special issue of Style on Free Verse Rhythms, and is currently completing a manuscript on rhyme.	A parent typically wants the child to “listen,” a publisher seeks out emerging new “voices,” an individual bemoans not being “heard.” Contrary to these figurative appeals to sound, sound is in fact a stratum of language that we rarely attend to. It seems that when we recognize what we are hearing as (meaningful) speech, we tend to suppress, or under-hear, the acoustic information inherent in the sounds. But what are the exceptional states in which we linger on the sounds themselves? Cognitive poetician Rueven Tsur postulates a “poetic mode” of listening, in which some of the rich acoustic information of the sound stratum, the very acoustic information that is trumped in the “speech mode,” actually enters consciousness. Identifying this poetic listening opens up the possibility of thinking of the sense/sound relationship as exhibiting a conscious/unconscious divide, and offers up poetry as a site in which the unconscious becomes (more) palpable. Sound thus becomes the “unconscious” of the text, manifesting not just in the sound devices that have become institutionalized in verse (e.g. rhyme, alliteration), but in a whole tapestry of unnamed and subliminally perceived sound effects (e.g. metallic consonants, dark vowels). An encounter with sound-in-language, or rather language-as-sound, is particularly rewarding in poetry, and I end by suggesting its value vis-à-vis recent attacks on poetry.

Biographical Note

Abstract

The Poetic Mode of Hearing and Listening

After two years as a visiting scholar at NYU, Roi Tartakovsky is now a member of the Department of English and American Studies at Tel Aviv University. His teaching and research are in the field of British and American poetry, and he works on issues of sound, prosody, and poetic form. He recently guest-edited a special issue of Style on Free Verse Rhythms, and is currently completing a manuscript on rhyme.

A parent typically wants the child to “listen,” a publisher seeks out emerging new “voices,” an individual bemoans not being “heard.” Contrary to these figurative appeals to sound, sound is in fact a stratum of language that we rarely attend to. It seems that when we recognize what we are hearing as (meaningful) speech, we tend to suppress, or under-hear, the acoustic information inherent in the sounds. But what are the exceptional states in which we linger on the sounds themselves? Cognitive poetician Rueven Tsur postulates a “poetic mode” of listening, in which some of the rich acoustic information of the sound stratum, the very acoustic information that is trumped in the “speech mode,” actually enters consciousness. Identifying this poetic listening opens up the possibility of thinking of the sense/sound relationship as exhibiting a conscious/unconscious divide, and offers up poetry as a site in which the unconscious becomes (more) palpable. Sound thus becomes the “unconscious” of the text, manifesting not just in the sound devices that have become institutionalized in verse (e.g. rhyme, alliteration), but in a whole tapestry of unnamed and subliminally perceived sound effects (e.g. metallic consonants, dark vowels). An encounter with sound-in-language, or rather language-as-sound, is particularly rewarding in poetry, and I end by suggesting its value vis-à-vis recent attacks on poetry.

Ed Smith, Marist College, New York

Biographical Note	Abstract Glory Unending
Ed Smith is a Guggenheim Fellow in Sculpture and Drawing and a former Associate Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. His work is represented in public and private collections in the United States and abroad. These include The British Museum, The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp Belgium, Ministry of the Flemish Community, The Hood Museum, the Davis Museum, Yale University and many more. He has over 60 one person exhibitions and innumerable group exhibitions which include, the Queens Museum, Brooklyn Museum, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh Scotland, Hillwood Art Museum, Caversham Press South Africa, Fleming Museum, Schenectady Museum, The Albright Knox Museum, the Albrecht-Kemper Museum, The Arkell Museum and many others. His work has been written about and reviewed in the New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, The Baltimore Evening Sun, Art News, the Miami Herald, The Albany Times Union, Giornale Dell’Arte, San Francisco Examiner, Art New England and many others. Currently Gallery Director, Director of Marist Venice Biennale Program and Professor of Art at Marist College, Ed Smith has been a Visiting Artist, Lecturer, Artist–in-Residence, Professor and Distinguished Visiting Artist at American University, Bennington College, Bard College, Brandies University, Boston University, Clark University, Dartmouth College, Glasgow School of Art, The Art Academy of London, Dia Art Center, Kansas State University, Lacoste School of the Arts in France, New York Studio School, Parsons School of Art, Pratt Institute, Swathmore College, School of Visual Arts, Trumbull College, Yale University, University of New Hampshire, University of Pennsylvania, Vermont Studio Center, and many, many others. Awards and honors include awards for Teaching Excellence, National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts, Teaching Excellence Marist College, Ford Foundation Grant, First Alternate Prix de Rome, Fulbright Award, Associate Fellow Trumbull College, Yale University, NY State Council on the Arts and others. His work is primarily involved with mythic and heroic aspects of the Artist and man.	This is a visual and auditory presentation featuring the dialogue of Ajax and Ulysses from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. A significant aspect of this are the projections of sculptural reliefs by artist Ed Smith which form a visual narrative. The change from oral to written poetry marked a significant transformation in Poetry, Art and Morality. One of the first things written down by the Greeks was the work of Homer. The act of writing caused poetry to suffer from a sort of “arthritis”. The ease of change, improvisation and movement had been substantially shifted. And in some ways the ideals narrated became more flexible. This visual and sound narrative is based on the discourse between Ajax and Ulysses in the struggle for the armor of Achilles. This is important because a transfer of arms represented a transition in leadership and values. This dialogue can been seen as a basis for western understanding of morality and ethics, which embodies the struggle between mind and body, action and thought. The readings will be accompanied by projected images of sculpture specifically created to represent this dialogue. The sculptural imagery balances between representation and distilled abstraction.

Biographical Note

Abstract

Glory Unending

Ed Smith is a Guggenheim Fellow in Sculpture and Drawing and a former Associate Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. His work is represented in public and private collections in the United States and abroad. These include The British Museum, The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp Belgium, Ministry of the Flemish Community, The Hood Museum, the Davis Museum, Yale University and many more. He has over 60 one person exhibitions and innumerable group exhibitions which include, the Queens Museum, Brooklyn Museum, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh Scotland, Hillwood Art Museum, Caversham Press South Africa, Fleming Museum, Schenectady Museum, The Albright Knox Museum, the Albrecht-Kemper Museum, The Arkell Museum and many others. His work has been written about and reviewed in the New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, The Baltimore Evening Sun, Art News, the Miami Herald, The Albany Times Union, Giornale Dell’Arte, San Francisco Examiner, Art New England and many others. Currently Gallery Director, Director of Marist Venice Biennale Program and Professor of Art at Marist College, Ed Smith has been a Visiting Artist, Lecturer, Artist–in-Residence, Professor and Distinguished Visiting Artist at American University, Bennington College, Bard College, Brandies University, Boston University, Clark University, Dartmouth College, Glasgow School of Art, The Art Academy of London, Dia Art Center, Kansas State University, Lacoste School of the Arts in France, New York Studio School, Parsons School of Art, Pratt Institute, Swathmore College, School of Visual Arts, Trumbull College, Yale University, University of New Hampshire, University of Pennsylvania, Vermont Studio Center, and many, many others. Awards and honors include awards for Teaching Excellence, National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts, Teaching Excellence Marist College, Ford Foundation Grant, First Alternate Prix de Rome, Fulbright Award, Associate Fellow Trumbull College, Yale University, NY State Council on the Arts and others. His work is primarily involved with mythic and heroic aspects of the Artist and man.

This is a visual and auditory presentation featuring the dialogue of Ajax and Ulysses from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. A significant aspect of this are the projections of sculptural reliefs by artist Ed Smith which form a visual narrative.
The change from oral to written poetry marked a significant transformation in Poetry, Art and Morality. One of the first things written down by the Greeks was the work of Homer. The act of writing caused poetry to suffer from a sort of “arthritis”. The ease of change, improvisation and movement had been substantially shifted. And in some ways the ideals narrated became more flexible. This visual and sound narrative is based on the discourse between Ajax and Ulysses in the struggle for the armor of Achilles. This is important because a transfer of arms represented a transition in leadership and values. This dialogue can been seen as a basis for western understanding of morality and ethics, which embodies the struggle between mind and body, action and thought. The readings will be accompanied by projected images of sculpture specifically created to represent this dialogue. The sculptural imagery balances between representation and distilled abstraction.

Panel 4: Architectonic plasticity and rhythms

Kristine Diekman, California State University, San Marcos

Biographical Note	Abstract The Connective Tissue of Physical Computing
Ms. Kristine Diekman, Professor of Arts and Technology in the School of Art, joined California State University San Marcos in 1997 and also serves as Director of Video in the Community, a program designed to create media projects with community collaboration. A media artist and leader of collaborative vision and social change, Professor Diekman has more than 40 years of experience producing, directing and editing award-winning films and media projects. These include experimental and documentary projects that focus on stories that may go unheard. Her recent work includes interactive media artworks that promote the stories of U.S. Veterans. She has received numerous grants and awards for her work that has been shown and distributed internationally. Funded by the California Humanities Community Stories grant, her current work (Run Dry) focuses on the California drought, water rights and rural justice.	This paper investigates the role of performativity, intersubjectivity and empathy in relational, participatory or computational art. Through the creation of sensorial, kinesthetic, auditory and immersive interfaces for the public to “perform” the work, participants can expand their somatic experiences to include looking, moving, touching, listening and other forms of sensing. They can enter into a sensuous continuum with the artwork, oscillating between the representation of another’s experience and reflection on their own, so as to reconstitute new subjectivities. Keywords: interactive, empathy, performance, somatic, touch, intersubjectivity, physical computing, sensorial, trauma, relational.

Biographical Note

Abstract

The Connective Tissue of Physical Computing

Ms. Kristine Diekman, Professor of Arts and Technology in the School of Art, joined California State University San Marcos in 1997 and also serves as Director of Video in the Community, a program designed to create media projects with community collaboration. A media artist and leader of collaborative vision and social change, Professor Diekman has more than 40 years of experience producing, directing and editing award-winning films and media projects. These include experimental and documentary projects that focus on stories that may go unheard. Her recent work includes interactive media artworks that promote the stories of U.S. Veterans. She has received numerous grants and awards for her work that has been shown and distributed internationally. Funded by the California Humanities Community Stories grant, her current work (Run Dry) focuses on the California drought, water rights and rural justice.

This paper investigates the role of performativity, intersubjectivity and empathy in relational, participatory or computational art. Through the creation of sensorial, kinesthetic, auditory and immersive interfaces for the public to “perform” the work, participants can expand their somatic experiences to include looking, moving, touching, listening and other forms of sensing. They can enter into a sensuous continuum with the artwork, oscillating between the representation of another’s experience and reflection on their own, so as to reconstitute new subjectivities. Keywords: interactive, empathy, performance, somatic, touch, intersubjectivity, physical computing, sensorial, trauma, relational.

Andrej Radman, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

Biographical Note	Abstract Surpassing Figuration: Faces and Landscapes as Haecceities
Andrej Radman has been teaching theory and design courses at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture since 2004. A graduate of the Zagreb School of Architecture in Croatia, he is a licensed architect and recipient of the Croatian Architects Association Annual Award for Housing Architecture in 2002. Radman received his Master's and Doctoral Degrees from TU Delft and joined Architecture Theory Section as Assistant Professor in 2008. He is a member of the editorial board of the architecture theory journal Footprint and a member of the National Committee on Deleuze Scholarship.	According to the diagnosis by the Dutch architect Spuybroek, architects have difficulties understanding order and contingency in an ontological relationship, as co-constitutive. Rather, they see them as structures. The major part of our technological and aesthetic tradition has been oriented towards structure as stable and homeostatic. But the system is more accurately defined by the events as incorporeal effects than by a mere description of the ‘physical substrate’ in which these events act as quasi-causes. What is required is a concept of structure that is not detached from what it structures. Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of rhythm makes it possible to break with the hylomorphic moulding (architectonics) for the immanent ontopowerful continuous variation (pragmatics). It is high time for the discipline of architecture to awaken from the slumber of anthropocentrism and to adopt a major reconfiguration of ethology to become a theory of capacity. Behaviour can no longer be localised in individuals conceived as preformed homunculi, but has to be treated epi(phylo)genetically. Put simply, the rhythm (relation) comes before that which it places in relation (relata). To meet the ethical challenge, there needs to occur a fundamental change in the architect’s role from a synaptic visionary - a psychological subject whose private meanings and public expressions are crucial to understanding his work and its effects - to a more humble clinical/critical explorer of rhythmic modulation. The concept of ritornello becomes indispensible on account of not relying on external (transcendent) unifying principle, but by being located at the level of the non-organic vitality of matter.

Biographical Note

Abstract

Surpassing Figuration: Faces and Landscapes as Haecceities

Andrej Radman has been teaching theory and design courses at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture since 2004. A graduate of the Zagreb School of Architecture in Croatia, he is a licensed architect and recipient of the Croatian Architects Association Annual Award for Housing Architecture in 2002. Radman received his Master's and Doctoral Degrees from TU Delft and joined Architecture Theory Section as Assistant Professor in 2008. He is a member of the editorial board of the architecture theory journal Footprint and a member of the National Committee on Deleuze Scholarship.

According to the diagnosis by the Dutch architect Spuybroek, architects have difficulties understanding order and contingency in an ontological relationship, as co-constitutive. Rather, they see them as structures. The major part of our technological and aesthetic tradition has been oriented towards structure as stable and homeostatic. But the system is more accurately defined by the events as incorporeal effects than by a mere description of the ‘physical substrate’ in which these events act as quasi-causes. What is required is a concept of structure that is not detached from what it structures. Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of rhythm makes it possible to break with the hylomorphic moulding (architectonics) for the immanent ontopowerful continuous variation (pragmatics). It is high time for the discipline of architecture to awaken from the slumber of anthropocentrism and to adopt a major reconfiguration of ethology to become a theory of capacity. Behaviour can no longer be localised in individuals conceived as preformed homunculi, but has to be treated epi(phylo)genetically. Put simply, the rhythm (relation) comes before that which it places in relation (relata). To meet the ethical challenge, there needs to occur a fundamental change in the architect’s role from a synaptic visionary - a psychological subject whose private meanings and public expressions are crucial to understanding his work and its effects - to a more humble clinical/critical explorer of rhythmic modulation. The concept of ritornello becomes indispensible on account of not relying on external (transcendent) unifying principle, but by being located at the level of the non-organic vitality of matter.

Jan Piotr Cieslak, Jagiellonian University, Poland

Biographical Note	Abstract Raumgestaltung — Sound sculpture, sound architecture and immersion
Jan Piotr Cieślak is a Ph.D. candidate at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (Poland) where he earned his MA in Art History. Aside from research concerning theory of architecture and space in relation to sound installations he is interested in exploring ties between visual arts, Pythagorean tradition and philosophy of technology. Currently working as junior researcher in From the Material to the Immaterial Medium. Changes in Art in the Second Half of the 20th century and the Discourse of Art History grant.	In their 2004 article “On the Epistemic Value of Photographs” Jonathan Cohen and Aaron Meskin argue that to be able to really see the object and not only its representation, one has to have information about egocentric location of that given object. In consequence “spatial awareness” becomes requirement sine qua non for immersion to occur, as one has to be rightfully convinced that the object is inhabiting the same space as the perceiving subject. However, notion of the importance of this kind of spatial information in forming subjects' comprehension of, and relation to the surroundings is, in the field of history of art, certainly not new. The question of space perception could be traced at least to the Augusts Schmarsow's theory of Raumgestaltung, formed in the wake of 20th century. Schmarsow's idea that architecture is Raumgestalerin, a method, a process of space-forming, resonates strongly in Bernard Tschumi's understanding of architecture as an “event in space”. In regard to spatial sound installations these views, combined with minimalist thought on the sculpture (Morris), could be, in my opinion, used for better understanding of the nature of sound installation, as Georg Klein noted “oscillating spaces” – a sound architecture. The speech will be, in effect, an attempt to put sound installations in the broader context of space in architectural theory, aiming to explain a phenomena of immersion occurring in perceiving sound sculptures in terms offered by objective counterfactual theory of information (as presented by Jonathan Cohen and Aaron Meskin).

Biographical Note

Abstract

Raumgestaltung — Sound sculpture, sound architecture and immersion

Jan Piotr Cieślak is a Ph.D. candidate at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (Poland) where he earned his MA in Art History. Aside from research concerning theory of architecture and space in relation to sound installations he is interested in exploring ties between visual arts, Pythagorean tradition and philosophy of technology. Currently working as junior researcher in From the Material to the Immaterial Medium. Changes in Art in the Second Half of the 20th century and the Discourse of Art History grant.

In their 2004 article “On the Epistemic Value of Photographs” Jonathan Cohen and Aaron Meskin argue that to be able to really see the object and not only its representation, one has to have information about egocentric location of that given object. In consequence “spatial awareness” becomes requirement sine qua non for immersion to occur, as one has to be rightfully convinced that the object is inhabiting the same space as the perceiving subject. However, notion of the importance of this kind of spatial information in forming subjects' comprehension of, and relation to the surroundings is, in the field of history of art, certainly not new. The question of space perception could be traced at least to the Augusts Schmarsow's theory of Raumgestaltung, formed in the wake of 20th century. Schmarsow's idea that architecture is Raumgestalerin, a method, a process of space-forming, resonates strongly in Bernard Tschumi's understanding of architecture as an “event in space”. In regard to spatial sound installations these views, combined with minimalist thought on the sculpture (Morris), could be, in my opinion, used for better understanding of the nature of sound installation, as Georg Klein noted “oscillating spaces” – a sound architecture. The speech will be, in effect, an attempt to put sound installations in the broader context of space in architectural theory, aiming to explain a phenomena of immersion occurring in perceiving sound sculptures in terms offered by objective counterfactual theory of information (as presented by Jonathan Cohen and Aaron Meskin).

Ramzi Suleiman, University of Haifa

Biographical Note	Abstract Four Constituents Tuned by the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci Numbers
I studied at the Department of Psychology, the University of Haifa, where I received my M.A. degree in clinical psychology and my Ph.D. degree in decision making (dissertation: Provision of Step-Level Public Goods under Uncertainty). I also studied at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, where I received my M.Sc. degree from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (thesis: Image Improvement by Coherent Spatial Filtering). During the last forty five years I taught at many academic institutions, including the Department of Management & Policy and the Department of Marketing at the University of Arizona, The Departments of Sociology at the University of Bern, and at ETH Zurich, The Department of Psychology at Tel-Aviv University, and the Departments of Psychology and Economics and the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa. At the University of Haifa I served at several administrative positions, including Chair of the Psychology Department, Head of the Social Psychology Graduate Program and Head of the Social Psychology Laboratory. I am also co-founder of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. Behavioral Sciences I consider myself a psychologist and behavioral scientist. I study individual and group human behavior, particularly Social Dilemma Situations. This includes the study of Public Goods, Common Pool Resource dilemmas, trust and the evolution of cooperation. In addition I study bargaining situations with focus on ultimatum bargaining. In my research I use controlled laboratory experiments, mathematical modelling and computer simulations. The theories and models on which I ground my research on include game theory, evolutionary theories and psychological and anthropological theories and models. Recently, I have proposed a general theory of economic interactions termed "economic harmony theory". The theory is shown to outperform game theory in predicting behavior in several economic interactions. Interestingly, for the ultimatum game, the theory predicts that rational, self-interested proposers should split the "pie" in accordance with the famous Golden Ratio. Physics In the last four years I became very interested in physics, particularly in relativity theories. For the case of inertial systems I wrote a theory termed "information relativity", and applied it to the dynamics of small particles, cosmology, and quantum mechanics. Palestinian Identity Although I am not a dedicated researcher of social identity, I have devoted considerable time to study the Jewish-Palestinian relations and the collective identity of IsraeliPalestinians. For more than twenty years, I contributed to numerous scholarly and fieldactivities directed towards the empowerment of the Palestinian minority in Israel and the promotion of dialogue between Jews and Palestinians. This includes scholarly writings, leading roles in NGOs, participation in conferences and teaching advanced courses on Jewish-Arab relations. I served at several voluntary positions in civil society institutions, including the President of the Galilee Center for Social Research and the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the School for Peace. I was also one of the initiators and directors of the Haifa declaration, a collaboration comprised of a large group of Palestinian intellectuals, academics, and social activists, who issued a social-political statement, pertaining to the past, present and vision of the Palestinian minority in Israel. Other Writings In addition to my research interests I write and publish (in Arabic) poems, prose poems, short stories, literary vignettes, and social and political articles. My recent book of poems titled "The Long Distances Runner" appeared at Raya Publications. Future plans In addition to further developing my economics and physics theories, I am very interested in learning about the interphase between physics, economics and psychology.	We speculate about the question of "free will" and argue that humanity's aesthetic and ethical tastes and decisions are shaped, to a great extent, by universal, hard-wired, evolutionary laws, dating back to the ancient eras in the history of the universe. We argue that these laws follow simple, aesthetic, and well-defined mathematical entities. We focus on the Fibonacci series, $1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, …,$ defined by the formula $f_n = f_n-1 + f_n-2$ , and the connected Golden Ratio, equaling $5 −1 2 ≈ 0.618$ . We review the appearances of the Fibonacci numbers and Golden Ratio in quantum physics, cosmology, life-forms, including the human body and brain, as well as in music, paintings, architecture, ethics, morality, and more. We connect the multiple appearances of the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci series, by a thread leading to the observed dynamics of moving bodies, at both the quantum and cosmic scales.

Biographical Note

Abstract

Four Constituents Tuned by the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci Numbers

I studied at the Department of Psychology, the University of Haifa, where I received my M.A. degree in clinical psychology and my Ph.D. degree in decision making (dissertation: Provision of Step-Level Public Goods under Uncertainty). I also studied at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, where I received my M.Sc. degree from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (thesis: Image Improvement by Coherent Spatial Filtering). During the last forty five years I taught at many academic institutions, including the Department of Management & Policy and the Department of Marketing at the University of Arizona, The Departments of Sociology at the University of Bern, and at ETH Zurich, The Department of Psychology at Tel-Aviv University, and the Departments of Psychology and Economics and the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa. At the University of Haifa I served at several administrative positions, including Chair of the Psychology Department, Head of the Social Psychology Graduate Program and Head of the Social Psychology Laboratory. I am also co-founder of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. Behavioral Sciences I consider myself a psychologist and behavioral scientist. I study individual and group human behavior, particularly Social Dilemma Situations. This includes the study of Public Goods, Common Pool Resource dilemmas, trust and the evolution of cooperation. In addition I study bargaining situations with focus on ultimatum bargaining. In my research I use controlled laboratory experiments, mathematical modelling and computer simulations. The theories and models on which I ground my research on include game theory, evolutionary theories and psychological and anthropological theories and models. Recently, I have proposed a general theory of economic interactions termed "economic harmony theory". The theory is shown to outperform game theory in predicting behavior in several economic interactions. Interestingly, for the ultimatum game, the theory predicts that rational, self-interested proposers should split the "pie" in accordance with the famous Golden Ratio. Physics In the last four years I became very interested in physics, particularly in relativity theories. For the case of inertial systems I wrote a theory termed "information relativity", and applied it to the dynamics of small particles, cosmology, and quantum mechanics. Palestinian Identity Although I am not a dedicated researcher of social identity, I have devoted considerable time to study the Jewish-Palestinian relations and the collective identity of IsraeliPalestinians. For more than twenty years, I contributed to numerous scholarly and fieldactivities directed towards the empowerment of the Palestinian minority in Israel and the promotion of dialogue between Jews and Palestinians. This includes scholarly writings, leading roles in NGOs, participation in conferences and teaching advanced courses on Jewish-Arab relations. I served at several voluntary positions in civil society institutions, including the President of the Galilee Center for Social Research and the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the School for Peace. I was also one of the initiators and directors of the Haifa declaration, a collaboration comprised of a large group of Palestinian intellectuals, academics, and social activists, who issued a social-political statement, pertaining to the past, present and vision of the Palestinian minority in Israel. Other Writings In addition to my research interests I write and publish (in Arabic) poems, prose poems, short stories, literary vignettes, and social and political articles. My recent book of poems titled "The Long Distances Runner" appeared at Raya Publications. Future plans In addition to further developing my economics and physics theories, I am very interested in learning about the interphase between physics, economics and psychology.

We speculate about the question of "free will" and argue that humanity's aesthetic and ethical tastes and decisions are shaped, to a great extent, by universal, hard-wired, evolutionary laws, dating back to the ancient eras in the history of the universe. We argue that these laws follow simple, aesthetic, and well-defined mathematical entities. We focus on the Fibonacci series,

1, 2,
										3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, …,

defined by the formula $f_n = f_n-1 + f_n-2$ , and the connected Golden Ratio, equaling

5 −1 2 ≈
										0.618

. We review the appearances of the Fibonacci numbers and Golden Ratio in quantum physics, cosmology, life-forms, including the human body and brain, as well as in music, paintings, architecture, ethics, morality, and more. We connect the multiple appearances of the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci series, by a thread leading to the observed dynamics of moving bodies, at both the quantum and cosmic scales.