Check out Auditory Neuroscience, Making Sense of Sound, Schnupp, Nelken,
and King, and Sonic Warfare, Sound, Affect, and The Ecology of Fear, both
MIT, if you haven't already -
On Wed, 25 Feb 2015, Roger Mills wrote:
Hi Patrick, thanks for sharing your ISEA paper and revisiting this topic of
embodiment in virtual performance. I remember reading it at the time in
2011, and had hoped I might bump into you there to discuss but we never
crossed paths.
I completely concur with your synthesis of neurological research into an
understanding of virtual perception / cognition, particularly Ramachandran?s
proposition that ?neurons fire in sympathy with the observation of another
person?s action.?
I would argue that this also extends to sound, which is an integral, if not
greater part of that same mirror through which we perceive and interpret
meaning. On this view, sonic characteristics such as timbre, rhythm, melody,
articulation in speech, music and other sound metaphorically enable the
meaning making process because we know what it is to make those sounds with
our voice or bodies. It is this idea of experiential metaphor that is also
elaborated in the work by Mark Johnson and George Lakoff on image schematic
experience, which I have previously proposed is useful to understanding
perception in networked or virtual environments. It is interesting to note
that Jonson and Lakoff also reference motor / mirror neuron research to
elaborate their embodied cognition thesis.
With this in mind, I have often wondered why sound seems to play such a
minor role in these deliberations, particularly in staple literature such as
Massumi, Ascott et al (please point out if you or anyone feels i have missed
something here). This follows what I also find to be a somewhat
anachronistic, yet still pervasive notion of virtual space being perceived
objectively as a separate, somehow fluffy academic cosy space (cyberspace)
between dislocated bodies.
In my mind cyberspace, or networked space as I prefer to think of it, is an
extension of physical spaces and the embodiment of those spaces by the
social actions that occur in them. This emerged quite strongly in my own
case study research of networked music performance (NMP), but perhaps it
also has something to do with a music or sound focussed medium as opposed to
the predominantly visual medium of virtual environments such as SL.
Some of these questions might be discussed in the upcoming Art of Networked
Practice symposium, although I was hoping, (Randall aside) that there might
have been a panelist who could speak from a specific NMP practice and
research perspective. There are many such as Pauline Oliveros, Mara Helmuth,
Ken Fields for example that I think could contribute poignant ideas that
relate to many of these issues but IMHO are often overlooked by audiovisual
focussed telematics perspectives.
In any event I enjoyed revisiting your paper and its contribution toward the
much needed 'epistemic arc' as you describe it !
Best wishes
Roger
?
Roger Mills
http://www.eartrumpet.org
http://roger.netpraxis.net
http://telesound.net
"Knowledge is only rumour until it is in the muscle" - Asaro Mudmen,
Papua New Guinea.
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