S8 Ep2: The red apple - Don Hoffman | Re:cognition

Somerset House Studios

Conversations about language. Artist Nick Ryan presents an ontological adventure into voice recognition, language, semiotics, sensory experience, immersive sound and imagination.

The series documents and delves into the research being undertaken by Nick Ryan and his collaborators for RE:COGNITION, an interdisciplinary project exploring the connection between the sound of spoken language) and meanings manifest in the physical world as sound or concepts otherwise capable of being represented sonically.

In this episode Donald Hoffman, Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, puts forward the radical proposal that everything we perceive as reality, in fact bears little relation to the ‘real’ world in which we live. His work is based on evolution and rigorous modelling, and reflects on Nick’s mission to build a machine that translates spoken language into the audible sensation of its meaning. Don is an author of over 100 scientific papers and three books, including Visual Intelligence, and his new book, The Case Against Reality.

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In connection to this Nick Ryan presents The Gulf of Understanding (Re:cognition) as part of BONDS until 05 Jan 2020 at Gallery 31, Somerset House Studios’ new permanent exhibition space. The Gulf of Understanding (Re:cognition) taps into the magic of making sense, exploring the sound of spoken language and its relationship to sensation and matter. Inviting visitors to speak a word into a microphone, the installation uses machine learning and natural language processing to automatically represent these words as sounds. Simultaneously, a visualisation displays the words and their semantic relationships to related vocabulary.

Nick Ryan is a multi-disciplinary artist and composer exploring auditory representations of information, language, physical materiality and space through the creation of sound and multi-sensory installations, bespoke instruments and generative audio experiences.

Re:cognition is commissioned by CASE Foundation and currently is in the R&D phase.

Podcast produced by Nick Ryan and Jo Barratt for Somerset House Studios.