[spectre] Sound art work 'Labyrinthitis' by Jacob Kirkegaard, Copenhagen 2 Sept

[Roberto Winter]

Hi there,

Not that much related, but Freeman Dyson wrote about the inner ear's
resonances here:
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge219.html#dysonf

"Two years ago, I was at Cornell University celebrating the life of
Tommy Gold, a famous astronomer who died at a ripe old age. He was
famous as a heretic, promoting unpopular ideas that usually turned out
to be right. Long ago I was a guinea-pig in Tommy's experiments on
human hearing. He had a heretical idea that the human ear
discriminates pitch by means of a set of tuned resonators with active
electromechanical feedback. He published a paper explaining how the
ear must work, [Gold, 1948]. He described how the vibrations of the
inner ear must be converted into electrical signals which feed back
into the mechanical motion, reinforcing the vibrations and increasing
the sharpness of the resonance. The experts in auditory physiology
ignored his work because he did not have a degree in physiology. Many
years later, the experts discovered the two kinds of hair-cells in the
inner ear that actually do the feedback as Tommy had predicted, one
kind of hair-cell acting as electrical sensors and the other kind
acting as mechanical drivers. It took the experts forty years to admit
that he was right. Of course, I knew that he was right, because I had
helped him do the experiments."

It is an interesting read...
Cheers

On 8/21/07, Andreas Broeckmann <ab at tesla-berlin.de> wrote:
> Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:17:45 +0200
> From: Ingeborg Reichle <Ingeborg.Reichle at culture.hu-berlin.de>
> To: Rohrpost <rohrpost at mikrolisten.de>
>
>
> Sound art work 'Labyrinthitis' by Jacob Kirkegaard, Medical Museion,
> Sunday 2 September, Copenhagen
>
> In connection with the conference 'Art and Biomedicine: Beyond the Body'
> held Monday 3 September, Medical Museion has commissioned sound artist
> Jacob Kirkegaard to create a new work.
>
> Jacob Kirkegaard has turned his listening ear inwards -- to his own ear.
> By using specially developed listening equipment, he has captured the
> microactivity which the hair cells of the ear send out.
>
> LABYRINTHITIS consists entirely of sounds generated in Jacob
> Kirkegaard's own ears. Deep inside the cochlea there are thousands of
> microscopic hair cells functioning as sensory receptors. When sound
> enters the ear, they begin to vibrate in the watery liquid surrounding
> them, like underwater piano strings.
>
> Thus, the hearing organ does not only receive sound. It also generates
> sound, just like an acoustic instrument. Some of the hair cells in the
> cochlea can change their shape to such an extent that they are enabled
> to move the basilar membrane and produce sound themselves.
>
> These faint tones resemble the sound of a tinnitus -- and they can be
> recorded with a microphone in the ear canal.
>
> Jacob Kirkegaard employs the 1787 auditorium of Medical Museion as well
> as the audience for his composition: His listeners become part of an
> interactive concert as their own auditory organs respond to the tones
> played out into the auditorium. The room, at the same time, turns into
> one big resonant labyrinth of sound.
>
> Jacob Kirkegaard LABYRINTHITIS
>
> * Disorientation (Preludium)
> * Vertigo (Canon)
> * Nausea (Finale)
>
> played on The Spiral Organ will be performed in Medical Museion,
> Bredgade 62, Copenhagen on Sunday 2 September 2007, at 6pm, 8pm and
> 10pm. Entrance is free, but seat reservations are necessary. Please
> write to soundevent at mm.ku.dk, indicating which of the three performances
> you prefer to attend.
>
> For background information, please see
> http://www.ku.dk/satsning/biocampus/artandbiomedicine/sound_event_english.htm
>
>
>
>
> --
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