I Am Sitting In A High-Dimensional Room

2-channel audio simulation, 22:16 min. 2020 413 ppm
Preview

The sound simulation “I Am Sitting In A High-Dimensional Room” takes the listener into a high- dimensional space extending in many more dimensions than the three you are in now.

Go to websitewww.1014.nyc/high-dimensional-room#page

The piece is based on American composer Alvin Lucier’s seminal work“I Am Sitting In A Room.” Lucier explored the acoustic properties of three-dimensional, physical space by tape-recording a spoken text in a room. He then played the recording back into the room and recorded again, and again, repeating the cycle until only the natural resonant frequencies of the room remain, articulated by speech.

In “I Am Sitting In A High-Dimensional Room,” the artists leave the physical world behind. Narrated by a neural-network-synthesized voice and performed in a high-dimensional room simulation by Dr. Felipe Orduña Bustamante, the piece offers a sonic experience of an invisible, unimaginable space. As high-dimensional, mathematical spaces underpin, for example, artificially-intelligent neural networks, the work alludes to dematerialization and abstraction in contemporary science and technology, as well as the virtualization of culture during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Acknowledgments

Collaboration with artist Anina Rubin, and Acoustics scientist Dr. Felipe Orduña-Bustamante. Commissioned by tenfourteen (Goethe-Institut). Co-Presented with Media Art Xploration.