I joined the “Modalities of Listening” webinar last night. I found it particularly interesting because it was a very reflective disscussion on sound from a very philosophical almost semantic perspective. It was interesting to me because as someone who is always focused on visual and visual creation, I rarely dedicate so much thought to the idea of sound.
The seminar started with Nina Eidsheim who is Professor of Musicology at the UCLA and the founder and director of the UCLA Practice-based Experimental Epistemology (PEER) Lab, posing a very “simple” question that stablished the course of the entire conversation as a reflection on the meaning of sound.
“If a tree falls in a forest and noone is there to hear it,
does it still have the same taste?”
The converstation was particularly technical, or it felt at least; as if you need a lot of technical background to join the conversation or understanding the ideas proposed. I really don’t think it’s particularly the case, that you need a full understanding on the technical concept of sound before you are able to reach that philosophical disscusion I mentioned at the beggining or not practical for a 2 hours webinar, because then the conversation turns into an eternal introductory speech.
Nevertheless, the ideas stay with you and leave you thinking. If anything, I would LOVE, in capitals, to see or hear a conversation between somebody who reflects so profoundly about sound and maybe a contemporary philoshopher, or someone like psychology professor Jordan Peterson who talks a lot about vision in his lectures, to sort of complete the idea of perception as a concept more than on its technical sides. This is of course an extremely personal thought.
