11 Feb 2/18/20 Ian Condry
In conversation with:
Ian Condry
Tuesday | February 18, 2020 | 12:00 – 1:30 PM
MIT Open Documentary Lab | E15-318
MIT Campus, Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Street, 3rd Floor, Cambridge MA 02142
Sound, Learning & Democracy: Dissolve Music and Spatial Sound Experiments in Tokyo, Boston, and Berlin
This talk will explore new approaches to sonic creation that focus on immersive, spatial, surround sound experiments in Tokyo, Boston and Berlin. What are some of the social, political and pedagogical opportunities for spatial sound? In Fall 2019, Ian Condry founded MIT’s Spatial Sound Lab with a goal of building a community of folks interested in creating immersive sound works, whether as music, sound art, sensory ethnography, data sonification, disability studies, field recordings, or teaching modules. For him, spatial sound is less about the technology, and more about creating new kinds of social spaces and interactions, specifically, moving away from unidirectional communication — the screen, the stage, the podium — and instead creating sonic, social experiences that highlight multiperspectivity, immersion in face-to-face situations, and attention to voices from the margins.
Ian Condry is a cultural anthropologist who has been teaching at MIT since 2002. He is the author of two books, Hip-Hop Japan and The Soul of Anime, both of which explore how cultural movements go global. He is the founder of the MIT Spatial Sound Lab and the organizer of Dissolve Music @ MIT: Spatial Sound Festival, Feb. 19-21, 2020, 7-9pm each night, to be held in building W97 black box theater. He is working on a book and creating sound experiments exploring the diverse potentials of spatial sound.