Florian Hecker
In his installations, live performances and publications, Florian Hecker’s psychoacoustic experimentations dramatize perceptions of sound and space in an immersive intensity.
About the Residency
During his residency at MIT, Florian Hecker researched a new sound piece that utilized the concept of the “auditory chimera” as point of departure. Originally developed at MIT by Bertrand Delgutte, a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, the concept of the auditory chimera inspires an exploration of the relationship between pitch perception and sound localization. Hecker created a text and sound piece that incorporated the recordings of material read by students. Using an anechoic chamber, he worked with students to explore the experiential nature of psychoacoustic practice.
Florian Hecker’s residency at MIT is presented by the Visiting Artists Program, the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology, the Department of Anthropology at MIT, the Goethe Institute and Professor Stefan Helmreich.
Presented by the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST), MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology and MIT Anthropology.
Schedule
Past Events
Artist Panel with Ute Meta Bauer and Stefan Helmreich
November 29, 2011
Performance: Tribute to Maryanne Amacher
October 22, 2011
MIT Chapel Concert
December 3, 2011
Collaborators at MIT
Javier Phipps Anguerais, Research Affiliate in the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology
Ute Meta Bauer, Associate Professor, MIT Department of Architecture
Rick Bostick, Acoustics Technician at Bose Corporation
Louis Braida is the Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering, MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Bertrand Delguette, Professor of Otology and Laryngology and Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard Medical School
Stefan Helmreich, Elting E. Morison Professor of Anthropology
Ben Jordan, Doctoral Student in the Department of Organic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
Anna Kohler, Senior Lecturer, MIT Department of Music and Theater Arts
Stephen Prina, Professor in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University
Charlotte Reed, Senior Research Scientist, MIT Research Laboratory for Electronics
Jayaganesh Swaminathan, Research Affiliate, MIT Research Laboratory for Electronics
Antonio Torralba, Associate Professor, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Biography
Florian Hecker’s recording, Speculative Solution (Editions Mego, 2011), brings together Hecker’s sonic practice and psychoacoustic experimentation with philosopher Quentin Meillassoux’s concept of ‘hyperchaos’—the absolute contingency of the laws of nature.
In his installations, live performances and publications, Florian Hecker deals with specific compositional developments of post-war modernity, electroacoustic music as well as other, non-musical disciplines. He dramatizes space, time and self-perception in his sonic works by isolating specific auditory events in their singularity, thus stretching the boundaries of their materialization. Their objectual autonomy is exposed while simultaneously evoking sensations, memories and associations in an immersive intensity. Some of his works incorporate psychoacoustic phenomena, disorienting listeners’ spatial perceptions and expanding their conception about sound.
More at the artist’s website: Florian Hecker.
In the Media
Fact Mag: Noise Legend Florian Hecker Releases Radical New Book Chimerizations
Pitchfork: Yasunao Tone/ Florian Hecker
The Wire: Florian Hecker’s Chimerzation: Surround Sounds
Florian Hecker: Chimmerizations
Berkshire Fine Arts: Florian Hecker MIT Project
Dig Boston: Florian Hecker at MIT Chapel
