Florian Hecker: Chimerization (2012) [EN, DE, Farsi, AAC, MP3]

Chimerization investigates human relationship to sound, spatial hearing, and psychoacoustics through processed photography created by Florian Hecker to dramatize the psychoacoustic phenomenon of the auditory chimaera. The term auditory chimaera metaphorically employs the notion of the chimaera from Greek mythology, a hybrid creature whom, according to Homer, was “of divine race, not of men, in the fore part a lion, in the hinder a serpent, and in the middle a goat, breathing forth in terrible manner the force of blazing fire” (Iliad,6.181).

Originally developed at MIT by Bertrand Delgutte, Senior Research Scientist at the Research Laboratory of Electronics, the concept of the Auditory Chimaeras allows one to explore the relation between pitch perception and sound localization as they reveal a possible acoustic basis for the hypothesized ‘what’ and ‘where’ pathways in the auditory cortex. The concept of Chimerization takes a fresh and novel approach on the mapping and transferring of sonic qualities between different sound sources. While sound morphing has a tradition within the field of electroacoustic music, this rigorous scientific approach–the mapping and exchange of the phenomenal features of different sounds–opens the ‘phenomenological gap’ within the field of psychoacoustics while providing an intense experiential notion.

With an introduction by Chus Martínez
Publisher documenta und Museum Fridericianum, Kassel
Series: dOCUMENTA (13): 100 Notizen – 100 Gedanken No. 102
ISBN 3927015512
26 pages

review (Grayson Currin, Pitchfork)

project page
upcoming book with extended material

PDF
ZIP (PDF+AAC)
ZIP (PDF+MP3)
related: Florian Hecker: Speculative Solution (2011/2012)