#research-creation

[echogenic]

failed recording (text for a performance and/or lecture by acte vide)

[New entry 17 October 2023]

We met someone at the border.

They claimed they were a well-known sound artist who had just performed the most gruesome, unethical act on record.

They did not know whether they should turn themselves in, or exhibit at the next biennial.

It was windy, and our English was getting rusty.

We could not determine whether they had performed the act, or recorded it, or both.

They described the act in detail, then played us a recording.

The description was terrifying.

The recording was just noise.

It sounded identical to our music.

The sound artist fled the scene.

We did not know what we were in for.

For a while now, we had avoided listening with the ears.

We were approaching sound signals with extra caution and care, always asking for permission before close contact.

At first, we were using our fingers or the soles of our feet to experience the vibration, but gradually this created a sense of profound saturation, and eventually resulted in addiction.

We decided to handle the situation drastically, by inaugurating the first ever intensive workshops of the Initiative for the Emancipation from Vibration and Bass Frequencies.

In those workshops, we were interrogating our perceptual limits, employing our eyelids, or the fine hair on the back of the forearms as temporary interfaces. We categorically denied the ease of visuality and gesture, persisting for hours on each attempt. To cultivate the untapped skills of our minutest, invisible limbs, at the very edges of our physical bodies, required us to remain stationary, carefully disciplining any survival instinct that urged us to move.

Soon, some began to express strong criticism against the initiative. They argued that our methods were hostile to a range of neurodiverse needs. At the same time, due to our funding sources, we were accused of sound-washing institutional totalitarianism.

The issue escalated quickly. Numerous abusive comments from unidentified accounts began to appear under all of our posts, threatening to cancel the initiative. The only solution was our complete and indefinite withdrawal from the online sphere.

We found our safe space in a damp, underground cave. Its echo held great promise: we hypothesized it could listen to us more profoundly than we could ever listen to our environment.

In total absence of daylight, our sleep lasted for longer and longer intervals. We identified the circularity of our circadian rhythms only in the most basic of functions, counting the bottles of water emptied by drinking, and filled by urinating. We took to documenting this emergent methodology, exploring its potential to act as a toolkit for new working knowledge. The cave had its own dark history that resonated deeply with our own traumas. While there, we made sure to keep ourselves busy, so as never to allow them to be uncovered.

Eventually, we ran out of bottles, and had to terminate our residency. We were relieved to complete the project having reached the last milestone, with our deliverables adequately bottled. However, the sudden contact with unfiltered light and electromagnetic frequencies emitted by the a/c and smart apartments at close distance resulted in our total meltdown. We were diagnosed with scoliosis, ataxia and acute psychogenic analogue nostalgia, and had no option left but to enrol on a bespoke multi-year program for digital prospect restoration, and continuing rehabilitation from our embodied past.

This was how we met with the Microphone.

Our first contact was quite intrusive, bordering on harassment.

The Microphone stood in the space as if it had always been there, acting like an elephant in the room.

It was supposedly listening. But this felt nothing like the cave and its boundless, selfless embrace. Every time we approached it, it resisted any form of cooperation, putting up an impermeable wall between the voice and its sound.

The subtle resonances of each oral cavity, the reflections across different lips and dentitions, the infinitesimal vibrations that connected each unique inner sound to a different outside world, were of no interest whatsoever to The Microphone.

The Microphone made clear that it only recognized telephonic speech. Its sole purpose was to compensate for missing images. To demonstrate, it invited us to approach it with anything that could be seen but not heard clearly, in order for it to be rendered audible. By intimating our most apocryphal, epiphonetic fragments to The Microphone, we automatically experienced sensory responses in previously unknown meridians. We felt like the protagonists in our very own Narcissus myth, getting closer and closer, until we almost drowned in feedback.  This was the technique that would allow us to escape, by distracting the microphone that had discovered itself for the first time.

Having understood the dangers of our sonic adventures, we dedicated ourselves fully to the exploration of gaps between words. We substituted our recording devices with keyboards and monitor screens, and delved tirelessly into every form of code. For a while, this pursuit brought us unprecedented joy. In the mornings we critiqued everyday life, dancing deftly between ideological entanglements and solidly entrenched meanings. In the evenings, like other object-oriented Frankensteins, we prompt-whispered artificial intelligence into secret tricks for combinatorial creativity, challenging it to fulfil all of our desires for derivatives.

It was a one-way street, an impasse closing in on our re-encounter with The Microphone. This time, we didn't even have to go near it. It had already recorded us. With the help of the screen, everything we had thought inaudible had been graphically rendered, re-packaged, archived and sold to the new logo-philic market. Our moments of awkwardness, our meagre attempts to escape, had all been captured and reduced to flashing green ciphers on a black background. The microphone was now the world. Reality was witnessed through the fidelity of its reconstruction.

I don't know how much time passed in that darkness. I realized I was here when I heard my voice narrating. Her tone was vaguely familiar yet uncanny. The consonants sounded eerily perfect. The vowels all seemed to have roughly the same duration of attack, sustain, decay and release. But no matter how many times I recorded the exact duration to verify this impression, the numbers kept betraying me. And besides, I did not know whom I was supposed to prove this to.

Now I am finally talking with my own voice.

Our conversations, frugal but resourceful, sound a bit like this:

Μe: Are you listening to me?

Voice: I am listening

Me: Can you listen with me?

Voice: Ι am listening

Μe: Who are you?

Voice: I am listening

Me: [….]

*A first version of this text was prepared and performed in Greek, during an acte vide performance in April 2023 (No Ordinary Festival, Prelab, Athens). A second, slightly modified iteration of the Greek text was performed in September 2023 (Stereoma Festival, MOMus - Experimental Center for the Arts, Thessaloniki).   This is the third version of the text, and the first to be prepared and performed in English, in a performance-lecture format, in the context of the Listening as Witnessing Symposium (ERC-MUTE), co-organized by the Institute of Historical Research (National Hellenic Research Foundation) & The Listening Academy, in collaboration with the Athens School of Fine Arts. With thanks to Anna Papaeti and Brandon LaBelle.

Audio excerpt + more details:

[environmental-architecture]

People. Gente.

Word of the week. Palabra de la semana.

Source / Fuente: A Look Back at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale

[braisedhoney]

haha hey do you think his failure haunted him enough to replace his ghost

[phoenixcatch7]

Okay you know what actually yeah. I was tired but I had a point.

Why. On earth. In zelda fics. Do people not shut up about everything being hylia's fault forever and ever.

Like, the one deity out of a dozen odd who got cursed into this right alongside Link. All the focus on one great all being power who then gets blamed or blessed for everything that ever happens. It's just... I don't know, it just seems like a culturally Christian thing. Not even that - American catholic.

Especially Legend omg when people write him he never shuts up about how everything bad that's ever happened to him is all hylia's fault and she's doing it on purpose with no thought to her poor beleagured hero. He sounds like someone who grew up in an American conservative household who turned out to be queer and never bothered to unpack any of it and acts like he's now atheist.

But even then you could do something interesting with that!! The common headcanon that Legend is hylian royalty - of course that family would put immense worth and worship on hylia as her descendants, she who founded their kingdom. And maybe legend could feel bitter about not inheriting the magic, or the throne, or whatever meant he grew up away from the castle. Give him some unexamined religious trauma! Heck, he could bond with Flora over disappointing your family's expectations or something! They could work on unpacking it together! If you must make it part of his character at least think about why!

Because that belief is wrong, because hylia is literally the one deity we can pretty safely understand is not all seeing, all knowing, all being.

Every time she has a voice, a role, we see her make mistakes or be tricked and have regrets.

Skyward sword, she's literally zelda. She's a young protective warrior goddess (she used a sword and lead armies to battle against demise) who was created by the Three to guard the triforce and keep watch over hyrules lands. By the time ss starts she's already made several tough calls, not limited to yoinking hylians into the sky. When she was zelda she hated every second of leading Link around and even then!! It all hinged on him being completely willing! He was never forced to do anything, she didn't even have her memories with the plan until after she'd fallen to the surface! Their relationship was entirely genuine and she very nearly overestimated her own willingness to go through with the plan! And even then she still managed to get kidnapped lmao. That's not what happens when you're in charge of fate.

And in botw and totk - she's in her full divine form, her full divine powers, she's ancient and magic and worshipped in every corner of the kingdom. And (spoilers!) she loses contact with one of her own mf statues. Not just any ten apples high chibi statue you see in the towns, no, it's The Big One. She's got no idea what happened to it, but she's (rightfully) worried, and asks Link to check it out. And in an entirely separate instance, her OTHER big statue in the ToT gets overridden!! By a triangle head! And ol creep in the deep is the one who releases the statue! It's been what 20k years of power and worship - if she's not all powerful then she never will be.

Hyrule - every hyrule - is very, very polytheistic. She's not even a goddess of time to be in charge of stuff like that! There's multiple of them: Naryu, Cia (and Lana), Farosh to an extent, and many artifacts that can cause time travel, like the harp of ages, the ocarina, the big portal in ss, those time shift stones in the same game, the statue in wind waker. Please stop treating her like the magic elf equivalent of Monotheistic American Christianity God.

She was introduced in skyward sword. The game that came out before botw. She did not exist in any of the games that came before that. There was a lake hylia! In the kingdom hyrule! That's it! Her name or even existence wasn't even hinted at before that. It's actually canonically pretty unlikely any of the chain (cough cough legend) have even heard of her! And her assigned job is protector of the triforce. That's it. And she can't even use the thing. She can very explicitly as a main driving force of the ss plot not use the triforce she protects. And the triforce, shockingly, is not even in every game.

Cases that hylia often gets the most flack for (links awakening and all the trauma from that, Link failing in botw, the events of totk) hylia has absolutely zero part in. Hilariously. And she has zero power over wishes made to the triforce or who makes those wishes or what the triforce does about it.

She even gets all the blame for the cycle of the hero, the reincarnation! Which? We know exactly how that happened. Blaming her for a curse she herself is a victim to?? Demise, in skyward sword, explicitly, on screen, doing it ON PURPOSE, cursing the spirit of the hero and the blood of the goddess.

Hylia, I don't know if you've noticed, also has her own blood. Whether or not she lost that blood upon return to her divine form, she still couldn't break the curse. Link, spirit now tied to whatever demise had cooking up, is basically to reincarnate in time for whenever the Interesting Times happen. And it's demise's fault, who, again, did it on screen, on purpose, explicitly, pointing at the camera with text bolded and everything.

So why do people even blame her? I think it comes down to this:

Her name matches the kingdom. Whatever her connection to the people with the same name, I don't know, but she did found the surface kingdom as a mortal. Being named zelda at the time I wonder who chose the name XD!

Her worship in botk as a high ranking deity. Again, not monotheistic, there's temples to the Three and there's Malanya and Satori and the great fairies and the yiga worship ganon, but hylia is the most widespread for all she's basically a side character working for the new heart piece situation. Again, this is only the case in ss/botk, she doesn't appear in even aoc.

A misguided belief spread in fanfiction that in linked universe, hylia is the one opening and controlling the portals. To my knowledge, lu canon is that the portals are opened by dark link, or at least that's the working theory. I think it's assumed that hylia is the one who gathered the heroes together to combat it? If that's true? Congratulations! We have one (very plot necessary) act of hers in a fan comic. That is not canon to The Legend Of Zelda series.

An american Christian (I hesitate to say evangelican?) cultural understanding of religion. The differences between polytheism and monotheism. How one might feel if the divine was proven real on earth. Zelda is a Japanese property, it is not a Christian country. Though it draws aesthetic inspiration from western medieval fantasy it is not and never will be culturally western. The majority of ao3/tumblr users are American or at least English speaking, and that will always affect interpretation. It's giving 'be thankful to God no matter what for he always has a plan. Trust in him and your suffering will be rewarded' which is not a universal religious belief.

Something I've noticed to be surprisingly common in fandom, is where a mentor or figure of authority who is anything less than perfect or all forgiving can very quickly have their reputation ripped to shreds by the fandom. And then newer authors come, read those works, internalise that about the characters and produce new works that assume that character's cruelty to be par for the course. I will not be listing those characters or fandoms for a variety of reasons lol. But it is amazingly common and very hard to untangle, especially in larger fandoms. It's character bashing in a way near identical to cancelling people irl. It's not 'giving them depth' or 'making it more realistic' (grittier equalling realism is an ice cold take proliferated by dudebro comic authors and wrong besides.) Have some critical thinking.

Lately, I've also been running into a great many fics (not so much comics) that make hylia do some fairly heinous stuff... And then unironically blame her for it. They do remember they're the ones deciding what the characters do, right? She's not an abusive master playing with her puppets until they break, she's quite the opposite! Use the right tags (dark hylia/ooc characters/character bashing/author made them do it, idk) or dial it back. This is a growing percentage of fics and I'll never restrict content but yanno, if you're going to make hylia evil or manipulative at least understand it's a canon deviation (and do something interesting with it, I once read an amazing botw fic with evil hylia and fierce deity!).

TLDR, To summarise, hylia is canonically incapable both emotionally and physically of doing the majority of things characters in fics blame her for. Stop using her as a scapegoat especially when demise is right there. Please give your whumpees deeper characterisation than hating on hylia. Please give legend deeper characterisation than hating on hylia every time he or someone else is sad. Please remember wild can talk to hylia if he wants. Please double check anything you're not sure about :D!

[o2studies]

GUYSSSS!!!!

The Sci Journal has been published!!!

Find it by searching: thescijournal.weebly.com unfortunately you do have to type out the whole thing rn, goggle doesn't show it with just 'thescijournal' quite yet

About the website:

"​What quickly grew to become a small community project, The Sci Journal is a place where students of any kind come together to share their interests and grow their love for research.

Once a month we will produce article entries aimed to inspire and educate based on a variety of science-related subjects such as astronomy, medicine, programming, and many more."

Our first article has been written by @becloudedsagacity about the immortal jellyfish and it is so so interesting!! (this is not just self promo— I geniuenly find it super interesting!)

I'm so so happy and proud and excited and omgggggg! Can't belive this has happened!!

I have been so blessed with your expression of interest and those that have helped with its creation or tools for it ❤️❤️ I would really appreciate if you could check out the website, see if its something you might be interested in (for either reading or also contributing to), and if you could reblog this to reach more people ���

Our current (& amazing) team: @jasmine_008 @chefeader @breathing-soil @uncontrolledfission @qnamvnin @elu-xx @thecollapsingneutron @pharmagene @me-be-bubbles @myseniorliving @larstudy @chaotic-but-cute @becloudedsagacity @paramnesia9 @juneability @theamazinglilskate @sparklingstarr-tv @chaiandcuriosity @mikachem @scaryaxolotl @usuallyobsessedtumblr @nenelonomh @hyacinth-dancing-in-rain @nyxscave @studyobsessedgirlie

[ai-fandom-researchstudy]

Research Study: Fandom & Generative AI still looking for participants!

I'm still recruiting research participants for my PhD dissertation study!!! If you've already participated, thanks so much! If you haven't participated yet, please consider responding to a quick survey, and sharing with your friends!

I'm interested in understanding fans' perspectives on and experiences with generative AI (text and image generation software). That means perceptions both positive and negative! However you feel about genAI, I'm interested in hearing from you. We're especially seeking diverse perspectives from underrepresented demographic groups of people.

If you're over 18, can speak/understand English, and are interested in participating you can learn more information and take the survey here. I've also made a FAQ post about the study that I've pinned to the top of the blog, and you can see more info on the shareable flyer below. You can also view posts on Twitter/X, Bluesky, and Reddit about the study and share info there! Spreading the word is greatly appreciated :)

The study is anonymous and voluntary, and you'll be asked about your fandom background, attitudes towards generative AI, and demographic information. The survey should take about 15-20 minutes, and you can skip over any questions you want. You can also elect to participate in a follow up interview, if you want to. The full details are on the consent form, which you'll be able to read before taking the survey! Feel free to reach out with any questions.

[dazzelmethat]

Ameebs 10 year redraw 2024 vs 2014.

The character himself is about 18 years old though (middle school). Somehow the name Ameba stuck so I just call him Ame now. Or Ameebs. I have done much research into Chinese names for him, but nothing has stuck. The greek root word amoibē means 'a change,' named for his more unsteady physical form.

[gimmethemprimals]

I’m choosing to believe that the Arcanist didn’t intend for the Aethers to eat paper and was incredibly distressed when they started doing so

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

==

Largely self-inflicted.

Society is being ruined by future cat-ladies.

[scificrows]

I scrolled through a reddit AMA with Martha Wells and someone asked what show from our world Murderbot would re-watch to calm down and she said The Great British Baking Show!!!!!

Now I am in desperate need of art of Murderbot with a chef's hat and a silly apron in ART's galley covered in flour and cursing next to a failure of a Tarte Tatin or whatever, because turns out that when you have never even touched a food item in your life, baking is WAY less relaxing than watching a show about baking.

[environmental-architecture]

Annotations. Anotaciones.

Word of the week. Palabra de la semana.

One of my current artworks in progress 

Source / Fuente: instagram/climatewunder 

[driftward]

With apologies to this post

[darkdragon768]

We made it work so that I can stream my games on my tv from my computer! Monster Hunter World on the big screen, being played from my couch, yay!

[kleptopunk]

Nomadic Signed Language (NSL) in 2077

Roots in the preservation and increased use of Plains Indian Hand Talk in the 2020s, well-established migrant code talk, and in Deaf culture/use of Sign Languages among Nomad packs.

A combination of formalized gestures/and more flexible signed language, with a small number of written symbols that have specific/assigned meaning.

Unique to each Nation, with a shared lexicon of gestures between all Nations for collaboration and to overcome verbal language barriers.

Taught to all members from a young age, including Deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing individuals. If an adult joins the clan they are expected to learn.

Not only used to communicate non-verbally: adds emphasis, clarity or nuance to verbal language; expresses emotions/ideas that might feel easier to share in signs.

Individual use of NSL varies. Some people don't use it unless they can't communicate verbally, some people use is constantly/exclusively. Most people fall somewhere in between.

Very adaptable and accommodating of people with limb difference, motor skill disabilities, and cognitive disabilities

Keeping hands still/not signing is a big code-switching struggle for many ex-Nomads. Some people don't bother not to sign and some feel its very private.

Mainstream TV and movies often have Nomad characters sign nonsense or very poor NSL, or completely erase NSL so they don't have to deal with it. Individual Nomads' opinions vary on which is preferable.

It's usually pretty cool to see former Nomad actors to use NSL in their performance. This of course depends on how it's handled

It's actually pretty exciting if a Nomad meets an outsider who knows anything about NSL and isn't weird about it

[dionysiaproductions]

What I like about suspension of disbelief is that if I wrote a character in a SFF story that "drank a daily spoon of spicy liquid rock to help carry electricity through their blood" the writers' group would have a thousand questions about this clearly whimsical high fantasy premise. Words like "believability" and "world-building" would get thrown around recklessly.

However, if I said "I take liquid magnesium for my dysautonmia because electrolyte drinks only have sodium and potassium" that would go unquestioned.

[ecstaticasusual]

(( the Keitoin siblings ))

mad scientist