i am sitting in a high-dimensional room

2-channel audio simulation, 22:16 min, 2020

the sound simulation “i am sitting in a high-dimensional room” takes the listener into a high-dimensional space extending in many more dimensions than the three you are in now.

the piece is based on american composer alvin lucier’s seminal work “i am sitting in a room.” lucier explored the acoustic properties of three-dimensional, physical space by tape-recording a spoken text in a room. he then played the recording back into the room and recorded again, and again, repeating the cycle until only the natural resonant frequencies of the room remain, articulated by speech.

in “i am sitting in a high-dimensional room,” the artists leave the physical world behind. narrated by a neural-network-synthesized voice and performed in a high-dimensional room simulation by dr. felipe orduña bustamante, the piece offers a sonic experience of an invisible, unimaginable space. as high-dimensional, mathematical spaces underpin, for example, artificially-intelligent neural networks.

behing the scenes

a conversation about “i am sitting in a high-dimensional room” hosted by kay matschullat

credits

collaboration with media artist philipp schmitt, and acoustics scientist dr. felipe orduña-Bustamante. commissioned by 1014 inc (goethe-institut). co-presented with media art xploration.

collaborators

philipp schmitt (b. 1993, germany) is an artist, a designer, and creative researcher based in brooklyn, usa. his practice engages with the philosophical, poetic, and political dimensions of computation through installations, artist books, websites, photography, and sound.
philipp’s work has been exhibited at the photographers’ gallery london, philadelphia museum of art, mak vienna, ccience gallery dublin, link art center, and triennale milano. currently, philipp is a berggruen institute toftH Researcher at nyu center for data science.

dr. felipe orduña-bustamante is a professor at the acoustics and vibration group at icat-unam, universidad nacional autónoma de méxico. he holds a bsc degree in physics (unam, 1987), as well as msc and phd degrees in sound and vibration (university of southampton, uk, 1990, 1995).
his research topics include acoustic instrumentation, acoustic measurements, signal processing, musical acoustics, and music technology, author of numerous peer review journal publications, congress papers, technical reports, and international patents. he is an amateur musician, player of the classical guitar, baroque transverse flute, recorder, early and electronic keyboards, and choral singer.