Dispersionology and Other Tales – May 10, 1:00-2:30

Dispersionology and Other Tales
*May 10, 1:00-2:30
Listen @ Free Radio SAIC: https://freeradiosaic.org/
Watch @ Zoom: Launch Meeting – Zoom

Doug Van Nord, PhD, student of Pauline Oliveros and founder of Dispersion Lab for distributed performance and sensorial immersion, celebrates 20 years of telematic performances with an ambitious transnational performance next week. A full list of the ~50 performers around the globe is below.

Garrett Laroy Johnson and CCAM is organizing a Chicago node in collaboraiton with Free Radio SAIC. He is joined by Eric Leonardson and Gordon Fung representing ATS, Sound, and FVNMA on this global stage.

*performance statement

In the world of physics, dispersion describes a phenomenon in which the rate of propagation of a wave in a medium, its phase velocity, is dependent on its frequency. This can be seen in light, sound, gravity waves, etc. Its a property of telecommunications signals, including the ulses of light in optical fibre cables, describing how the signal broadens and spreads out as it moves across the channel. Dispersion therefore is inherent in the medium that more-and-more binds us these days, in the movements of light pulses that transports our attention, and our listening, around the globe. A beautiful consequence of dispersion is a change in the angle of refraction of different frequencies, leading to a prismatic opening up of a full colour spectrum from incoming light. This ability to broaden out as signals propagate through the network reflects a much wider expansion of distributed listening and sounding that is made possible in the context of telematic musicking.