Title: Phase transitions in Balinese time, music and irrigation management (jontly with J.Stephen Lansing)
Abstract: The Balinese use three calendars, one of which tracks weeks in ten dimensions and is unconnected to astronomical time. Instead it creates a sound track for the musicality of daily life. This talk deconstructs the musicality of the Balinese uku calendar using analytical models and simulations. Claude DeBussy’s recognition of the polyphonic structure of gamelan music in 1889 launched musical explorations which continue to inspire contemporary minimalist music (Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Philip Glass). In Bali, the uku calendar is also used to compose interlocking irrigation cycles, enabling phase transitions that reduce emissions of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas, from traditional rice paddies. Using these examples, we probe the dynamics of Bali’s ten dimensional concept of time from a computational perspective.
Bio: Vibeke Sørensen is an artist, composer, and professor of digital multimedia, animation, visual-music, and interactive installation. Currently she is an External Professor at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna. From 2021-2022 she was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She is known for her innovations in new media technologies stemming from art-science and art-engineering collaborations at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Princeton University, the University of Southern California, the University of California San Diego / San Diego Supercomputer Center, the Neurosciences Institute of La Jolla, and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She consulted for Disney, as well as NASA/JPL where she produced scientific visualization for space missions inclucing Voyager, Mars Rover, Mars Observor, and VEEGA. In 2009 she was appointed Full Professor and Chair (head) of the School of Art, Design and Media (ADM) at Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU). Her research and creative work has been supported by the US National Science Foundation, Intel Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation and New York State Council on the Arts. Currently her interactive wearable technology and visual music installation works are being exhibited at the Descanso Gardens Sturt Haaga Gallery in La Canada-Flintridge, California as well as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.