Lunchtime Talks are a series of informal presentations at Watershed's Pervasive Media Studio. They normally take place at 13:00 on a Friday, are free and are open to everybody who is interested in what they do. Come along, bring a sandwich, and get to know more about the Studio community, current and up-coming projects, or residents' work.

Jane Grant and John Matthias, Associate Professors in Digital and Sonic Arts at Plymouth University will be joining us to talk about several of their collaborative artworks including The Fragmented Orchestra, developed in partnership with multi award winning sound designer, composer and artist Nick Ryan. In 2009 Watershed was one of 24 sites that formed the first ever Fragmented Orchestra, a geographically distributed musical structure which mirrored the way the human brain processes sound to produce a compelling and ever-changing new instrument and composition.

Jane and John have gone on to develop a number of projects drawing on ideas from neuroscience in which the public interact with a simulated ‘neural network’ to create sounds. They will introduce us to projects such as Plasticity, Ghost and the musical interface, The Neurogranular Sampler. They are interested in the manner in which a human brain, deprived of stimulation, will conjure past ‘experiences’ or ‘memories’, pulling them into the present, and how this can be related to sound and music. Jane and John will introduce the idea of ‘sonic ghosts’ and give us a special insight into their new project, Closer, in which they plan to construct a mobile cortex as part of the EU Marie Curie Project, CogNovo at Plymouth University.

The Pervasive Media Studio is located within the Watershed building. Let us know if you'd like a tour and we'll be happy to show you around. Send an email to admin@pmstudio.co.uk

FFI:pmstudio.co.uk

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