Event 1 Blog - "Atmosphere of Sound" - Blake Kirshner
My first event this quarter I attended "Atmosphere of Sound" - Patricia Cadavid.
I learned a lot from Patricia Cadavid's lecture even through zoom about art and science and how it changed throughout time. Patricia said that colonization of early modern cultures changed art and science forever because before colonization, art and science was always merged as one. Patricia said that the smartest people in these pre colonization cultures realized great things could be accomplished by using their brainpower for both art and science, instead of one or the other. Colonization changed this for a long period of time by banning key instruments like the Khipu. In the image below is of a Native Andean astrologer and poet using a Khipu in his daily life.
The Khipu is a complex system for storing information and having cultured messages in a combination of knots. Patricia said that "Archeological studies have examined for years the ways to decode the message keep on the knots of the remaining Khipus". Nobody can really understand the messages without emerging themselves in the culture itself which was the most interesting part of the lecture in my opinion.
Patricia created her own way to respect to the ancestral practice of the Khipu by making an interface that connects the knots made with sound and video. The video below is required to showcase this properly as whenever the knots are tied the individual becomes closer with the Andean culture and understanding the Khipu.
As I mentioned before, it is the sound that many people forget is one of the most important aspects of creation. This really touched me because at the end of Patricia's lecture she spoke about music and how many times westerners simply observe with their eyes and not their ears. Music was a huge part of these cultures according to Patricia and in order to understand them on a deeper level you need to understand the sound.
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