Black Hole Reverb
Prof. Erin Kara (MIT, Physics) and Prof. Kyle Keane (Accessible Tech, U of Bristol, UK) are collaborators in an ongoing project to sonify supermassive black holes. Sonification is a process of presenting data via sound. This offers some advantages in portraying multiple data changes simultaneously as well as making the data more accessible to visually impaired folks.
Prof. Kara and her team study how x-rays reflect of the enormous accretion disks surrounding black holes composed of millions or billions of solar masses. These reflected x-rays are affected by the spin, size and orientation of the disk, the gravitational lensing of the black hole, and time-space relativity affects caused by the fast rotation near the event horizon. Prof. Kyle Keane (U of Bristol,UK) has developed a method for transforming this complicated data model into sound, which has been used for teaching as well as art projects. Read and hear here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/07/science/space/astronomy-black-hole-sound.html
Live events including Dissolve Music @ MIT, Listening Sessions & More
Dissolve Music @ MIT is our spatial sound showcase, which has been held every other year since 2018. We’ve had many performers through the years, including Mouse on Mars, DJ Rekha, Breaking Forms (Nicole L’Huilier and Juan Necochea), The A-Beez, Ghost Grass and many others.
Our next Dissolve Music will be held October 3-4, 2024 at the black box theater in Building W97, MIT. We welcome mostly local artists for multichannel sound, visual and dance performances.
For example, read about the performance of Mouse on Mars at Dissolve Music @ MIT 2018 here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/arts/music/mouse-on-mars-dimensional-people-mit.html
We also hold listening sessions in our Lab space (15 – 25 people), often focused on a historical or contemporary music album that was originally designed for multichannel playback.
We organize occasional club events in 4.1 sound for original music and DJ performances, including Space Invader (a project of SRCFLP) and Dissolve @ Night at Union Tavern, Somerville, MA.
Accessible Technology & Disability Justice
One of our research themes involves accessible technology. This initiative is led by Nelly Kate Anderson and Kyle Keane. In June 2024, we held a workshop with Fayen d’Evie and Lloyd Mst from the ALL Access Lab and Library in Melbourne, Australia and musician Andy Slater from Chicago to share their projects and experiences.
Info on Unstuffy 01 here, a workshop on disability and access in June 2024.
Spatial Justice
Spatial justice is a new concept aimed at bringing together different threads of research in the Lab. Social justice is often about issues of space — sovereignty, power, access, openness and much more. Denise Frazier’s work on racism and poisonous chemicals in Houston, Texas, offers one example or our interests in this area. Her band Les Cenelles, which performs live in multichannel sound, also brings spatial justice ideas to life.
This is just a partial listing. We are continuing to develop new research themes.
Contact: Prof. Ian Condry condry@mit.edu for more information.