Democracy Café: Combatting Climate Change

October 7, 2021

5:30pm — London

My Life My Say & The Berggruen Institute is hosting a free discussion-based and networking event on climate change and youth participation.

About this event
Climate change has been hot on the global agenda, with COP26 looming very close… From horrifying forest fires on both sides of the Atlantic, to hitting the warmest temperatures on record across the world, it is clear that we are at a critical moment in history.

If things continue as they are, the next generation will face a future of unprecedented environmental breakdown and inherit a planet with more extreme weather events than ever before.

With so much at stake, it is well past time to hear from those who will shape the future. Is there anything that young people can do to reverse this disturbing trend? Should the onus even be on them to mitigate climate change?

We want YOU to tell us by leading the conversation on how young people can take on an active role in the fight against climate change.

Come join us for a FREE in-person event on Thursday, the 7th of October at 5:30PM BST at Second Home Spitalfields to discuss all things related to climate change, democracy and youth engagement.

We’ll be partnering with the Berggruen Institute, whose mission is to develop foundational ideas and shape political, economic, and social institutions for the 21st century.

This event is a part of the Berggruen Institute’s Future of Democracy’s Youth Environment Service (YES) campaign to build broad-based commitments from governments to invest in jobs, national service, and other opportunities for young people to work together, acquire skills and training, and build common purpose and solidarity in protecting their communities from climate change

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Democracy Cafés are issue-based discussions designed to help you identify the issues you REALLY care about.

So whether you’re curious about what we do, or care even just a little bit about what the future of our world looks like for young citizens, there’s only one thing to be doing on the evening of the 7th of October.

If that isn’t enough motivation to get you down, maybe you’ll be tempted by some of the amazing people you’ll get to network with and the wide array of free drinks and snacks that will be provided.

Remember, if you don’t do politics – politics will do you!

 

composed by Arswain
machine learning consultation by Anna Tskhovrebov
commissioned by the Berggruen Institute
premiered at the Bradbury Building
downtown Los Angeles
april 22, 2022

Human perception of what sounds “beautiful” is necessarily biased and exclusive. If we are to truly expand our hearing apparatus, and thus our notion of beauty, we must not only shed preconceived sonic associations but also invite creative participation from beings non-human and non-living. We must also begin to cede creative control away from ourselves and toward such beings by encouraging them to exercise their own standards of beauty and collaborate with each other.

Movement I: Alarm Call
‘Alarm Call’ is a long-form composition and sound collage that juxtaposes, combines, and manipulates alarm calls from various human, non-human, and non-living beings. Evolutionary biologists understand the alarm call to be an altruistic behavior between species, who, by warning others of danger, place themselves by instinct in a broader system of belonging. The piece poses the question: how might we hear better to broaden and enhance our sense of belonging in the universe? Might we behave more altruistically if we better heed the calls of – and call out to – non-human beings?

Using granular synthesis, biofeedback, and algorithmic modulation, I fold the human alarm call – the siren – into non-human alarm calls, generating novel “inter-being” sonic collaborations with increasing sophistication and complexity. 

Movement II: A.I.-Truism
A synthesizer piece co-written with an AI in the style of Vangelis’s Blade Runner score, to pay homage to the space of the Bradbury Building.

Movement III: Alarmism
A machine learning model “learns” A.I.Truism and recreates Alarm Call, generating an original fusion of the two.

Movement IV: A.I. Call
A machine learning model “learns” Alarm Call and recreates A.I.Truism, generating an original fusion of the two.

RAVE (IRCAM 2021) https://github.com/acids-ircam/RAVE