People

Doris Leuthard

Doris Leuthard

Member, Swiss Federal Council

Biography

As head of the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC), Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard is one of the seven members of the Federal Council, Switzerland’s cabinet.

DETEC’s strategy focuses on the principles of sustainable development, which are implemented in terms of policy in the fields of the environment, transport, energy, communications and spatial development. As head of DETEC, Federal Councillor Leuthard is in charge of the seven federal offices (ministries) that make up the Department and that work together to achieve the Department’s aims, which include environmental and economic interests and public service requirements.

Before taking the helm of DETEC on 1 November 2010, Federal Councillor Leuthard was head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs (FDEA) from August 2006 to October 2010. During this time, she was responsible for the labour market, vocational education and training, technology, innovation, agriculture, housing, national economic supply and trade policy. She represented Switzerland at international organisations including the WTO, OECD, FAO and the World Bank and chaired the EFTA Council.In 2010, Doris Leuthard was President of the Swiss Confederation.

From 1999 to 2006, Federal Councillor Leuthard was a member of the National Council representing canton Aargau. From 2004 to 2006, she was president of the Christian Democratic People’s Party. During her time in the National Council, she was a member of the following committees: legal affairs, political institutions, judicial, economic affairs and taxation.

Born in 1963, Doris Leuthard studied law at the University of Zurich and completed language and study courses in Paris and Calgary. She was a partner in a law firm. She is married to Dr. Roland Hausin.

Leuthard was previously a member of the Council for the Future of Europe.

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