People

Feng Wei

Feng Wei

Biography

Mr. Feng Wei is the Executive Deputy Secretary General of the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy (CIIDS).

Mr. Feng Wei joined the Chinese diplomatic service in 1986 and served successively as Attaché of the Chinese Embassy in New Zealand, First Secretary of the Chinese Mission to the United Nations in Geneva and Director of the Information Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. He co-founded the China Public Diplomacy Network of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in 1999 and has been devoting his time mostly to public diplomacy and engaged extensively in international political and economic events including World Economic Forum, Trilateral Commission and Bo’ao Forum. Since 2003, he has served as Deputy Secretary General of China National Association for International Studies (CNAIS) and Deputy Secretary General of Board of Directors of China Foreign Affairs University. Over the years, he has initiated and organized a number of major international events including the East Asia Investment Forum (2005-2008), Asia Energy Forum (2009) and the US-China Clean Energy Strategic Cooperation Forum (since 2009). He is currently Executive Deputy Secretary General for China Institute for Innovation and Development Studies (CIIDS)

Mr. Feng holds a BA (Hons) on English Literature from Lanzhou University and is an EMBA graduate of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. He is fluent in Mandarin, English and speaks French.

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