People

Franz Vranitzky

Franz Vranitzky

Member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria

Biography

Franz Vranitzky (born Oct. 4th, 1937) was Special Adviser to WestLB (1997-2004). He was the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Danish Foreign Minister H. Petersen, for the OSCE Special Mission to Albania (March-Oktober 1997); Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) (1988-97) and one of the Vice Presidents of the Socialist International; Federal Chancellor of Austria (1986-97); Finance Minister (1984-86); Chairman of the Board of Österreichische Länderbank (1981-84); Deputy Chairman of the Board, Creditanstalt-Bankverein (1976-81); Adviser on Economic and Financial Affairs to the Finance Minister (1970-76); with the Austrian National Bank (1961-70). Dr. Vranitzky received a Doctorate in Business Studies, Vienna University of Business and Economics (1969). He received Honorary Doctorates from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1993), the University of Ashgabat (1998) and the University of New Orleans (1999), and holds Honorary Degrees from the Universities of Santiago de Chile and Bratislava. The city of Aachen presented him with the Charles prize in 1995, for his work to promote European integration and because under his leadership, Austria became a member of the European Union. In 1995 he was awarded the Fulbright Prize for his services to Eastern Europe after the dismantling of the Iron Curtain. Vranitzky is an Honorary Senator of the Vienna University School of Business and Economics. He was awarded numerous honours by foreign governments one of those being the government of the Republic of Kasachstan.

Franz Vranitzky is married to Christine Kristen. They have a daughter and a son and five grandchildren. A member of the Austrian 1960 Olympic basketball team, Vranitzky is a fan of basketball and other sports.

Vranitzky 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