Haidan Chen

Haidan Chen

Philosopher, 2021-2022 Berggruen China Center Fellow

Biography

Haidan Chen is an Associate Professor with Tenure at the Department of Medical Ethics and Law, School of Health Humanities, Peking University (PKU). She gained a Ph.D in the Philosophy of Science and Technology from Zhejiang University. She was a visiting postgraduate researcher at the Institute for the Study of Science Technology and Innovation (ISSTI), the University of Edinburgh; a visiting scholar at the Brocher Foundation, Switzerland; and a Fulbright visiting scholar at the Center for Biomedical Ethics, Stanford University. Her research interests embrace the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genetics and genomics, and the governance of emerging technologies, in particular stem cells, biobanks, precision medicine, and brain science. Her publications appear at Social Science & Medicine, Bioethics and other journals. As a Berggruen Institute China Center fellow, she will be working on the social impact of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI).


陈海丹,北京大学医学人文学院医学伦理与法律系长聘副教授,浙江大学科学技术哲学专业博士。曾在爱丁堡大学科学技术与创新研究所、瑞士Brocher Foundation、斯坦福大学生物医学伦理中心等研究机构访学。她的研究兴趣包括遗传学和基因组学的伦理、法律和社会影响 (ELSI),以及新兴技术,比如干细胞、生物样本库、个体化医学、脑科学的治理。这些研究发表在Social Science & Medicine, Bioethics等期刊。作为博古睿中国中心研究员,她将进行“脑机接口的社会影响”研究。


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