People

Marek Belka

Marek Belka

Visiting Professor in Practice at the Institute of Global Affairs, London School of Economics (LSE)

Biography

Marek Belka was born on 9 January 1952 in Łódź.

Having completed economic studies at the University of Łódź in 1972, he worked in the Institute of Economics of this university. In 1978, he earned a PhD degree and in 1986 –a post doctoral degree in economics (“habilitation”). Since 1986, he has been associated with the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 1978-1979 and 1985-1986, he was a research fellow at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, and in 1990 at the London School of Economics. He received the title of Professor of Economics in 1994.

Since the 1990s, Marek Belka has held important public positions both in Poland and abroad. In 1990, he became consultant and adviser at the Ministry of Finance, then at the Ministry of Ownership Transformations and the Central Planning Office. In 1996, he became consultant to the World Bank. In 1994-1996, he was Vice-Chairman of the Council of Socio-Economic Strategy at the Council of Ministers, and later economic adviser to the President of the Republic of Poland.

He served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance on two occasions: in 1997, in the government of Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz and in 2001-2002, in the government of Leszek Miller. In 2004-2005, he was Prime Minister of Poland’s Government.

Since 2006, Marek Belka worked in the United Nations as Executive Secretary of Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and since January 2009 as Director of European Department at the International Monetary Fund. Before that, he served as Chairman of the Council for International Coordination for Iraq (2003), and as Director of Economic Policy in the Coalition Provisional Authority, where he was responsible, among others, for the currency reform, the development of a new banking system and supervision of the economy (2003-2004).

He has published more than 100 scientific papers devoted primarily to the theory of money and anti-inflation policy in developing countries. He specializes in applied economics and contemporary economic thought. He is a member of the Committee on Economic Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

On 10 June 2010, Prof. Marek Belka was approved by the Sejm of the Republic of Poland as the President of the National Bank of Poland. He assumed the office on 11 June 2010 after having been sworn in by the Sejm.

Belka was previously a member of the Council for the Future of Europe and The WorldPost Advisory Council.

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