People

Robert Kuhn

Robert Kuhn

Host of Closer to Truth, PBS

Biography

Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, writer, host and executive producer of Closer To Truth, the PBS/public television series on cosmos, consciousness and meaning that presents leading scientists, philosophers and creative thinkers discussing fundamental questions.

Dr. Kuhn has published over 30 books, including  The Mystery of Existence: Why is there Anything At All?  (with John Leslie);  Closer To Truth: Challenging Current Belief; Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future; How China’s Leaders Think ; and  The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin  (the first biography of a living Chinese leader published in China and China’s best-selling book in 2005). His articles include “Why This Universe” and “Levels of Nothing” ( Skeptic  magazine).

He is a commentator for the BBC, CCTV, CNN, Bloomberg, etc., and a featured columnist in  China Daily  and the  South China Morning Post . He is an international corporate strategist and investment banker.

He has a BA in Human Biology (Johns Hopkins), SM in Management (MIT), and PhD in Anatomy/Brain Research (UCLA).

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