Berggruen Research Center, Peking University

Launched by the President of Peking University and the Chairman of the Berggruen Institute on December 19th, 2018, the Center engages China’s most outstanding thinkers to examine, share, and develop ideas to address global challenges. The Berggruen Institute has committed $25.5 million to establish the Center, which includes a fellowship program, and houses program activities such as lectures and symposia alongside a host of other public events. The Center is located at Peking University.

Professor Lin Jianhua, former President of Peking University, together with Professor Roger T. Ames, Senior Academic Advisor for Berggruen China Center, are appointed Co-Chairs of the Center’s Academic Advisory Committee. The other members of the Committee include Professor Yuan Ming, Dean of Yenching Academy of Peking University; Professor Wang Bo, Vice President of Peking University; and Professor Shang Xinjian from the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies.

Berggruen’s Vice President Ms. Song Bing and Peking University’s Associate Professor Liu Zhe are appointed as Co-Directors of the Center.

Peking University Leadership

Bing Song

Bing Song

Senior Vice President, Berggruen Institute; Director, Berggruen China Center
Zhe Liu

Zhe Liu

Co-Director Berggruen Research Center, Peking University

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