Rorschach Audio



"Rorschach Audio" (aka "Audio Rorschach") is the title of a research artwork, conceived in 1998, and initiated and conducted by Joe Banks, founder of the group Disinformation (see Disinformation (art and music project)), which considers investigations of "Electronic Voice Phenomenon" - said to be a paranormal phenomona - in the light of anecdotal reports and experimental studies of related aspects of auditory perception. "Rorschach Audio" considers the spiritualistic attribution of "stray" radio voices to stem from the illusory misinterpretation of ambiguous acoustic sense-data, and EVP recordings themselves to (therefore) be illusions of sound (see auditory illusion). "Rorschach Audio" offers the primary hypothesis that an understanding of the relevant aspects of psychoacoustics provides a complete explanation for most EVP recordings, and a secondary hypothesis that an informed understanding of these processes is as important to the theoretical and aesthetic understanding of the emergent field of sound art as studies of optical illusions have historically been to the understanding of visual arts. "Rorschach Audio" argues for improved public understanding of scientific psychology, and for improved understanding of the relevance of mainstream scientific methodology to the working practices of all forms of contemporary art.

"Rorschach Audio" is distinct from other naturalistic interpretations of EVP in that it stresses that EVP recordings are neither supernatural nor imaginary, but instead "commonplace and physically real material phenomena" - in order to show that they are not manifestations of "anomalous" psychology, but that they instead result from processes of neurology which are "an inherent part of normal perception", because "the process that produces illusions is the same process that normally generates reality". In this way "Rorschach Audio" moves beyond simply discussing the role that auditory pareidolia (referred to the in the published research as auditory "projections") play in forming EVP, to a discussion of the misdirection techniques which it alleges are used in demonstrating EVP. It concludes that, amongst others, the main misdirection technique employed by EVP researchers is to encourage audiences to focus too closely on making personal judgments about the truth or falsehood that listeners attribute to specific voice phenomena recordings, in order to direct listeners attention away from examining the shortcomings of EVP as a system of belief.

Central to that belief system is the (implicit and explicit) assumption that EVP research is "objective" and "scientific" and "Rorschach Audio" argues that EVP researchers use the visual appearance of electrical engineering and laboratory technology (radios, tape recorders, computers and oscilloscopes etc) to create the impression that their work is scientific, whereas in fact what their research lacks is an appropriate understanding of scientific method. "Rorschach Audio" argues that, in offering the results of their research to the public as scientifically validated, EVP researchers habitually confuse technology with science, with the effect that EVP research supports auditory illusions with what are effectively visual illusions (subjective resemblances between the apparatus of EVP experiments and the apparatus of "real" science). Somewhat more controversially, "Rorschach Audio" goes on to argue that (by an equivalent process) many art-science projects also mistake technology for science, and use similar visual misdirection techniques to bolster the (apparent) credibility of (often highly pseudoscientific and intellectually spurious) art-science research.

"Rorschach Audio" suggests that the human brain mixes factually objective representations of the outside world with what are often intelligent guesses about our environment, all of which are perceived together as concrete reality. This idea is broadly consistent with the theory of "perceptual hypotheses" proposed by the German polymath Hermann Helmholtz. "Rorschach Audio" offers corroborative examples of related perceptual phenomena researched from the fields of art theory, artificial intelligence, code-breaking, literature, medical audiology, military intelligence, neuroscience, opthalmology, proof-reading and speed-reading, stage magic, Surrealist cinema, theatre, TV maintenance, vernacular poetry, visual art, the controversy surrounding allegedly Satanic "back masking" in Heavy Metal music, and philosophy of science. While the existing "Rorschach Audio" publications conclude by arguing in favour of the opinion that all forms of human perception are inherently creative, the current "Rorschach Audio" research focusses on the belief that all perception is also inherently computational.

In addition to the ideas drawn from Hermann Helmholtz, "Rorschach Audio" cites significant research and writing by (amongst others) neuroscientists Diana Deutsch, Harry McGurk and John MacDonald (see McGurk Effect), Richard Gregory and Oliver Sacks, the computer scientist Alan Turing, and philosophers AJ Ayer and Karl Popper. In homage to art theorist and historian Ernst Gombrich's classic book "Art and Illusion", the most recent "Rorschach Audio" publication is subtitled "Art and Illusion for Sound".

Project history
In addition to the published versions (see References), as an art project "Audio Rorschach" materials have been presented as a research exhibit in two group exhibitions - at The Foundry (London) and at The Study Gallery of Contemporary Art (Poole), and in 9 solo exhibitions by the sound art group Disinformation - at Fabrica (Brighton), The Huddersfield Art Gallery, The Ashcroft Arts Centre (Fareham), Quay Arts (Newport, Isle of Wight), South Hill Park (Bracknell), The Mac (Birmingham), Q Arts (Derby), Saltburn Artists Projects (Teeside) and Wrexham Arts Centre. "Rorschach Audio" lecture-demonstrations, performances etc have also been given at FACT centre (Liverpool), MUU (Helsinki), The Royal British Society of Sculptors (London), The Broadway, Nottingham (for the Nottingham Trent University Fine Art Department), Q Arts (Derby), Fabrica (Brighton), Hull Time Based Arts, the UKISC "Sound Practice" conferences (at Dartington College of Arts and Goldsmiths College, London), Beursschouwburg (Brussels), Kinetica Museum (London), Dorkbot 49 and The Art Institute of Chicago. Further "Audio Rorschach" publications are current work-in-progress.

Biographical information
Disinformation is a research, installation and sound art project, which, since 1995, pioneered the use of electromagnetic (radio) noise from live mains electricity, lightning, laboratory equipment, industrial, metro, railway and IT hardware etc, geomagnetic storms and the sun etc, as the raw material of musical and fine-art publications, DJ and concert performances, exhibits and events (the name Disinformation is used in the spirit of what Ludwig Wittgenstein referred to as the "Liar Paradox". The research into (mostly Very Low Frequency band) radio science that was required to realise early Disinformation LPs and CDs etc provided the technical experience necessary to explain the source and behaviour of the stray radio signals that form the subject matter of EVP research. Since this time, Disinformation has also evolved into a widely exhibited visual arts project, from April 2003 to March 2006 the author of "Rorschach Audio" was appointed Visiting Fellow in the School of Informatics, City University, London, and from June 2007 he was awarded a 5 year FCPA Research Fellowship in The Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture at Goldsmiths College, University of London, with the support of The Arts and Humanities Research Council.