Abstract

Keywords: embodiment, simulation, pitch, cross-modal hearing and tactile interaction

AURALROOTS is a media sculpture that combines viewer interaction with inspirations from tactile and aural sensory perception. The sculptural form is based on the functions and forms of the stereocilia, tiny hair cells on our auditory nerves of the inner ear in the cochlea. The content of AURALROOTS is about how we learn through sounds from being embodied in different environments: a) as a growing embryo in the womb, b) as a daughter listening to her mother and finally c) as a female artist communicating with auditory scientists. The overall aim is to explore learning through sentience by giving the viewer the capacity to imagine they are immersed inside these sonic environments.

• Dr. Jill Scott is a media artist and an art and science writer and researcher. Currently, she co-directs the LASER Salon in Zurich for Leonardo Society USA. She is professor emerita from the University of the Arts (ZhdK) in Zürich and founded their Artists-in-Labs Program in 2000. Her own artwork spans 38 years of production about the human body, behavior and body politics, but in the last 16 years she has focused on creative media art experiments about neuroscience, ecology and sensory perception in collaboration with four departments at the University of Zurich. Her most recent artworks were about visual impairment and the evolution of vision. She has also published six books on art and science research including Artists-in-labs: Recomposing Art and Science (eds:Hediger, Scott 2016) and Transdiscourse 2 Turbulence and Reconstruction (ed:Scott 2015) both with de Gruyter press.