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Nacho Sanguinetti

13 – 21 August 2019

My name is Nacho Sanguinetti. I’m a berlin based neuroscientist and improv theater /comedy performer. I study the neuroscience of play behavior.

I’m joined in Gamboa with my Improv partner Trevor Silverstein with whom I plan to collaborate with and perhaps do some improv permormances.

www.neuroetho.com

My plan for Dinacon is the following:

Project 1:

Biological origins of musicality

Music is clearly one of the most important aspects of human cultural life. However, there is very little known about the biological origins of musicality (For a recent review: Kotz, Ravignani, Fitch, 2018). Even though youtube is a treasure trove of animals responding to music , few scientific studies have addressed this very interesting issue (for examples: Patel et al., 2009). Given this amazing opportunity to explore the Gamboa Jungle, a place with such animal diversity, I decided to study wild animals listening to music.

I plan setup he following pilot experiment: a speaker playing music in the jungle while cameras and microphones record possible animal behavior close to the speaker. Are animals curious about human music? Are some animals more curious than others? Do they synchronize movements to the rhythm, do they vocalize, sniff etc? Can we record them to produce more animalistic music that will engage them? (Looking for Collaborations).

Backup plans include : Concentrate on a single species, Agoutis?. Record animal vocalizations and do more controlled playback experiments.

Project 2:

Short Film

I am joined in Gamboa by my artistic partner Trevor Silverstein, with whom I plan to shoot a fictional short film.

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Trevor Silverstein

(Aug 13-21)

I’m a filmmaker/comedian from the USA but based in Berlin, Germany. I’ll be shooting a short film with another Dinacon particpant, Nacho Sanguinetti.

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Kristina Dutton

Bio: I’m a composer, musician, and interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on film and collaborative live multimedia performances with dance and visual artists. My personal projects are inspired by science and a love of the natural world. I also have experience with field recording in the tropics, and I co-founded an experimental school that offered free art classes in exchange for environmental restoration work.

PROJECT: My collaborator Lisa Schonberg and I will compose new music and sound work based on observation and field recordings as part of a larger ongoing project. We will illustrate contrasting ecological variables through our recording and composition processes. We will use hydrophones, ultrasonic mic, contact mics, and shotgun mic, and build the compositions using found instruments, a Critter and Guitarri Organelle keyboard, and Ableton Live. If there is mutual interest, we can create this work as a sonic aspect of another researcher’s work at Dinacon. We also want to interview (and with permission film) participants at Dinacon about larger questions related to artists and scientists producing work together.

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Cherise Fong

8/24 – 8/31

Project: Field sound recording along Pipeline Road in order to create a radiophonic journey into its birdsong and wildlife around the clock. Hard science will inevitably be mixed with soft fiction, so zoological correctness not guaranteed.

Writer and journalist, budding birder, interested in both science and fiction involving non-human perspectives, zoology, ecology, technology, evolving ecosystems and documenting the sixth mass extinction.

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Lisa Schonberg

DATES: Aug 24-31

BIO: I am a percussionist, composer, writer, and field recordist with a background in ecology and entomology.

PROJECT: My collaborator Kristina Dutton and I will compose new music and sound work based on observation and field recordings. I am particularly interested in the sounds of ants and the Passalid beetles, and have been researching these sounds in the Brazilian Amazon. Kristina and I will illustrate contrasting ecological variables through our recording and composition processes. We will use hydrophones, ultrasonic mic, contact mics, and shotgun mic, and build the compositions using found instruments and Ableton Live. If there is mutual interest, we can create this work as a sonic aspect of another researcher’s work at Dinacon. We also want to interview participants at Dinacon about larger questions related to artists and scientists producing work together.

www.lisaschonberg.com

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Susan Booher

Dates: 04/8-10/8

Project: Susan will be recording her travels to and around Gamboa, Panama as well as the local flora and fauna (on land, in the air, and along the river) with a 360-degree camera to deliver an immersive experience in virtual reality to aging and/or disabled people through technology and digital recordings.

Bio: I’m a graduate student in Design Research and Development with a specialization in Aging at the Ohio State University. I practiced commercial interior design for 13 years before returning to academia to pursue an MFA. I’d like to continue with a career that supports the aging population and dementia. It’d be a dream to create an experience that can benefit the cognitive and emotional health of older adults who can no longer travel.

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Phillip Hermans

Dates: 8/19 – 8/25

Project: Sonification of Rainforest Sensor Data
I plan to create a software system for transforming sensor data from DINALAB’s LARA network into audio. I hope to collaborate with other scientists, artists and researchers to create audio that is communicates information from the sensor’s via sound. I am also interested in using this system purely to generate music.

My backup plan is to use local materials to build some bio-degradable sound sculptures.

Bio: I’m a musician, programmer and educator interested in interactive audio, sonification, acoustic ecology and bio-acoustics.

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Jennifer Payne

August 4th – 11th

I’m thinking of working on a physical visualization of someone’s data*, perhaps using natural materials. (Aside from physical representations of data, I’m keen on collaboration, paper crafts, physical computing, felting, and climbing trees!)

* perhaps collected by you, at Dinacon!?

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Becky Scheel

Dates: 13-18 August

Project: Drexel University Bio-Inspired Design – with teammates Raja Schaar and Ann Gerondelis. Together we’ll be working to expand our K12 and Higher-Ed Biologically Inspired Design and Citizen Science pedagogy by studying indigenous animals and plants. We’ll analyze their structural, behavioral, and functional features and adaptations to look for ways people might use them to solve problems in the conservation and sustainability space. I don’t work at Drexel (just excited to be on their team), but I am a service designer in Atlanta.

I am a design generalist for human and nonhuman great apes. I focus on design in complex, dynamic, and unfamiliar environments with emerging technology. With more than a decade working as a designer at Zoo (in exhibit, web and graphic design) and an education in design and digital media, I hope that my work supports improving the lives of humans & animals.

My favorite animals are orangutans and red pandas, but I am really excited to see sloths, coatis, and Panamanian golden frogs!

Gratuitous red panda photo

http://www.beckyscheel.com/