Thursday Club - Joe Banks / Disinformation :: January 31, 2008; 6 -8 pm :: Seminar Rooms, Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, right), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross :: Free, all are welcome.

Through his ground-breaking Disinformation project (active since 1995), noise DJ and installation artist Joe Banks pioneered the use of electromagnetic (radio) noise from sources such as live mains electricity, lightning, industrial and IT hardware, laboratory equipment, trains, magnetic storms and the sun as the raw material of musical and fine-art publications, exhibits and events. Disinformation has been the subject of ten UK solo exhibitions, experienced by over 100,000 people and described by The Guardian as “some of the most beautiful installations around.

Joe Banks / Disinformation: Rorschach Audio

Banks will be demonstrating the illusions of sound discussed in his MIT Press published research project “Rorschach Audio.” “Rorschach Audio” argues that credulous interpretations of EVP research (which are commonplace in contemporary art) are at best examples of wilful self-delusion, at worst examples of outright fraud. “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 understanding the emergent field of sound art as studies of optical illusions have historically been to understanding visual art.

“Rorschach Audio - Ghost Voices and Perceptual Creativity” Leonardo Music Journal, The MIT Press 2001, and “Rorschach Audio - Art and Illusion for Sound” Strange Attractor Journal volume 1, Strange Attractor 2004. “Rorschach Audio” is COPYRIGHT Joe Banks.