Sound Art as Locative Narrative

Locative narrative is a form of mobile sound art that sites stories in diverse urban and rural situations. The live ambient sounds, particular to a street, building, or hilltop, are an essential element of the work. This chapter argues that these relations between sounds and things are multistable. This chapter first contextualizes locative narrative and then puts forward an experimental pragmatist framing of experience and perceiving, drawing upon the neuroscience term, multistability. A four-fold framework of multistability is introduced: (1) changing the relations to perceptual and imaginary objects; (2) influencing the value of belief; (3) influencing the value of fiction and the representation of perceptual objects; and (4) changing the relations to the experiences of perception and misperception. This theory is an important contribution to sound art because it demonstrates how changing the relations between sensory perception, language, and belief can reshape what is felt and experienced.

Perception and Perceptual Contents

I examine Aristotle’s views on the contents of perception, and how they bear on the role perception plays in our learning. I defend a broad interpretation of perceptual objects and contents, on which we perceive not just colors, sounds, and so on, but Callias, lyres, loaves of bread, and whether Callias is near, and the lyre well-tuned, and the loaf baked. I consider how this broad perception relates to the characterization of sense-perception in De Anima, and whether it depends on some sort of “cognitive penetration” from the intellect. I then consider Aristotle’s claim that our perceptions are “of universals” even though we perceive particulars, and his description of our pretheoretical apprehension of “compound” universals. I argue that Aristotle thought we could be perceptually responsive to universals we do not yet recognize as such, and that this thought informs his generous take on the knowledge possessed by those with experience.

THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL STATUS OF AN AFFECTIVE RESPONSE TO THE IMAGINARY IN HUSSERL’S AND SARTRE’S WORKS

The paper focuses on the phenomenological status of an affective re- sponse to the imaginary in Husserl’s and Sartre’s works. Initially Husserl supposed that intentional objects of phantasy and perception may be identical. In turn, an imagination (fantasy) can substantiate affective acts, that is, the imaginary can become the subject of an emotional reaction. Along with fantasies, which are only the background of our conscious life, there are such ones in which we “live”, being absorbed in a fantasized object “to self-forgetfulness”. The feelings aimed at the imaginary may in the case seem no different from the real ones. R. Hopkins considers that position as reasonable, and the point of view of Sartre, who asserts the opposite, as vulnerable. However the article shows that both Husserl and Sartre discovered that affectivity plays its role even in the perceptual objects constitution. The image, according to Sartre, is constituted entirely by means of affecti vity and knowledge, in connection with which it is characterized by “essential poverty”, that is, it is impossible to learn anything new from the image. Earlier, Husserl came to the conclusion about a radical difference between objects of fantasy and perception, changing his original opinion. A fantasized object is quasi-seen because it isn’t given as actually present and feelings directed to it undergo modification and represent a “quasi-feeling”. Sartre follows Husserl’s way and claims that affective acts related to the imaginary are rather enacted than ex- perienced since they have neither the independence nor the inexhaustibility of the real. There is nothing in fantasied object to feed the feeling consequently it becomes more abstract and finally disappears.

Simulazione incarnata, estetica e architettura: un approccio estetico sperimentale

This chapter, written by a cognitive neuroscientist and an architect, endeavors to suggest why and how cognitive neuroscience should investigate our relationship with aesthetics and architecture—framing this empirical approach as experimental aesthetics. The term experimental aesthetics specifically refers to the scientific investigation of the brain-body physiological correlates of the aesthetic experience of particular human symbolic expressions, such as works of art and architecture. The notion “aesthetics” is used here mainly in its bodily connotation, as it refers to the sensorimotor and affective aspects of our experience of these particular perceptual objects.

Phantom Perceptions

As digital cinema becomes increasingly dematerialized, in the vein of milestones such as Avatar (2009) and Gravity (2013), the role of CGI and other digital film technologies shift from a complement/corrective of filmed images to a means of creating images proper. In these films created without celluloid, without physical decors, and, increasingly, even without a camera, the insistence on retaining artifactual film formal techniques, codes, and devices from analog cinema is nonetheless striking: camera movements are simulated, lens flares are rendered digitally in the absence of lenses, editing proceeds according to classical codes of continuity, etc. This paper investigates the simulation of analog film forms and ‘dispositifs’ in digital cinema through the question of perception: what does it mean to perceive a camera that is not actually there? Or more generally, when are these simulated devices meant to be apparent, and when are they meant to be imperceptible? In order to approach these questions, this paper will look at cases in which perceptual objects may go unregistered, cases in which perceptual objects are rendered more perceptible by virtue of their digital simulation, and cases in which perceptual objects are meant to be perceived otherwise, in order to posit a skeuomorphic sensibility that links analog and digital cinema through experience.

Malebranche on Intelligible Extension: A Programmatic Interpretation

The purpose of this essay is exegesis. I explicate Nicholas Malebranche’s concept of intelligible extension. I begin by detailing how the concept matured throughout Malebranche’s work, and the new functions it took on within his metaphysical system. I then examine Gustav Bergmann’s (1956. “Some Remarks on the Philosophy of Malebranche.” The Review of Metaphysics 10(2): 207–26) “axiomatic” interpretation, as well as the criticism of it offered by Daise Radner (1994. “Malebranche and the Individuation of Perceptual Objects.” In Individuation and Identity in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Kenneth F. Barber, and Jorge J. E. Gracia, New York: SUNY Press). I argue that Radner’s criticism of the interpretation is only partly successful; some of her objections can be met; others cannot. I then develop a novel interpretation of the concept, given insights from this dispute. I call it the “programmatic interpretation.” I argue that this interpretation coheres well with Malebranche’s famous Vision in God thesis, as well as many of his other commitments. I conclude by considering a certain pertinent objection to my proposal, summarizing the dialectic, and forcefully restating my case.

The Subject-Dependency of Perceptual Objects

Entities that are, in ordinary perceptual situations, veridically presented as objects can be called ‘perceptual objects’. In the philosophical literature, one can find various approaches to the crucial features that distinguish the class of perceptual objects. While these positions differ in many respects, they share an important general feature: they all characterize perceptual objects as largely subject-independent. More specifically, they do not attribute a significant constitutive role to the perceptual relation connecting a fragment of the environment with a perceiving subject. Fragments of the environment are perceptual objects no matter whether they stand in a perceptual relation to any subject, mainly by virtue of having a certain physical structure. I question this common assumption, relying on Green’s (2019) definition of perceptual objects, arguing that a proper theory of perceptual objects should accommodate the constitutive role of perceptual relations. This is because there exist fragments of the environment that are perceptual objects only when they stand in a perceptual relation to a subject.

Treefrogs exploit temporal coherence to form perceptual objects of communication signals

For many animals, navigating their environment requires an ability to organize continuous streams of sensory input into discrete ‘perceptual objects’ that correspond to physical entities in visual and auditory scenes. The human visual and auditory systems follow several Gestalt laws of perceptual organization to bind constituent features into coherent perceptual objects. A largely unexplored question is whether nonhuman animals follow similar Gestalt laws in perceiving behaviourally relevant stimuli, such as communication signals. We used females of Cope's grey treefrog ( Hyla chrysoscelis ) to test the hypothesis that temporal coherence—a powerful Gestalt principle in human auditory scene analysis—promotes perceptual binding in forming auditory objects of species-typical vocalizations. According to the principle of temporal coherence, sound elements that start and stop at the same time or that modulate coherently over time are likely to become bound together into the same auditory object. We found that the natural temporal coherence between two spectral components of advertisement calls promotes their perceptual binding into auditory objects of advertisement calls. Our findings confirm the broad ecological validity of temporal coherence as a Gestalt law of auditory perceptual organization guiding the formation of biologically relevant perceptual objects in animal behaviour.