Rorschach Audio and the Public Understanding of Science

Here are a bunch of URLs for some very interesting (recent) articles that reference “Rorschach Audio”. The “Beauty Salon” articles provide a particularly well-written summary of the arguments put forward in the early “Rorschach Audio” publications (referencing the article that was published in 2001, but in effect covering the articles from 1999 and 2000 as well), followed by a discussion of the relationship between amateur and professional / institutional science. As regards the second “Beauty Salon” article, one point to add is that the “Rorschach Audio” project understands science as primarily a method, rather than as a professional specialism. As such the 2nd article alludes to a fact that’s not previously been strongly emphasised, which is that “Rorschach Audio” is what’s known as a “public understanding of science” project – albeit one that proceeds from the premise that scientists (and science policy makers) are best able to encourage the public to engage with and become better-informed about science when they themselves become better-informed about the public (he says, with a wink). That’s a subject I hope to discuss in detail in the near future… watch this space.

The “Irish Journal of Gothic & Horror Studies” is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary electronic publication “dedicated to the exploration of Horror and Gothic literature, film, new media and television” created by Elizabeth McCarthy and Bernice Murphy of Trinity College, Dublin. The “Tape Spectra” article by Brian Baker (of Lancaster University) also references “Rorschach Audio”, mostly in context of discussing films like “Contact”, “Frequency”, “Orphée”, “The Sixth Sense” and “White Noise”; however where the “Rorschach Audio” book argues that “the earliest form of sound recording technology was not a machine but was written language” (page 96), Brian Baker attributes to French semiotician Jacques Derrida the blatantly nonsensical assertion that (assuming Derrida’s been summarised accurately) “writing preceded, and was the condition and ground of speech”. Yeah, right… I see alot of animals leaving each other written notes! Again, watch this space… (Jacques Derrida is also referred to in David Ryan’s Art Monthly review – see below).

http://beautysalonuri.tumblr.com/post/33297630012/evps-as-rorschach-audio

http://beautysalonuri.tumblr.com/post/33359905737/the-ethos-of-sciencey

http://irishgothichorrorjournal.homestead.com/TapeSpectra.html