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"Ready to hear some trippy stuff? Check out these audio illusions from Diana Deutsch (of Sometimes Behaves So Strangely fame). Explanations for each illusion are at the bottom the post. All the audio and explanations come from Diana Deutsch's Audio Illusions site, where you can check out her CDs for more brain-bending tracks. And let us know how it goes -- leave us a note in the comments section."

" I'm curating a collection of auditory illusions found in indigenous folk practices, popular music, and scientific research.  The focus is on finding examples from each sphere that are as beautiful and engaging as they are educational. As the collection takes shape this blog will be structured as an archive of illusions and phenomena, searchable by terms from both science and culture."

"The following entries describe and illustrate some of Deutsch's illusions of music and speech. Many of them show that people can differ strikingly in the way they hear very simple musical patterns. These disagreements do not reflect variations in musical ability or training. Even the finest musicians, on listening to the stereo illusions described here, may disagree completely as to whether a high tone is being played to their right ear or to their left. And the most expert musicians, on listening to the tritone paradox, can engage in long arguments as to whether a pattern of two tones is moving up or down in pitch. "

"When presented with visual flashes of a black disk and audible beeps, the number of beeps may dictate how many disks you see. Illusion discovered by Ladan Shams, Yukiyasu Kamitani, and Shinsuke Shimojo."

"We've all experienced it, whether we think of ourselves as olfactory aficionados or not: flashbacks and recollections triggered by perfume. Scent can literally manipulate emotions by sending signals to our hippocampus, the part of the brain that guards the pathways to the different elements that make up a memory. These memories intertwine with smells, conjuring up the past like a visceral film reel."

"Frames and variations, an experiential exhibition, encompassing sound, film and performance, by Hong Kong-based artist Samson Young. The show marks Young's debut solo exhibition with the gallery and will be on view from January 20th to March 4th, 2023, at Petzel's new Chelsea location at 520 W 25th Street. Inspired by the perception of sound and how it is distorted and concealed in cinema, this exhibition is comprised of two new immersive installations that center on the effects of situated listening. Young examines the spatial relationships between the aural source and the viewer's vision, adding to an illusion of sound that encircles the viewer sonically and visually."

Meara O'Reilly is a composer and artist, focusing on perception and new musical interfaces.

"Joe Banks is a sound artist, author and researcher, originally specialising in radio phenomena and electromagnetic noise. For over twenty years Joe has been performing, releasing albums and exhibiting under the guise of Disinformation. This Disinformation brand name allows for a critique of corporate identities and modern communication, and uses a sonic palette sourced from errant radio waves, natural earth signals, and interference from the sun and from the National Grid, etc. In 2012, Joe published "Rorschach Audio - Art and Illusion for Sound" on Strange Attractor press, a book that explored the subject of EVP (ghost voice) research in contemporary sound art practice. Joe's work currently focusses on language and evolutionary neuroscience. Joe lives in London, 40 metres from the spot where physicist Leo Szilard conceived the theory of the thermonuclear chain reaction."

"Based merely on a technological approach, one might think that Surround sound is just the technique of reproducing audio signals in a particular array of speakers that distribute sound around space in order to give a three-dimensional illusion for the ears… Surround is not visual really, is not something we can see. Surround is not just a technique of distributing sound, but the consequences of it. It's a characteristic of sound itself, natural to the sonic phenomenon and responsible of the entire notion of the "auditory field" which is more than simply one dimension of space, but a multi-layered, multi-dimensional representation of sound."

"Music From Nowhere 1st exhibition: Generator Sound Art, New York, 1990 In the Music From Nowhere series a variety of loudspeaker cabinets are transformed into acoustic sound-producing devices. The actual speakers are removed from inside the speaker cabinets and the cabinet interiors are refitted with mechanical-acoustic sound-producing systems. All devices are automated so that they work independently for an unlimited length of time. These may be modified water fountains, mechanical vibrators, or logic and motor-driven systems that articulate acoustic sounds. Each system is designed with built-in mechanical variables to produce variation or indeterminacy within the sound, thus helping to create the illusion that one is listening to a recording being broadcast through the given speaker cabinet. Each speaker cabinet has a plexiglas backing so that the viewer can see inside the box. These fake loudspeakers are exhibited together in a room so that a form of 'real' musique concrete is achieved."

"Philadelphia's Franklin Institute will soon unveil a new exhibit called Your Brain: www.newsworks.org/index.php/thepul…ur-of-your-brain. The Pulse's Zack Seward got a sneak peek from chief bioscientist Jayatri Das. The exhibit features about 80 interactive installations exploring how your brain works. And this one ... will blow your mind."