Keter: exploring inner and outer space together
“As we wish you farewell to explore solar systems, your welfare is our priority at Soul Systems.”
Headphones on!
A speculative listening experience
Imagine settling into your Space Traveller pod and following the instructions to place an eye mask on your forehead to initiate the brain implants that start the hibernation process.
Imagine then placing the headphones over your ears and pressing Neural Wipe (to reset the experience) then Neural Sync to start the recording in the headphones, welcoming you and explaining how Soul Systems will safely take your through different levels of consciousness as you enter and return from hibernation.
Keter is inspired by revolutionary insights of neuroscience about the contextual nature of consciousness. Altering states of consciousness can induce hallucinations so Mission Control will be monitoring your subjective experience at all times to adjust any perceptual dissonance.
Experiments in hallucinatory sound design
I used audio illusions creatively, including:
Verbal Transformation Effect when the initial narration ends as the hibernation process begins
Risset Glides to convey feelings of falling into, and awakening from, deep sleep;
Phantom Word illusion at the very end to signal the ego’s return.
Informed by the phenomenology of auditory hallucinations, I processed samples of sounds that people report when they experience hallucinations when falling asleep and waking up.
To represent Mission Control, I used a AI model pre-trained on recordings from the Apollo 11 mission. I read reports of people hallucinating animal sounds, including whales, in different states of sleep so I played humpback samples through this model.