I first heard about Norwegian Slow TV a decade after it began. I watch a half hour of one of the rail trips. It didn't do anything for me. Other than hearing about other hits like chopping wood and knitting, I almost forgot about it. Two months into the pandemic I found my watching a semi-live train trip across Norway. Much of the scenery was similar to where I grew up and I found myself watching. It wasn't long until I found myself daydreaming, creating my own narrative to match the flowing images. Two hour later I stopped a dream-like story in my head.
About four in the morning the next day I was jolted out of bed with an interesting approach to some physics that I had abandoned months before due to lack of process. Having your mind work on something when you're not working on it is well known. I suspect the neural connects I had was making in the narrative I was writing in my imagination had a good deal to do with it.
This morning I caught an episode of Invisibilia that dives into the subject. Recommended if you have an interest in narrative in any form. Slow TV is an hours or days long TV show without plot, characters, or tension. How Norwegians responded as a shared experience is the most fascinating part
I've done a bit of work in remote audio ambiances. A few created serendipity. Here's an excerpt from an old post on one:
5:25 am - excellent!
I brush the last of the snow from my coat and switch on the lights before taking my seat. few minutes of silence and then a door opens and closes reverberating for about three seconds. The clicking of shoes echoes through Warner Hall as she makes her way to the bench. A minute of preparation and then the Praeludium in G by Bach fills her space and mine. I sit back and shut all but the Bach from my mind.
She's doing an excellent job until - rats. Bach derails and I sit up in my chair looking around. A female shout fills the space reverberating for about three seconds.
sh*tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!
She goes back a few bars and dances through the problem smoothly. Now a piece I don't recognize, but it is still clearly Bach until about 6:55. Her shoes and coat go on and steps click to the door in the distance.
And a little magic as a female voice is softly singing Bach.
A door opens and closes. The reverberation is about three seconds and then silence. Time to switch off the amplifiers and make some hot chocolate before getting to work.
She was an organ student in Oberlin and I was in a special room in New Jersey where we were working on the reconstruction sound fields. A special seven microphone array had been installed in the hall with a computer handling compression mixing and compression in realtime. The bitstream made traveled eastward to our room where a reasonably convincing illusion of the hall's sound space was created. We had created a virtual acoustic reality.
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