With an academic background in architecture and philosophy, over the recent years, I have been researching and writing about the interplay between humans and technology, as well as interdisciplinary discussions related to posthumanism, contemporary technoculture, and the philosophy of science and technology. Parallel to this mainly theoretical pursuit, I have been actively engaged in the field of experimental sound design, electronic music, and digital arts since 2014. My projects are primarily centered around field recordings of soundscapes, experiments like sensory translation of sonic data, and representation of soundscapes through sound installations and digital media, particularly focusing on collection and intersubjective exploration of shared everyday sonic experiences in contemporary urban society.
Pedram Karimi's artworks:
Auditory experience is a facet of urban life often overshadowed by the sensory dominance of visual experiences, the temporality of sound, and the sonic chaos inherent to urban environments. However, whether consciously acknowledged or not, we are always immersed within a complex web of soundscapes emanating from various sources, which greatly influence our psyche, emotions, and mental state(s). Unlike the fixed and visible elements of the urban visual landscape, these fluid soundscapes are unbounded and unrestrained, lacking defined and visible borders. By this understanding, soundscapes can be considered to be a more trustworthy source for reflection and representation of our everyday urban life and its inherent intricateness.
This sound installation brings together 20 soundscapes collected over three years (2020-2023) from various areas of Tehran. The intent of the project is to directly expose to the audience the implicit repeating patterns of common urban sonic experiences, with all their possible disturbances, while maintaining the individual identities of the constituent soundscapes. The fluid sonic patterns are shaped and imposed by the mind of the audience in a synthesis between the aggregation of soundscapes and the subject’s experience and cognition. Audiences can control the volume of each individual sound unit to manipulate the overall soundscape hence affecting the perceived unity in a circular process.
Pattern in this general sense is nothing but the perception and representation of unity among a plurality of subjective and intersubjective phenomena.
