Music and neuroscience came together at the start of the workshops “Sounds, science and technology”

The workshop program Sounds, Science and Technology organized by Music Technology Group (MTG) and Scientific Communication Observatory (OCC) both from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) started yesterday in Barcelona. This initiative is framed within the European program KiiCS (Knowledge Incubation in Innovation and Creation for Science), and has the financial support of Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT), and the collaboration of Phonos Foundation and Institut Municipal d’Educació de Barcelona (IMEB).

This activity is part of Sons de Barcelona, a Music Technology Group initiative which is adressed to secondary schools and aims to promote interest in sound, technology and science in order to understand our surrounding. The project also emphasizes the dissemination and network collaboration by the use of Freesound platform, a collaborative website for sounds exchange developed by MTG.

The opening session took place yesterday in Universitat Pompeu Fabra facilities and was intended for training the secondary school teachers who had enrolled their students in these workshops. First, Agustín Martorell and Emilia Gómez,MTG researchers explained the physical mechanisms of sound production, analysis and characteristics. Then Mara Dierssen, researcher and neuroscientist at Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), exposed the neurological processes that human brain uses to interpret reality through sound perception.

During the following months, more than 300 secondary school students will have the opportunity to participate in these incubators that blend sounds, music, creativity and neuroscience together. The ultimate goal of the workshops is that through technology for recording and modifying sounds, students transform a concrete space of Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in another imaginary space. The sound fictions considered in the program are: future urban space, Amazonia rain forest, neuronal landscape, Curiosity on Mars, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. The activity is conducted by researchers from Sons de Barcelona, a sound educational program that works with schools and cultural centers of the city since 2008.

This activity that joins music and neuroscience is included in KiiCS, Knowledge incubation in innovation and creation for Science a 3 year European Commission-funded project led by ECSITE (European Network for Science Centres & Museums). KiiCS actions aim to strengthen the process of incubation between art and science through the creative interaction of people, and young scientists, to promote innovation.

• KiiCS-Barcelona Flyer
• Presentation of KiiCS at slideshare (in Catalan)
• El OCC-UPF participa en KiiCS: un proyecto europeo que une ciencia y creatividad (in Spanish)
• The local consortium of the KiiCS project in Barcelona is a reality

Este blog cuenta con la colaboración de la Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología – Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación