Cited on HN 4 times, 2020–2023, never outright recommendedscore 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN people cite it as a canonical example of iterative degradation and as an analogy for repeated copying, AI bot loops, and dissociative listening.
A performance recording of Alvin Lucier's 1969 experimental piece in which a spoken text is repeatedly played back and re-recorded in a room until the room's resonances overwhelm the words. It is a landmark of electronic and conceptual music.
“Another famous recording which for me induces a dissociative state” (HN, 2020)
Reminded me of: I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have. Alvin Lucier - I Am Sitting in a Room [this video]
reminded me of (albeit a bit of a different concept): [link] > The piece features Lucier recording himself narrating a text, and then playing the tape recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Due to the room's particular size and geometry, certain frequencies of the recording are emphasized while others are attenuated. Eventually the words become unintelligible, replaced by the characteristic resonant frequencies of the room itself. performance recording: [this video]
Performance recording of Lucier's repeated re-recording piece
This could go somewhere really interesting, a la Alvin Lucier’s avant-garde “I am sitting in a room”, in which the artist Lucien puts on a loop of himself saying a phrase, and each further loop is a recording of the prior loop playing into the room, and so the acoustics of the room gradually dominate the audio recording and a beautiful resonant frequency emerges. [this video] What will be the resonant frequency of the various threads of an AI intelligence speaking to each other?
Lucier's looping piece as analogy for AI bots conversing
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