Ian Condry, “Sound, Learning and Democracy: The Curvature of Social Space-Time through Japanese Music, from Underground Techno to Pop Idols”

The talk will explore contemporary Japanese music, with a comparison of diverse examples, such as female Japanese rappers, underground techno festivals, the virtual idol Hatsune Miku, and the pop idol group AKB48. How can music help us understand the curvature of social space-time?  What does this mean for our understanding of society, culture, and media?

Ian Condry is a cultural anthropologist in the department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT, where he has taught since 2002. He is the author of two books, Hip-Hop Japan and The Soul of Anime, both of which have been translated into Japanese.  He organizes the MIT/Harvard Cool Japan research project and a new initiative called Dissolve Music,which brings together musicians, sound artists, technologists and educators to use audio experiences to dissolve the structures of inequality.