Member Spotlight: Philip Pinsky, Composer / Sound Designer / Sound Artist

This week, we were delighted to chat with Philip Pinsky, who is a composer, sound designer and sound artist. You can find some of his latest works here via twitter and instagram.

Hey Philip, thanks so much for joining us! Can you let everyone know a wee bit about your background?

I always had a wide range of interests, so I tried to keep my options as open as possible when making choices throughout my life.

I studied Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. After graduation, rather than pursue a career in academia, I was drawn towards my life-long fascination with music. Although music was the only exam I ever failed, for some contrary reason I chose to pursue it as a vocation.  I had been in a band since school.  My first proper gig, aged 15, was at the Meadows festival, and for almost two decades I managed to make a living as part of a moderately successful group inhabiting the fringes of various independent music scenes.

Following this,  I moved into the world of theatre and my interests expanded into all areas of sound; music, songs, underscore, sound effects and sound design. In contrast to being in a band, where a campaign takes years of writing, recording, promotion and touring, theatre is a very immediate and spontaneous artform. You start work on a play, and four or five weeks later, for better or worse, it is in front of an audience. This faster, more demanding way of working allowed me to write many albums worth of material each year, and provided a varied and comprehensive education in music, one that I had never had formally. The subject matter of the play forces you to explore new genres of music and sound and different ways of producing it. I found that I enjoyed being part of a large team where all your different skills combine to make a whole which is greater than its parts.

Theatre allowed me to venture into the ambiguous area of sound design where any type of sound can legitimately be used to enhance a performance. The absence or negation or sound becomes as important as its presence. Sound becomes another character in the action, an integral part of the narrative. I was developing an interest in sound beyond the domain of theatre, sound as art in its own right, when the Covid pandemic closed down all theatre-making. 

To allow freelancers in the arts to keep afloat, Creative Scotland stepped in with funding for artists to develop and expand their work. With this support I was able to make my first sound and film installation with film-maker Karen Lamond, entitled And If Not Now, When? Showcased at the National Museum of Scotland during COP26, it was an immersive, reactive re-imagining of our urban reality in light of the global pandemic and the impending climate crisis. The intention of the work was to make evident how much we are adversely affected by the constant barrage of noise in the city and how easily we could change this for our own and for others’ wellbeing.

I am currently working on another art project which addresses rising sea levels. The content of this work is going to be determined by the data surrounding sea-level change along the coastline of Scotland. 

What an interesting background Philip! I'd love to hear a little more about your current project.

Our current project, a sound and film installation entitled The Forecast: Imminent, Rising, Becoming Severe, addresses the impact of rising sea levels on coastal communities in Scotland, specifically in the Moray area, which is particularly vulnerable. Although our aim is to make a piece of work that connects with an audience through the direct emotional impact that art alone can make, we want the project to be grounded in genuine data.  The fact that the artwork incorporates plausible future scenarios for local communities will highlight the immediacy of the crisis that we are facing.  This is not something that is happening to some distant “other”.  It is happening to us and it is happening now.

We are still in the research stage of the project so we do not want to divulge exactly how we intend to highlight the issue of rising sea levels. However, we want to film and record in the local communities that are most vulnerable to the encroaching sea.  To locate these communities and plot what will happen and when, satellite data on previous sea level changes and onward predictions of future changes will be essential.  This is what brought us to The Data Lab. We have already been provided with a lot of information and relevant organisations, websites and interactive maps.

This month in The Data Lab Community we've been exploring the relationship between data, AI and art. As a creative yourself, do you believe that AI-generated art can be considered 'real' art?

My take on AI may be viewed as a bit old-fashioned. I studied AI and computer simulation as part of my Philosophy degree many years ago at the University of Edinburgh. I think that AI and computer-based work is a highly useful and often essential tool in the making of art. However, I think there is a human curatorial sensibility that has not been and may never be replicated. A good example here is Mozart. He said he had  no problem coming up with new tunes; there seemed to be an infinite supply of them populating his mind. His problem, he claimed, was choosing which were the good tunes. That in the end was his greatest skill. This is how I view art that is generated solely by AI without human intervention. There is potentially an infinite supply of high quality output, but it lacks a final human curatorial sensibility.

Do you view AI as a threat to the arts? Or an opportunity? Or both!?

I think AI is a very useful tool for art, and thus an opportunity.  I don’t really see it as a threat. In the end it is down to how you choose to use it.

If you were buying art or music, would you have any preference that it was made by a human or AI?

In theory I would prefer art that was human-made.  However, if I failed the Turing “art” Test, and couldn’t tell the difference, then my previous arguments would be invalidated.

Do you think creative works generated solely by AI technology (without any human intervention) should be protected by copyright?

I don’t really know enough about the current state of AI, but I think it would be very hard to define a creative work as generated solely by AI technology. To get to the point where AI technology was producing creative work, there would inevitably have been a great deal of human intervention involved.

If you could start your career over, would you do anything differently?

I try not to think too much about questions like this.  It leads such a maze of possibilities that you could become consumed by it. My first application for university was for Philosophy and Mathematics.  I’ve ended up somewhere very different, but I like the idea of being a philosopher of mathematics.

What resource would you recommend to our community?

I would recommend the book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, a professor of international health and statistician. It is very illuminating and a source of optimism when the current world view can seem very bleak.

The Data Lab values are Support, Respect, Innovate & Grow - which one resonates with you most at the moment and why?

Support.  I think the greatest pleasure in life comes from being part of supportive community, in achieving something together, as part of a group.  It is by providing and receiving support that we are at our most human.

Why motivated you to join The Data Lab Community? 

I was told about The Data Lab Community from someone who was already a member and knew that we were looking for data. It has been invaluable so far for this project and I can see that this will continue into the future.

How could you help other members of the community?

Art is about communication and storytelling.  Sometimes it can help to convey meaning when information is difficult to interpret.

Is there any way that members of the community could help you?

They already are, by providing the necessary data for our project!

That's good to hear and a great way for us to wrap up! Thank you so much for the chat Philip, it was great talking to you, and make sure to keep us posted on how your latest project unfolds!

If you'd like to be featured in one of our Member Spotlights just get in touch via [email protected] or drop our community manager Paul a DM.