String Theory Labs to present Sentience, an audiovisual experience

Welcome to now. Enjoy this moment. The now is all we have.

Remember this sentiment.

String Theory Labs is a progressive group of recent Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley graduates who want to deliver an experience that the average concert-goer will never forget. In fact, something that the average concert-goer has never experienced. Because this is no average concert. Its Sentience. It’s real, raw, human feeling.

Sentience is a 3-D audio and visual concert experience taking place at San Francisco’s Public Works on August 27.

A little more context is needed to understand what Sentience is all about. In physics, the inverse square law is a physical rule that explains how sound intensity is proportional to the square of the distance from the source of that quantity. So if you’re standing 500 feet away from the main stage trying to resonate with Animal Collective like those rich jerks in the front row or VIP hearing the most precious, succulent sound waves dripping from the performers’ fingertips, you can’t. Get juiced.

Sentience promises to deliver that front-row quality of sound to virtually every audience member. They’re aiming for everyone to experience the same resonant frequency, same intensity of sound, and same depth of consciousness. Their goal is to transform a collective into one — to create a calming and zen aesthetic by marrying three-dimensional audio with three-dimensional sound. The men and women behind this experience are behind a larger movement of the same intent: to spread peace and induce unity.

In an attempt to dissolve the boundaries between the ego and the objective reality we inhabit, Sentience aims to please our consciousness, a defining factor of sentient beings. And after they’ve done that, they plan to access what’s beyond. A group of points transforming into one beautiful function of continuity, tranquility, and peace. It may sound like it stems the cliché Western fetish for Buddhism, quite rampant now in this post-modern world, but Sentience goes much, much deeper. What met the thirst for legitimacy after my initial skepticism was their commitment to the project.

Wisam I-Am, one of the main computational engineers and a driving force of the project, facilitated a UC Berkeley course last semester titled Physics and Music. It was this course that taught me how to be mindful — how to understand that consciousness is much greater than myself. It’s us. One. A collective, an association, a group. A continuous wave function built up of millions of tiny particles. A wave to be ridden and shared. The Labs are very eager to share it with us.

This is real spiritual interest and I believe there’s something to be heard.

Article by Dan Savo