13 – 21 August 2019
My name is Nacho Sanguinetti. I’m a berlin based neuroscientist and improv theater /comedy performer. I study the neuroscience of play behavior.
I’m joined in Gamboa with my Improv partner Trevor Silverstein with whom I plan to collaborate with and perhaps do some improv permormances.
My plan for Dinacon is the following:
Project 1:
Biological origins of musicality
Music is clearly one of the most important aspects of human cultural life. However, there is very little known about the biological origins of musicality (For a recent review: Kotz, Ravignani, Fitch, 2018). Even though youtube is a treasure trove of animals responding to music , few scientific studies have addressed this very interesting issue (for examples: Patel et al., 2009). Given this amazing opportunity to explore the Gamboa Jungle, a place with such animal diversity, I decided to study wild animals listening to music.
I plan setup he following pilot experiment: a speaker playing music in the jungle while cameras and microphones record possible animal behavior close to the speaker. Are animals curious about human music? Are some animals more curious than others? Do they synchronize movements to the rhythm, do they vocalize, sniff etc? Can we record them to produce more animalistic music that will engage them? (Looking for Collaborations).
Backup plans include : Concentrate on a single species, Agoutis?. Record animal vocalizations and do more controlled playback experiments.
Project 2:
Short Film
I am joined in Gamboa by my artistic partner Trevor Silverstein, with whom I plan to shoot a fictional short film.