The “Wiener Process” is a 24 hour computer music work initially developed as an antidote to Frank Rothkamm’s 2010 diagnosis of the brain processing disorder Tinnitus. Completed in 2014, the “Wiener Process” is a nod to the mathematician and philosopher, Norbert Wiener. Seeded from a single quantum theoretical algorithm, the “Wiener Process” unfolds in 24 distinct 1 hour pieces. It proposes the open source model of psychostochastics to gain a new understanding of our perception of sound, time and uncertainty.

Coded in Forth, Coldfusion and Python, all of which produce Csound scores, the “Wiener Process” draws heavily on the uniform random distribution and borrows notions from quantum mechanics and psychoacoustics. Using the Scottish philosopher David Hume’s skepticism on causality as a starting point, the “Wiener Process” acknowledges the Austrian physicist and philosopher Ludwig Boltzmann’s hypothesized self aware entity, as well as German theoretical physicist Max Planck’s unit of time in a system of natural units (Planck time). This lecture aims to introduce the audience to the mind-boggling world of sound, time and uncertainty. Frank Rothkamm will reveal everything he knows about his “Wiener Process” including, but not limited to: who, when, where, why, how, and what.