Blog

  • An Animated Wave

    An echo can be understood as a temporal shift in the soundwave. Our minds register the same soundwave returning to us, slightly altered by time and space. From the differences between the original and the time-shifted instances, we are able to read the material qualities of the space we are in. By listening to the echo, we gather information about the space around us and our position in it.

    The fading of the echo is caused by the energy loss of sound as it spreads through space. But while the wave loses energy as it travels, it also gains new information. A sound is not just a wave but also a record of its own journey through time and space. Sounds traverse time and space, but they do not just quietly fade away. They bump into obstacles, rush through materials, losing qualities and resolution, until a filtered, broken, mangled version is left — which, as the energy fades, finally transforms from a lively wave to total stillness.

    For the listener, the fading of energy and timbral changes in sounds are significant markers of their own existence. These changes on our timeline, like the tiny differences between film frames, are what animate our experience. We locate ourselves in time and space by listening to the change of the world.

  • What Is an Echo?

    Not a copy. A return.

    Imagine yourself in a vast architectural space. “Hey?” you send your questioning greeting toward the distant walls of the building, and after a second, you hear your voice return, slightly blurred and diffused by the hall. “Hey, ey, ey…” After a couple of repetitions, the voice seems to fade away.

    We tend to think an echo is a slightly altered copy of the original sound. When you speak your words, the voice is your own, but when your voice is returned to you as an echo, it doesn’t belong to you anymore. It seems to exist outside of you, as if it had a life of its own.

    But an echo is not a copy. It is the exact same wave that you launched with your voice. While traveling through space, the wave goes through gradual changes as it is shaped by the materiality and form of the room, as well as the distance the wave has to travel. An echo is the same sound — but an older, wiser, and more fragile version of itself.

    In order to become an echo, the sound has to return to you. And by becoming an echo, your voice has become less yours. It now belongs to the space.

  • Echosophy — A Philosophy of Echoes

    Since 2020, I’ve been studying the philosophy of religion at the University of Helsinki. I wrote my BA thesis on Spinoza, and now I’m working on my master’s thesis on something I like to call, in a playful manner, “echosophy.”

    The process began with a question: why does adding reverb to sounds make them seem somehow more serious, and sometimes almost religious? This question led to a swarm of others that I’ve been exploring while writing my thesis. I’ll also try to share some of these questions and possible answers here on my website.

    Echosophy is partly inspired by Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophy of listening, espacement, and resonance. However, my focus is on observing the spatial and temporal resonances that create not only the sensations of echo and reverb, but also the experience of existing in the world. Echosophy observes being in time and space through listening.

    Existence is neither silent nor isolated. It unfolds in space and time much like sound does. To listen is to attend to and observe this unfolding in real time (and real space, of course). In echosophy, listening is both a method of gaining knowledge and a metaphor that can be applied to many ways of observing.

    But why focus on echoes instead of reality itself? Because the human mind is itself an echo of reality. By developing an understanding of the world as an echo, we can observe the world and our minds simultaneously.

    Echosophy seems to emphasize a philosophy rooted in the present moment. It is a dynamic philosophy, fully entangled with the location and time of the observer and their capacity for resonance and internal amplification of resonances.

    Echosophy is also a philosophy that understands all sensations as echoes, or temporally shifted instances of the same wave. It does not make a strict separation between the external and internal worlds — the mind exists in the world (as an echo) in much the same way as any other aspect of this singular reality.

    In the future, echosophy could be explored in relation to various philosophical traditions, such as Spinoza’s monism, Vedic traditions that see the world as illusion, or Donald D. Hoffman’s interface theory of perception. Echosophy may also inspire creative exploration in the sonic arts (including music) or any art form that treats time and space as raw materials for experience.

    The starting point for most of my creative and intellectual endeavors is sound. Following that sound has taken me to many places, and now the resonances of that sound shake my core and foundations. By focusing my attention on sound and listening, I’ve shifted my own perception. I’m curious to discover where this path — of listening to echoes and attending to the resonances of the world — will lead.

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