Rhythmanalytics

Rhythmanalytics is a keynote lecture by independent scholar, writer, and electronic musician DeForrest Brown, Jr. proposing a critical prompt literacy through what he calls “semiocoustic reason,” a mode of thinking that combines speculative theory, cybernetic research, and music journalism. Initiated during residencies at EMPAC at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and developed as a ten-week course at the School for Poetic Computation, Rhythmanalytics examines the growing tension between creative authorship and technical objects, context collapse and market saturation amid the music industry’s maladaptive adoption of AI and Web2.5 architectures. This methodology of diagnostic inquiry into electronic music through applied metaphilosophy informs Brown’s album Synoptic Audio (Planet Mu), a theory-first, studio-as-instrument practice that reimagines music criticism and production as a form of intelligent design of embodied listening.