Alchemic Sonic Environment
2021 - present
USA / India / UK
Mission Definition | Organisation Design | Culture Development | Team Alignment | Community Activation | Data Analysis | Deep Listening Experiences | Language & Research Integration
Inner Dialogue
Team Dialogue
System Dialogue
An exclusive partnership between Alchemic Sonic Environment and The Dialogue Lab explores the inter-relational potential between sound and language.
Credit: Alchemic Sonic Environment
Highlights
Initiated by sound artist Satya Hinduja, Alchemic Sonic Environment (ASE) is a sound therapy initiative exploring the nature of health through multisensory deep listening experiences, such as performances, installations, and educational encounters.
Through a singular partnership that traverses each strand of the project, The Dialogue Lab has been supporting ASE with its mission and vision, helping it lay the foundations for its organisational design, activating and expanding its inner culture and broader community, and harvesting the insights from each of the project’s activations with data-driven reports since 2021.
As partners since 2022, The Dialogue Lab and Alchemic Sonic Environment have collaborated in the “Never Alone” summit to explore new and innovative ways to address mental health challenges; a mission definition workshop with the Hinduja Foundation' aided “Sound as Freedom” - a specific dialogue session with experts - on method, dialogue format and harvest analysis; internal team focus workshops; “Harmony of the Worlds” a deep listening performance in Luton, UK with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Synergy Vocals and conducted by David Murphy; a specific experience for MuseXpo, Los Angeles entitled “The Athenaeum of Sound”; and “The Museum of Consciousness” a collection of interactive, audio-based exhibits for cultivating altered states of consciousness.
Never Alone Summit | Towards a Sustainable Ecosystem
May 2021
The initial collaboration between ASE and The Dialogue Lab aimed to tap into external collective intelligence to identify fresh and innovative approaches to address the contemporary mental health challenges we face.
To achieve this objective, The Dialogue Lab orchestrated a collective dialogue, with our signature deep listening format, inspired by Jiddu Krishnamurti and David Bohm. This dialogue included significant voices from the mental health sector, spanning law, education, foundations, health, and community.
With the active participation of experts during the Never Alone Summit, ASE had the opportunity to delve into the underlying connections of the concepts discussed in the conversation. This process not only validated ASE's approach to mental health but also enriched its conceptual framework with the knowledge contributed by Raj Mariwala (Director, Mariwala Health Initiative), Dr. K.V. Kishore Kumar (Director, The Banyan and The Banyan Academy), Dr. Lakshmi Sankaran (Chairperson, Applied Psychology Department at BALM), Dr. Sekhar Saxena (Psychiatrist, Professor of Global Mental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Mental Health), Ritu Prakash Chhabria (Managing Trustee, Mukul Madhav Foundation and Director, Finolex Industries Limited) and Siddarth Mehta (Mental Health Advocate, Mehta & Padamsey, Advocates).
Following the event, The Dialogue Lab meticulously analysed the various interactions and fragments of the conversations. Through data analysis, we extracted key takeaways and formulated recommendations on how to seamlessly integrate these insights into the ongoing work.
Mission Workshop with the Hinduja Foundation, Team Focus Workshop and “Sound as Freedom” Dialogue
Throughout 2022
In a strategic move, and in collaboration with Alchemic Sonic Environment, the Hinduja Foundation prioritised the definition of a mission statement that resonates with the Foundation's ethos. Building on insights gathered from the "Never Alone" Summit, The Dialogue Lab orchestrated an extensive interactive dialogue workshop with the Hinduja Foundation to further validate the project's purpose. This session probed deeply into critical aspects, including the project's underlying issues, strategic approaches for the mental health program, avenues for impactful implementation, operationalizing the mission, and reconnecting with the ancient principles of Indian mind-body medicine.
The dialogue, marked by its comprehensive nature, also explored diverse sources of inspiration, emphasising the unique opportunity to shape a fledgling program, integrate emerging technologies, and fuse music and sound with mental health research through an integrative approach. Acknowledging the challenges inherent in the project, the dialogue addressed issues such as the lack of education, societal stigma, hesitancy, and intersectionality.
To turn the results of the interaction into actionable insight, The Dialogue Lab analyzed the conversation using text network analysis, revealing the blind spots, breaking down the main points of interest of the discourse and providing the Hinduja Foundation with future questions to further fine-tune their mission definition.
Building on the insights gathered, we then put into practice a comprehensive Team Focus workshop within ASE, collectively delving into ASE's vision, purpose, its challenges and impact (socially, artistically and health-related). The results supported the validation of the organisation design, the ecosystem structure and the steps to follow to activate the Alchemic Sonic Environment community.
Towards the end of 2022 The Dialogue Lab supported ASE in pre-production - methodology, dialogue format, dialogue facilitator training; and post-production - through data analysis, of “Sound as Freedom”, facilitated by Satya Hinduja, with the special guests Jill Purce and Dr. Jeffery Thompson and hosted by Project Immersed. After harvesting the collective intelligence generated in this conversation, one beautiful realisation emerged: the notion of having a personal sound to express individual power, which subsequently manifests itself in the harmony of the collective voices.
Harmony of the Worlds
Luton, UK
January, 2023
Alchemic Sonic Environment’s first concept performance took place in early January 2023 at St. Mary’s Church in Luton, UK. Entitled “Harmony of the Worlds”, it represents the meeting of the two hemispheres of the brain that culminate in a balance between structure and flow, creating a safe sonic space for the experience to unfold.
Three weeks before the performance, ASE workshops were already taking place in Downside Primary School Luton, where 175 young people deepened their listening skills whilst experiencing a series of sonic tools to enhance mental focus and clarity. A unique spatial audio composition combining their many voices and languages was presented at the end.
Inviting the audience to enter a safe environment to process memories, dreams, reflections, goals, and obstacles and providing a refuge for mind-body balance and internal stability, over 300 people attended the performance night, which consisted of Satya Hinduja's ‘Essence,136.10 Hz The Earth’s Primal Frequency’ in dialogue with Beethoven's ‘Symphony No. 6’. Played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, sung by the Synergy Vocals and conducted by David Murphy, the audience was immersed, blindfolded, in a spatial audio experience that enriched appreciation for the power of sound through a unique composition of music.
In addition to the listening experience, The Dialogue Lab held a series of dialogue sessions to enhance sonic space in all layers of engagement throughout Harmony of the Worlds. A series of dialogical workshops were held with invited members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Synergy Vocals, school children, the production team, as well as the wider public, bringing people into a deeper listening state, pre- and post-performance, nurturing a unified field for all involved.
Immediately after the experience, the public was asked to write down their feelings and insights on personal harvest cards. In a second stage, the audience was challenged to find an unknown partner and exchange in dialogue their harvest with each other. Consistent anecdotes were collected finding impressions of calm, inner self connection, imagination, freedom, and the suspension of any pressure. All the information and impressions were summarised in a qualitative report, unlocking the underlying effect of the performance.
Credits: Alchemic Sonic Environment
The Athenaeum of Sound
Los Angeles, USA
March, 2023
"The United Nations of Music", MuseXpo brings together the world's most creative, innovative and successful minds in the industry: influencers, senior managers, producers, promoters, songwriters and performers gather to talk about the industry's challenges, look out for future trends and collaborate with new talent.
In collaboration with MuseXpo ASE presented an intimate deep listening installation at the 2023 annual global music business conference, in Burbank, Los Angeles. The experience aimed at inviting conference delegates into a different space, optimised by the multi-dimensional potential of sound, while conveying the multidisciplinary nature of ASE's vast work in a reserved setting. An introductory experience of ‘Essence,136.10 Hz The Earth’s Primal Frequency’ was held by Satya Hinduja, followed by a short documentary on ASE’s philosophical, methodical and technical development. An introductory experience of ‘Essence,136.10 Hz The Earth’s Primal Frequency’ was held by Satya Hinduja, followed by a short documentary on ASE’s philosophical, methodical and technical development.
The Dialogue Lab delivered support at the end of each experience. After listening to 'Essence', the audience was asked to write down their feelings and insights on personal harvest cards. Closing the final experience, when a dialogue session engaged participants to share their insights on ASE's future steps. Reflections and impressions post the listener's experience revealed consistent anecdotes of a calm journey, the longing for home, flashbacks into memory and alignment for fundamental decision-making.
Applying our data analysis methodology and tools, The Dialogue Lab helped ASE to identify patterns in the insights provided by the audience, which led the project to rethink its narrative to the englobing context to explore future collaboration.
Credits: Alchemic Sonic Environment
The Museum of Consciousness
New York, USA
April, 2023
Located in Brooklyn, New York, the Museum of Consciousness housed exhibits by a multitude of artists, mavericks, and consciousness explorers who were eager to transmit their most treasured work: short, audio-based samples designed to create expansive states of consciousness.
The structure of the exhibition was centred around recipes for consciousness augmentation. The artists contributed to the research on how the range of conscious experiences that human beings are capable of having is mapped out. To quantify the effect of the Museum on participants' conscious experiences, a model for measuring consciousness based on Raph Milliere’s 6D model of self-consciousness was applied. This was inspired by the effects of psychedelics and meditation on subjective experience.
The Dialogue Lab's personal harvest cards gave the audience an opportunity to harvest each experience as part of the cyclically regenerative system at the heart of the Museum of Consciousness.
After each performance, harvest cards were distributed to the audience, who were asked to express their feelings, insights, and sensations after each experience. The Dialogue Lab did a dedicated analysis of each of the performances' feedback and then merged them to find the intersectionality among them, providing Alchemic Sonic Environment with their next research question: “What effects does deep state meditation have on the feeling of great sadness and anxiety about our world?”
Credit: Alchemic Sonic Environment
Artists
Carl H. Smith - Founder of the Museum of Consciousness
Alexander Tannous - Ethnomusicologist, Sound Therapist & Sound Researcher
Satya Hinduja - Composer, Sound Artist & Founder of Alchemic Sonic Environment
Josh Peck - Composer, Sound Practitioner, Experiential Designer &Immersive Audio Content Creator
Torkom - Sound Healer, Meditation Guide & Creator of Quantum Harmonix
Essence 1:1
Brooklyn, USA
Throughout 2023
Focusing on the healing power of music, Essence 1:1 focuses on individual sessions between sound artist Satya Hinduja and different guests. The sessions take place privately at her studio, in Brooklyn.
The whole experience revolves around iterating the ‘Essence,136.10 Hz The Earth’s Primal Frequency’, experimenting to reveal a final composition that will be launched in 2024.
The Dialogue Lab is responsible for collecting perceptions from each session to nourish the artist’s practice with data-driven insights. The reports we provide state hidden connections and bonds between emotions, vibrations and concepts that arise during the sessions. The harvest is later collected to inform strategy validation and ASE's future steps.
