Research
Lana is a Staff Contributor to I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, the multimedia hub powered by American Composers Forum, and her music journalism is in the Library of Congress. View Lana’s portfolio here.
Lana is embedded in the A. James Hudspeth Lab of Sensory Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. She documents intentional compositional musical use of distortion products, a psychoacoustic phenomenon of the mammalian inner ear studied by the Hudspeth group; facilitates dialogue between interdisciplinary artists and researchers; and brings her artistic skills to science communication.
Image: Lola de la Mata
Additionally, she has an ongoing collaboration with composer, instrument maker, and multidisciplinary scholar Lola de la Mata in conjunction with the Hudspeth group. de la Mata’s research destabilizes ableist practices in sonic art by developing new methodology and resources to center embodiment, slowness, and aural diversity.
With vastly different musical backgrounds—counting electronic music composition, sound art, classical dramatic text setting, and phonetic transcription amongst some of their composite sonic specialties—Lana and Lola focus on the overlap of science, sound, and translation while keeping the inner ear’s active process and physical biproducts (otoacoustic emissions) always in mind.
Current Projects:
Hudspeth Lab book portrait, contributor and editor
“PINK NOISE” original libretto and vocals co-created for Lola de la Mata’s record KOH - KLEE - UH
“PINK noise,” says Lola de la Mata, “is a collaboration between myself and Lana Norris. Our common interests were Maryanne Amacher and the inner ear…our diverging interests: opera, baroque music, prose for Lana. Improvisation, prepared violin, otoacoustic illusions for me. Our worlds and personalities truly collided in this performance style composition. I wanted to keep a raw quality to the piece, leaving space for the listener’s imagination to picture our duet in a domed architecture (hopefully a cochlea!).
The text written by Lana is a list of terminology overheard at the lab, taken from the language of statistics and auditory psychophysics - which, mirrors musical language but with alternate meanings. The piece intends to feel like vertigo induced play...3/4 of the way in, ‘Hopf’ tingles the brain from the sudden hyper produced stereo realm, holding attention around the ears before descending back into reverberant improvisatory chaos.
It's an added bonus that the title references Tara Rodger's book on women within electronic music and sound Pink noises.”
NeuroArts
DALL·E prompt: Generate an image of a woman conductor with long brown hair, who is walking out of a science lab toward a piano and a group of diverse, happy people.
Lana is an advocate, community builder, and contributor to the public health field of NeuroArts.
What Is Neuroarts?
"Neuroarts is the study of how the arts measurably change the brain and body and how this knowledge is translated into practices that advance health and wellbeing.
It sits at the crossroads of science, art, and technology, and this work can help people prevent, manage, and recoverfrom physical and mental challenges across the lifespan.
Across time, in moments of personal and planetary stress, in rural and urban settings around the globe, people have sought artistic outlets to prevent or treat illness, express joy, soothe fear, ease grief, and build community. The oldest archeological discoveries reveal the longstanding human pursuit of self-expression and the most recent pandemic reminds us again that people turn to art in times of need.
Now, scientists and artists are coming together to build a field based on a growing understanding of how the arts in all of its many modalities can advance health and wellbeing.”