UNCANNY VALLEY: A Performance by Oni Buchanan & Jon Woodward | Woodberry Poetry Room

1,940 views · Published 1 July 2013 · 53:30 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Harvard University · 2013 · Education

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In this newly-commissioned concert-length piece by composer John Gibson, the piano performance of Oni Buchanan joins and reflects the spoken text of the poem "Uncanny Valley" as performed by its author, poet Jon Woodward. Extending outward from the phenomenon of "semantic satiation" (whereby a single word loses all apparent meaning and identity when repeated for even a short duration), this program searches out what is most uncanny, and most human, in both language and music. Sponsored by the Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University.

Date: February 2, 2013, recorded at Paine Music Hall, Harvard University.

For more information, visit hcl.harvard.edu/poetryroom.

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