New Atlantis and Selections from the Sylva Sylvarum

Francis Bacon's classic technological utopia brought to life for the modern sonic arts.

In the early seventeenth century, at the very end of his life, the English statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon wrote a utopian fable called New Atlantis, containing an uncanny presentiment of twentieth-century electronic music. Now, four hundred years ago, music writer Robert Barry digs into the significance of that tale for the history of music, media, science and the senses.

New Atlantis marked a sig...