Channel Communication Amplifier

Lise Autogena’s Sound Mirrors Project is inspired by the derelict acousic mirrors at Denge, England, it aims to create two new sound mirrors on the coast of England and France which will enable people on either side of the Channel to speak to each other.

The Channel Communication Amplifier incorporates the latest technology to transmit sound but has at its heart a device first developed before to World War II and the invention of radar: the acoustic mirrors built as early warning devices around the coasts of Britain to detect airborne invasions. These giant concrete dishes also existed in mobile and even wearable versions btw.

Autogena plans to build two acoustic mirrors. One will be placed in Folkestone, the other will be sited on the coast of France, 25 miles across the Channel.
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Naturalis Electronica

Digital and organic are never antonyms at Interferenze, the annual festival of new arts taking place in San Martino Valle Caudina (Italy). In the middle of a beautiful chestnut trees forest the 2006 edition lead the young local enthusiastic curator crew to succeed in integrating digital culture with their own cultural roots. ‘Naturalis Electronica’ was the leit motif of three days of electronic art, celebrated in a friendly atmosphere with no barriers between artists and public, sharing almost the same spaces, perfectly mixing the local environment and food tradition with the artistic research on the edge of digital and organic. The curators’ commitment to this philosophy is almost total and it was seamlessly implemented in the festival program attracting the usual mass of thousands of local curious people plus experts arrived from all over the nation attending the event. Amongst the most popular one there were the workshops of the solar-powered micro-robots by Ralf Schreiber: they were unofficially repeated every day after the first crowded one. Schreiber scattered also some of his chirping electronic lifeforms around the forest as an installation (‘Living Particles’), forcing the hanging around crowds to always wonder themselves if the sounds they heard was real or virtual.
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10 Exercises to get the City out of your Body

Radio LIGNA / Radioballet / :: I Am(not)sterdam: 10 Exercises to get the City out of your Body :: Saturday September 2nd | 13.30 pm :: Radio Patapoe 88.3 FM and Radio Ruigoord 90.3 FM :: Location: Leidsestraat :: Bring your own radios and mobile phone receivers! :: Radio receivers also distributed at De Balie, Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam.

Amsterdam Inc. – In the streets of Amsterdam, we are not only inhabitants or visitors of the city, but we also are part of a brand, that blends the individual being and the city into a common identity: ‘I amsterdam’. There is no being in the city without being the city. The public sphere becomes the showroom for the new brand Amsterdam. Continue reading

Call for Voice-Mail Contributions

One Hundred and Four Thousand :: Through the evocative memorials at Forest Hills, people from the past “speak” to us about their relationships and lives. Halsey Burgund uses 21st century technology to add a new layer of expression to this landscape. His sound collage combines music with fragments of conversation he collected during interviews at Forest Hills.

You can download the entire piece to your computer and iPod or listen online: I – Remembering the Dead [mp3 – 5:56] II – Life to Grow [mp3 – 2:16] III – I Just Want to Be Recycled [mp3 – 3:12] IV – How Infinite Memories Can Be [mp3 – 9:18] V – The Stately Oak and the Predatory Owl [mp3 – 4:23]

You can alternatively listen via cell phone by calling 617.344.6796; this system will also collect voice-mail contributions, which the artist will selectively incorporate into the piece on an ongoing basis.
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Sit and Play

If you go down to the South Bank in London this summer, outside the Royal Festival Hall is a wonderful installation titled PLAY.Orchestra. 56 plastic cubes and 3 Hotspots are laid out on a full size orchestra stage, each cube containing a light and speaker. Sit down on the cube or stand in the hotspot to turn on that instrument and bring 58 friends to hear the full piece. People with Bluetooth phones will be able to receive a ringtone of the piece created, as well as upload their own sound samples in September.

The production blog gives an interesting insight into the installing process & the complexity of the project. PLAY.orchestra is the result of a collaboration between Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments, South Bank Centre Education and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
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Art to Go

Founded by Matt Roberts, the MPG: Mobile Performance Group is a collective of new media artists interested in finding new ways to present art outside of traditional venues. MPG disseminates their work by using automobiles, video projection, cell phones, FM transmission, wireless hotspots, and any other technologies that allow artist to engage the public.

Parking Spaces investigates one of the most ubiquitous spaces in the United States, the parking lot. MPG moves through the city looking for empty parking lots to collect sounds and images. Using the collected material MPG creates an improvised performance in the space. Images from ZeroOne ISEA2006. Multi media feature from Mercury News. Flickr.
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DiY in a Field

p-tex will perform GYOML in a field on Heysham Barrows near St. Peters Church on Saturday August 19, 2006 at 7.30 p.m. For live streaming copy and paste this URL into your media player’s url window.

p-tex will be exploring how computer musicians can perform and create music without the need for mains electric, and using low budget or recycled / salvaged equipment and free open source software. He will also be using various sensors that will be manipulated and triggered by the surrounding environment, as well as by visitors to the site. p-tex has created software patches specifically for the piece which enable the sensors to communicate with the computer equipment. To achieve this he has used free software puredata and processing. For directions to Heysham Barrows, go here.

Let’s Get Physical

Vollkontaktkonzert – Full Contact Concert, by Stefan Brunner and Michael Wilhelm, arranges a musical composition out of a boxing match. Two performers are equipped with microphones. One microphone, connected to a stethoscope underneath the scapula of the performer’s back, records the repercussion of the beats hitting his chest. The other microphone, glued to the performer’s chin, records his breath.

The sounds are post-processed on the laptop controlled by a third person. The whole piece of music unfolds: the introduction is the warm up. Then the performers put on the boxing gloves and a beat-part begins: performers start beating each other in turns. Two punches to the stomach then one to the chest, two to the stomach, one to the chest, etc. It goes faster and faster until the break, all you can hear is the performers’ breath and sounds from the laptop. After they have recovered from the exhaustion, the boxers start to treat each other with more punches to their chests and stomachs.

The video isn’t particularly spectacular but i still like the concept. More images. Via Vvork.
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DUPLEX PERFORMANCE

THE THING invites your face and body and voice to 11 Harrison Street, ground floor storefront gallery, RIVERFAWN, for the Manhattan interface of THE THING.residency: LOCUS SONUS DUPLEX PERFORMANCE. This is a special performance that will be live from the Roebling Bridge on the Delaware River and from the RIVERFAWN Gallery in New York City. You will be part of the performance! :: 6pm – 10pm Thursday August 24th :: 11 Harrison Street, ground floor* :: New York City.

Locus Sonus has constructed for this performance 2 IP webcams/parabolic microphones with which they can hunt for sounds in and around the venue streaming them simultaneously to the remote location. In each location laptop performers capture and remix the audio from the mic and video projectors show what the mobile microphones are capturing. Both mixes are played in both locations, the musicians responding to their remote counterparts. Continue reading

Recordings Available

Schlossplatz was once the home of the Berlin City Palace. In 1950 the palace, a symbol of Prussian pride and wealth was demolished by the GDR and erected in its place was the Palast der Republik. Due to the combination of the reunification of Berlin and the use of asbestos, the Palace of the Republic is being deconstructed and soon the old palace, Stadtschloss will be rebuilt.

Schlossplatz has historically been a highly contested site. On July 14th it became a site of public performance, sound broadcast and celebration.

Copa Sonar was organized by Marco Barotti, Emanuele Guidi and myself in collaboration with sonambiente, and tesla. Five experimental sound groups volunteered to overtake the desolate public plaza off of the touristic street Unter din Linden. Performances by ap/xxxxx, B Component, the rottt (the return of the thinking thing) and lekronk, OLYVETTY, saal-c were broadcast from the site via miniFM and visitors were offered free wine and beer. The audience was a diverse mix of sound art connoisseurs, curious tourists, and skaters.
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