Audio Tunnel by Cobi van Tonder :: part of Stanford MFA Art Practice Thesis Show, May 12 – June 15, 2009, Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery, Stanford University.

Conceptually, this work challenges ideas of territory, control, transmission, tranception and how we listen to the world. Ultimately it is about a very complex and delicate sonic texture. We access the constructed space via our auditory perception. Through listening we perceive a landscape that in turn triggers the imagination to construct a picture of what this space looks like. It becomes a partly imaginary space yet it is a shared space. It is live and interactive: the participant becomes the transmitter and is transmitted/ displaced (in sound) in many actual places in fractions of milliseconds. A recursive eavesdropping becomes possible in this unseen territory. Continue reading

Rafael Toral: The Space Program :: May 8, 2009; 8:00 pm :: EMPAC, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY.

From Lisbon, musician Rafael Toral presents a collection of his Space Studies, a series of works exploring different combinations of gestural control and sonic palette. Each study is an interdependent spatial and aural exploration that together create an instrument of Toral’s own design. These instruments require visible performance techniques that in many cases are more akin to dance than to what we think of as part of a laptop or electronic music performance (clicking, knobbing, mousing, buttoning). Continue reading

The Takeaway Festival of DIY Media :: May 19 – 21, 2009 (exhibition runs until May 30) :: Dana Centre, Science Museum, 165 Queen’s Gate, London :: Attendance is free but you must pre-book.

A jellyfish becomes an instrument that responds to touch. A robot reads a travel card and then creates a unique movement to interpret it. Changing the position of levers allows the sounds of three cities from across the world to be heard simultaneously. The 4th Takeaway Festival of Do-It-Yourself Media opens with a celebration of orchestrated metallic sounds and brings together international artists working with the technologies that are part of everyday life. Continue reading

Locustream Audio Tardis — performance by Jérôme Joy :: Around Sound Festival :: April 30, 2009; 6:00 – 8:00 pm :: On the rooftop (14/F) of the Foo Tak Building, Wan Shai Hong Kong.

Locustream audio Tardis is an imaginary journey between various open mikes of the Locustream project, initiated by the Locus Sonus lab. All the sounds that are heard are transmitted live from the distant locations where volunteers taking part in the project have set up microphones which permanently stream their chosen soundscape via the web. By switching from stream to stream the audience hear the cyclical sequence which are successively played. A simple video-image showing the name of the location and of the streamer is projected during each sequence. Streams from: Marseille, Dakar, Boston, Amsterdam, Reykjavik, Solleftea, Paris, Les Lilas, Vesinet, Nice, Qu bec, Chicago, Lagos etc. Continue reading

L.E.V. 09 – The third edition of the Visual Electronics Laboratory :: May 1-2, 2009 :: Laboral City of the Culture, Laboral University, Gijon, Spain.

L.E.V. (Laboratorio de Electronica Visual | Visual Electronics Laboratory), is the space in which electronic music and visual and performing arts join as a way of artistic expression aiming at introducing the audience to a selection of the most interesting local and international creators – the new talent as well as established artists.

Aphex Twin returns to Spain after many years without coming over to our country and he’s doing it to show us his latest laptop performance in L.E.V. 09. Considered as one of the most important and influential personalities in electronic music, having been surrounded by numerous legends, with thorough precision in his control of old synths and creation of new sounds and gifted with one of the most restless and creative minds in the music scene, today Aphex Twin is still creating landmarks in the boundaries of the approved music rules. Continue reading

Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center presents Gestures and Responsive Media — with Pamela Z, Elliott Sharp, Zach Layton, Sha Xin Wei, Sawako, Bill Hsu & James Fei :: May 14 – 16, 2009; 8.30 pm :: Roulette, 20 Greene Street, (between Canal & Grand)

Produced in partnership with Roulette’s Mixology Festival, Gestures and Responsive Media consists of three concert programs focusing on modern experiments in performance technology. Central to this series is the exciting way that live performers are exploring the use of gesture to control computers and building technological environments for free, improvisatory play. From Pamela Z’s gesture-based vocal experiments to Sha Xin Wei’s phenomenological experiments with movement and media, the presenting artists not only expand the boundaries of traditional performance and instrumentation, but also humanize electronics through creative means. Continue reading

Experimenting the listener. Sound art and the doing – done to the audience, by Ruth Benschop, Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy, Issue 1, 2009 — In today’s sound art the ideal of an experimental listener is often evoked. For this article several recent sound art performances were analyzed to examine what notion of an ‘experimental listener’ emerges, and how attempts were made to achieve it. At first, the practice studied seemed devoid of an experimental listener, but along the way a more elaborate analysis of the relationship between performance and listener is made. Drawing on recent work within STS on scientific experiments, the question is addressed how the performances studied try to produce experimental play for listeners through the way they guide them. Download the PDF here.

Mendi + Keith Obadike: Four Electric Ghosts :: May 14-16, 2009; 8:00 pm :: The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, NYC + Streamed Live.

Performance duo Mendi + Keith Obadike premiere Four Electric Ghosts, a new multimedia opera that extends their experiments with layered narratives, online performance, and popular culture. Drawing from Amos Tutuola’s novel My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and the arcade game Pac-Man®, the work creates a composite world at the intersection of game culture, the folktale, and pop songs. Told from the perspective of ghosts, the narrative evolves through masquerade, movement, live music, and video interviews.

With text by Mendi, Keith on laptop, choreography and dancers from Angela’s Pulse Performance Projects, and new music created in collaboration with bassist/producer Melvin Gibbs and musician Guillermo E. Brown.

MzTEK Unplugged: Julie Freeman & Open Source :: April 29, 2009; 7;00 – 9:00 pm :: Leon Bankside (directly behind & facing the Tate Modern) – closest tubes: Southwark, London Bridge.

If you were ever curious about Open Source — what it is, who uses it, why, and how you can too — artist Julie Freeman will chat about the politics of Open Source software and code, and will introduce some of the useful programs, packages and tools available for artists, and tools she uses in her work.

Julie Freeman’s work explores transforming complex processes into sound compositions, objects and visualizations. Her work spans visual, audio and digital art forms and explores the relationship between science, nature and how humans interact with it. Continue reading

SonicRecycler5: James Blackshaw, Bills Wells, Annie Whitehead, Steve Beresford :: May 9, 2009; 4:00 – 11:30 pm :: Watermans Art Centre, 40 High Street, Brentford, London.

A unique evening of provocative, entertaining and experimental music, presented by Sprawl, Brentford Recycling Action Group and Watermans. SonicRecycler5, the fifth in an annual series, is an event showcasing the many different strands of eclectic ideas in music, and promoting recycling concepts. With performers, DJ’s, films, stalls and interactive presentations, it’s a packed evening of radical sounds in a lovely Thameside venue, overlooking Kew Gardens. Think: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. Continue reading