IHME is an annual Contemporary Art Festival in three parts: the IHME Project, a new, commissioned work in a public space; the IHME Days discussion forum; and the IHME Editions.

The IHME Project 2010 is a sound installation in Helsinki designed by Scottish sculptor Susan Philipsz. She creates sculptures using sound, and is interested in the values associated with space and in how sound can define architecture. Among the key elements of Philipsz’s approach are the psychological effects of songs and the way that songs can evoke immediate emotions and memories.

Susan Philipsz describes her new work, When Day Closes, as follows:

“During my research for IHME Project 2010 I became very interested in a particular tradition of Finnish lullabies, which are known as Tuonela lullabies. The place Tuonela is a metaphor for death and is a common theme in many of these lullabies. In Song of My Heart ( Sydämeni Laulu) by Aleksis Kivi, which appears in his novel Seven Brothers (Seitsemän veljestä) a woman seems to wish her baby dead. The lullaby was subsequently set to music by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. My rendition of Song of My Heart utilises the high vaulted ellipsoid ceiling of the Main Hall of Helsinki’s Central Railway Station. By projecting sound upwards, into the domed ceiling the sound travels around the curve, falling on the other side, creating a ‘whispering gallery’ effect. The sound is being projected from special hypersonic speakers, which direct and localise the sound creating an intimate experience in a very public place. Listening to something that is intimate or private in public can have an unsettling effect, making people more aware of their environment, appreciating the qualities of the here and now.”

In the fall 2009, for the IHME edition Philipsz recorded a series of lullabies taken from well known cult horror movies and had them play to a black screen on the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) after closedown.

Curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev will visit Helsinki on March 11 for the launch of When Day Closes to discuss the work in public with Susan Philipsz.

IHME Days: Sound as Art Work and Art in Public Space:

The IHME Days, a discussion forum on contemporary art and society, are being held for the second time on March 26-28, 2010, at the Old Student House in Helsinki, Finland.

In the spirit of Susan Philipsz’s IHME Project, this year’s themes are sound as art work and art in public space. The programme begins on Friday with a series of lectures discussing sound in art. Participating in the discussion are among others artist and researcher Petri Kuljuntausta (Helsinki), artist Carl Michael von Hausswolff (Stockholm) and sound designer Jim McKee (San Francisco).

Saturday’s presentations offer perspectives on Susan Philipsz’s art and her IHME Project. This includesLynne Cooke, formerly curator of Dia Art Foundation and currently chief curator at the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, who will talk about Philipsz’s art in the context of her contemporaries and the sound-art scene.

The IHME workshops begin on Friday with YLE Radio Atelier’s Sound Workshop, followed by Sari Kaasinen’s Lullaby Workshop and Mieskuoro Huutajat’s Shouting Workshop on Saturday. On Sunday a workshop produced by Pixelache gives children an opportunity to construct electronic instruments.

Sunday’s theme is art in public space. This year’s international keynote speaker is Mary Jane Jacob(USA). The theme is carried on in the IHME Marathon, which introduces Finnish contemporary artists and engages them in discussion. The evening ends with The Trial, in which topical issues are discussed using the trial format.

For the full programme please visit: http://www.ihme2010.fi

Contact information:

Pro Arte Foundation Finland
Kalevankatu 4, 2nd floor
00100 Helsinki
Finland
Tel.+358 (0)9-4289 9778
Fax. +358 9 2783388
E-mail: info@proartefoundation.fi
http://www.ihme2010.fi

A tram equipped as an art space and radio studio, informal radio is a live on air multi-channel radio performance, including nine radio stations based throughout Austria.

informal radio is a project by students of the Digital Art class at Vienna’s University of Applied Arts, supervised by Nicolaj Kirisits and Klaus Filip. The tram becomes a mobile exhibition space for twelve time-based installations by Kathrin Stumreich, Viktoria Wöß, JoaKnierzinger, Mara Bloom, hpl, Johannes Muik, Daniel Gyolcs, mths, Miriam Mone, conny zenk, Karl Salzmann, Jan Perschy and Conny Zenk + mths.

The episodes of the ride are marked by the trams stops. Six microphones will be moved through the carriage and provide the sounds for the 6-channel-radio broadcast. Listeners are requested to set up three radios, ideally stereo, and tune each in to another station:

1) OE1 oe1.orf.at/konsole/live

2) FM4 fm4.orf.at

3) one of the free radios:
orange94.0 in Vienna o94.at
Radio Helsinki 92.6 in Graz www.helsinki.at
Radio Freirad 105.9 in Innsbruck www.freirad.at
FRS Freies Radio im Salzkammergut www.freiesradio.at
MiRa Campusradio 94.4 in St. Pölten www.campusradio.at
Freies Radio B138 90.4 in Krems www.radio-b138.at
Radiofabrik 107.5 in Salzburg www.radiofabrik.at

This year’s focus is on Young Makers, with projects and activities designed around innovation, education and inspiration. We are excited to be engaging Makers of all ages. Get your entry/submission into us and we’ll provide you with a space to demonstrate, share and inspire Maker Faire attendees. As you know, Maker Faire’s success is a direct result of the cool stuff YOU make and share at Maker Faire. Come be part of this DIY community!

From Dale Dougherty’s Blog about Young Makers: People learn in many different ways, but many learn best by building things. Building toys such as Lego blocks offer powerful and open-ended experiences for younger children. Unfortunately, as shop classes have closed over the past few decades, there remains very little infrastructure to nurture older kids and teens who want to expand beyond construction kits.

The Young Makers program is intended to create such an infrastructure. The idea is to create a community, both on-line and physical, that brings together like-minded kids, adult mentors, and fabrication facilities.

Key Dates for Makers:
Entry Open Date: January 21, 2010. Please enter early so we can hold space for your exhibit.
Entry Close Date: March 31, 2010. Space is limited, please submit your entry by the due date!
Notification of Acceptance: Entries submitted by March 8, 2010 will be notified by March 31, 2010.
Maker Faire Bay Area: May 22-23, 2010
Hours: Saturday 10am - 8pm (6pm - 8pm evening program); Sunday 10am - 6pm.
NOTE: This is NOT Memorial Day Weekend.

Mentors help young makers define a project vision if they don’t already have one, and then guide the kids in realizing that vision. Along the way, both kids and their mentors will expose the underlying math, science, and engineering principles behind the projects, explore tool usage and safety, and collectively create a collaborative culture of innovation and experimentation. Maker Faire becomes the deadline, and offers a stage for the resulting projects to be exhibited and explained.

We’d like to help develop young makers and encourage them to participate in Maker Faire. We’ll be creating a special kids area at Maker Faire and we will invite and encourage kids to exhibit their projects

Entry Form
1. The first step to being a Maker at Maker Faire is to submit an entry that tells us about yourself and your project. http://makerfaire.com/bayarea/2010/entry/
2. Review the application process by downloading the list of questions.
3. For more information please visit http://makerfaire.com/bayarea/2010/callformakers

Maker Tip #4: If you would like to share your project with us in advance of applying for Maker Faire, just schedule some time with the Maker Faire team at one of our Open MAKE sessions being held the last Saturday of each month at The Exploratorium (from 12:30 - 2:30pm on the museum floor). To schedule a time, please send us an email at openmake [at] makerfaire.com

Cave (not to be confused with the musician of the same name) draws from sources as varied as African ceremonial costumes, Tibetan textiles, and pop-culture creatures. His elaborate suits aren’t just objects pegged to a pedestal; they’re meant to be worn, vitalized through movement and the sounds they make. In fact, the dance-trained artist is working toward a 90-suit performance that he’ll take around the world.

Read a New York Times feature about Cave, listen to his interview at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, visit his current exhibition at UCLA’s Fowler Museum, buy the exhibition catalogue, and peek at past shows at his New York gallery.

For more images, see: flavorwire.

Next broadcast on Resonance 104.4FM: April 6, 2010; 9:30 - 10:30 pm :: A series of eight weekly broadcasts.

A live, jam-packed, hour-long review of contemporary media arts culture. Marc Garrett and Charlotte Frost interviewed Douglas Dodds, Senior Curator at the V&A and Mztek founders, Sophie Macdonald & Sally Northmore. Other features included noise-collages, soundscapes and exploratory music…

More information about the programme here.

This programme is part of ‘Hyperlink: Media Art Contexts’ whose principal aim is to present and promote high-quality contemporary media art work, alongside critical discussion of past, present and future media art in a contemporary art context.

About Furtherfield.org: Furtherfield.org believes that through creative and critical engagement with practices in art and technology people are inspired and enabled to become active co-creators of their cultures and societies. Furtherfield.org provides platforms for creating, viewing, discussing and learning about experimental practices at the intersections of art, technology and social change. Furtherfield.org also runs HTTP Gallery in North London.

About ResonanceFM: ResonanceFM is “a laboratory for experimentation, that by virtue of its uniqueness brings into being a new audience of listeners and creators. All this and more, Resonance104.4fm aims to make London’s airwaves available to the widest possible range of practitioners of contemporary art.”

The world renowned Swedish audio-visual artist Carl Michael von Hausswolff will create a performance with 8 local musicians and sound artists at Watford House in Avoca this Saturday night, the 13th March. It is going to be a very enjoyable night of experimental performance under the stars.

Fine weather is forecast and food and drink will be available. The event is free and bookings are not required. Come along for a great night of sound in the country. Avoca is 2 and a half hours from Melbourne. A limited number of accommodations are available in the town.

Hosted by David Strang’s Surface Sound Series on Soundart Radio, the OPEN PROCESS series curated by Helen Pritchard & Gillian Wylde invites artists to explore collaborative processes of doing and making in an experimental lab context.

As part of the OPEN PROCESS series at Dartington Gallery, University College Falmouth, Dartington Campus, Petra Klusmeyer sets out to investigate questions in regard to auditory and psychological aspects of spatiality. What is the relationship between sound, space and memory? How does sound influence the perception and representation of space, and how can we transcribe auditory memory in ways which interpret individual perspectives and meanings and hereby draw-out the sonic unconscious?

Participants were invited to develop strategies to translate the auditory experience into the gallery space either individually or
collectively. The focus of this artistic experiment does not lie on sound production and composition; the aim lies on the convergence
between sound and artistic practices, i.e., writing, installation, performance to conjure up a topology of unconscious knowing.

Petra Klusmeyer is currently a teaching researcher of Sound Studies at the University of the Arts, Bremen and a PhD canditate with
SMARTlab, University of East London. She completed a Master of Fine Arts in Time Arts at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999. Her work creates an architecture of sound and image associations. Sonic glitches and fragments are reorganized into a sounding detritus of culture. As post-graduate student with SMARTlab, she conducts research in the area of sonic art practices in the expanded field. She investigates the relationship between technology, sound and failure.

Her work has been internationally performed and exhibited such as in 2008 Not Berlin and Not Shanghai, Guangxi Arts Institute Nanning, China; 2006, Dislocate, Trampoline, Tokyo; 2006 Terra Cognita, Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen; 2002, Creation in Movement, Canard Galeria Central, Mexico City; 2002, Music in Me, GAK Bremen; 2001, x-tract: Chicago Sounds, Podewil Berlin; 1999, Groove, Pit &Wave, ZKM Karlsruhe. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards such as The Joan Mitchell Foundation Stipend, The School of The Art Institute of Chicago Trustee Scholarship and the 2000 John Quincy Adams Fellowship. Her sound works are published on Staalplaat, Boxmedia und Experimental Sound Studio Chicago.

Upending is a revelatory stereoscopic theater performance: an animated, actor-less drama of disorientation and reorientation that compels viewers to rethink their relationship with the material world. Using ordinary flat photographs and stereoscopic HD video as the basis for a battery of non-photorealistic rendering technique, Upending transfigures familiar objects, spaces, and persons in ways that are both beautiful and uncanny. The play of images is accompanied by a gutsy new EMPAC-produced recording of Morton Feldman’s first String Quartet by the FLUX Quartet that places the listener, literally, in the center of the ensemble, with every sonic gesture articulated across space simultaneously. Through this aural lens, the video becomes almost balletic, even as the visuals allow the audience to hear Feldman as never before.

Following a post-performance break for refreshments, each evening will conclude with The Making of Upending, a talk and q&a covering the two year process of the work from inception to premiere.

Upending was commissioned by EMPAC and developed in residence over a two-year period utilizing EMPAC’s unique facility, technology and staffing. The commission was made possible by support from the Jaffe Fund For Experimental Media And Performing Arts.

For more information on this event, please call the EMPAC Box office at 518.276.3921 or visit the EMPAC website.

About EMPAC

The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) opened its doors in 2008 and was hailed by the New York Times as a “technological pleasure dome for the mind and senses… dedicated to the marriage of art and science as it has never been done before.”

Founded by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, EMPAC offers artists, scholars, researchers, engineers, designers, and audiences opportunities for creative exploration that are available nowhere else under a single roof. EMPAC operates nationally and internationally, attracting creative individuals from around the world and sending new artworks and innovative ideas onto the global stage.

EMPAC’s building is a showcase work of architecture and a unique technological facility that boasts unrivaled presentation and production capabilities for art and science spanning the physical and virtual worlds and the spaces in between.

[image: An Etherwave-Theremin, assembled from Robert Moog’s kit]

This workshop allows each participant to build their own theremin, the first electronic instrument, patented in 1928 by Lev Theremin. Starting with instrument designs from these articles, we will modify each theremin in a unique way. The built instruments will have the features of a real theremin, with more than 5 octaves and 2 antennas, for volume and pitch control.

More Info here.

Fees: 100 Euros for participation + 55 Euros for parts. All parts included except cabinet (see below)
- Electronic components, capacitors, resistors, transistors, ics, coils etc
- Printed Circuit Board
- Connectors, Mechanical parts: screws, spacers, washers, tube rod to build the 2 antennas, etc

Those who have access to these items through other means, must submit the parts list for a check before the beginning of the workshop. Workshop price minus parts is 100 euro

Cabinet: The cabinet sizes have the main role in the behaviour of the instrument and its playability. The two antenna (horizontal volume loop on left and vertical pitch rod on right) may be spaced in a range from L= 400 - 500 mm, to avoid interferences The other two are related to the overall dimensions of electronics and the other devices as antenna connectors etc: must be l 120-140mm X h 40-50mm. Thickness from 10 ? to max 14mm. The cabinet has its cover. All conductive materials are not advisable.
Wood (plywood) or MDF (Medium density fiber)are the cheapest as recommended. We can refinish some holes on the cabinet during the workshop. Recycled enclosures, a broken C64, 128 or VIC20, an old tubes radio receiver, will host the electronic of your theremin. Set in motion your imagination and eyes during your walks and visits to flea markets. A complete cabinet ready to be drilled and used, we suggest a box like this, item 520780-62 from Conrad http://www1.conrad.de :sizes are far below only in width L min, (310mm) but the instrument can still operate properly only with a little modification. You can also build, test your electronic antennas in a mannequin-box, waiting to fit into your cabinet

Every participant should bring:
Soldering iron (Ltkolben) 30w 20-45W max 230volt round tip (spitze) of 1.5mm I.E http://www1.conrad.de, items 588552-LN or 588332-LN

POWER SUPPLY (WALL WART ADAPTER ? STECKERNETZGER?T) standard 230 volt ac ? 12-14 volt AC 300mA . This is a very popular device, take a look in your house. ATTENTION:switching mode power supply is not allowed

Cutter, screwdrivers and pliers, a multimeter and 2 mt of soldering wire Sn60%Pb40%, are welcome but we have some of these items and we can share these things

About the theremin: http://www.theremin.altervista.org/thlinks.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6bSRcRAhnc&feature=related

The next Upgrade! Eindhoven presents Albert van Abbe and MAD Artist in Residence, Tetsu Kondo discussing Kondo’s work and vision. Kondo is an artist, musician and researcher whose work includes drawing, installations and musical instrument design. He is currently teaching at Tokyo Polytechnic University.

Kondo will also demonstrate his Dendraw, a software instrument he developed, that transforms the beauty of visual programming into live interactive sound performances. The Dendraw generates specific sine waves depending on screen position. The Dendraw concept is inspired by acoustic string instruments such as the guitar and violin. The Dendraw consists of 5-circular strings which generate tones as Kondo slides its points in the screen, sometimes creating harmonies with certain movements.