Sound Ecologies: Listening in the City :: November 18, 2009; 10:00 am - 4:00 pm :: Department of Music, City University London, Northampton Square, London. EC1V 0HB :: Free

A day of presentations, participatory workshops and informal performance around themes of urban sound, networked sound, locative media and acoustic ecology – the relationship between living beings and their environment, as mediated by sound. Featuring Furtherfield (Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett), and guest speakers Stanza, Peter Cusack, Ximena Alarcón and Pedro Rebelo. Continue reading

Abstract: In [”Exertion Instruments” by Noah Vawter, et al] we introduce a new family of musical instruments, which, like traditional acoustic instruments such as guitar and drums, derive their acoustic energy in direct proportion to the exertion of the player’s muscles, yet have electric or electronic oscillators for sound generation. Continue reading

rota by Carsten Nicolai :: July 3 - September 26, 2009 :: Ernst Schering Foundation, Unter den Linden 32-34, 10117 Berlin.

rota, which sees itself as an experiment, deals with the effects of the so-called neurofeedback on human perception. Taking his cues from the dreamachines or mind machines — developed by Brion Gysin since the 1950s in the context of the Beatnik movement to alter the viewers’ state of consciousness through the emission of alpha waves — Carsten Nicolai presents a test set-up, where visitors can experience for themselves how the brain responds to different visual (and acoustic) phenomena. Continue reading

Novi_sad’s North American Tour — Novi_sad (Thanasis Kaproulias, b. 1980) graduated from the Economic University of Piraues. He lives and works in Athens, Greece. Influenced by the pioneers of audio assault, he began generating sounds in 2005. Amplified environmental recordings, drone manipulations, structured ambient soundscapes, microtones vs overtones, all come together in a hyper structure of iconoclastic form.

Novi_sad’s artistic output displays a high level of technical ability, as well as a sensitivity to the nuances of location. The strength of his soundscapes works in the same elaborateness for the whole creation process, starting from a basis of very strong conceptualism, the intense examination of field recordings over the actual composition work, to the point of performing back the result onto location. Every sound that occurs is treated with a sculptural integrity and his sonic power operates on a level in which the audience participates as transcendental listeners. Continue reading

Wearable Forest by Ryoko Ueoka and Hiroki Kobayashi from the University of Tokyo is “bio-acoustic” clothing which is networked with a subtropical forest of the southern Ryukyu Islands of Japan. Equipped with embedded speakers, LEDs, an embedded CPU system and a wireless internet connection, the dress processes and remotely plays the soundscape of the jungle through the speakers and uses the LEDs to create patterns reflecting the activity level of jungle life. More than just a receiver sensors also let the user transmit pre-recorded acoustic data back to the forest installation, creating a bioacoustical loop. Continue reading

Columbia College Chicago Art + Design Lecture Series presents World Listening Project :: April 15, 2009; 6:30 - 8:00 pm :: Ferguson Hall, Columbia College Chicago, 600 Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL.

The Art + Design Department is proud to present the World Listening Project (WLP). Panelists will talk about its current local and international efforts, and discuss opportunities for designers and artists to participate in the unrealized potential that lies in the field of acoustic ecology, in order more fully to realize an effective and creative response to an all too often neglected part of human experience and knowledge—the world of sound and our ability to listen. Listening means paying attention. If you want to change the world, you need to listen to it. The panel discussion’s participants include: Eric Leonardson, Jesse Seay, Chad Clark, Brett Balough, and Dan Godston. Continue reading

The premiere performance of WAM!: Women and Art Music Ensemble — ten women playing new music written by living women composers; Julia Christensen, director :: March 9, 2009; 8:00 pm :: Fairchild Chapel, Oberlin, Ohio.

WAM! will be performing “Six for New Time,” by Pauline Oliveros. Oliveros wrote this work for Sonic Youth ten years ago this month, while teaching at the Oberlin Conservatory in Oberlin.

WAM!’s Mission: 1. We will sound a unified voice for women in new music, promoting and supporting each other as we expand the network of women in the arts. Continue reading

Jorinde Voigt - Matrix [Notations] with Patric Catani & Chris Imler (Composition) and Lemniscate / ∞ [Acoustic Cluster] ::until December 20, 2008 :: Galerie Christian Lethert, Antwerpener Strasse 4, 50672 Kőln, Germany.

Matrix & Lemniscate is a unique collaboration between the artist Jorinde Voigt, and composers Patric Catani and Chris Imler. The lemniscate is, fundamentally a mechanism for the infinite (∞). A lemniscus or ‘ribbon’ that chases itself in a figure of eight describes the repeated and unending journey of the unbounded. Early Indian thinkers were quick to assert the abstract powers of infinities by recognising that when adding or removing parts to infinity, infinity would always remain. Jorinde Voigt draws structures energised by real and imagined possibilities to investigate finite boundaries of systems. Continue reading

Diapason gallery for sound and intermedia presents Music, under your Feet by Rolf Julius — installation with objects, sound, and video :: November 22 - December 20, 2008; 2:00 - 8:00 pm :: Opening: November 22, 6:00 – 8:00 pm :: 882 Third Avenue (between 32nd and 33rd Street), 10th floor, Brooklyn, NY.

“Rolf Julius integrates acoustic and visual coordinates in his installative, synaesthetic concepts. Far removed from elaborate electronics, he works with simple things and sounds of everyday life, an aesthetic and acoustic minimalism with the simplest use of cassettes and loudspeakers, effecting a concentrated perception…” - Rudolf Frieling Continue reading

Diapason gallery for sound and intermedia presents 68 Footsteps (x8) — a sound installation of eight mono location recordings of acoustic guitars with ebows — by Byron Westbrook :: November 8, 2008; 2:00 - 8:00 pm :: 882 Third Avenue (between 32nd and 33rd Street), 10th floor, Brooklyn, NY.

68 Footsteps (x8) is an installation consisting of eight mono location recordings broadcast simultaneously from separate speakers. In the creation of each recording, an acoustic guitar has been placed in a different environment with an ebow device on top of it, causing it to resonate automatically. Each recording begins 68 footsteps away from the guitar, which is the average distance from which the guitar’s resonation is no longer audible. Continue reading