Posted by Mitchell Whitelaw on Teeming Void: This essay was commissioned by Hordaland Kunstsenter in Bergen, Norway, to coincide with HC Gilje’s solo exhibition blink (video below). It looks at Gilje’s recent work - which spans audiovisual installation, performance, hardware, and networked forms - through the notion of specificity (developed earlier here).

blink (hc gilje 2009) from hc gilje on Vimeo.

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Upgrade! Warsaw: Paweł Janicki :: November 3, 2009; 6:00 pm :: 2.0 Gallery, The Academy of Music, 58/60 Krakowskie Przedmieście, Warsaw, Poland.

Paweł Janicki (1974) is an independent media artist and producer working in the field of media art, microsound aesthetics and algorithmic composition, is a creator of audiovisual interactive systems, installations and performances. He creates and continuously develops software tools and interfaces. Special place in his activity takes developing software according to his own projects – and broadly – creating his own media either sabotaging already existing solutions. Continue reading

Vague Terrain 15: .microsound

The latest of edition of Vague Terrain is dedicated to celebrating the tenth anniversary of the .microsound community. Guest curated by the American composer Kim Cascone, the issue provides a range of commentary and context on “sub-atomic” musical aesthetics and a window into this globally distributed community of electronic musicians. In Cascone’s own words .microsound is a fertile middle ground between “the ivory tower of sterile academia” and “the seizure-inducing din of the dance club”. For those unacquainted with this zone of musical production, this collection of work provides a perfect introduction. Continue reading

Theoretical and Aesthetic Approaches to Composition - a 2-Day Workshop with Zbigniew Karkowski :: November 2-3 ,2009 :: NK Elsenstr. 52 2HH 2Etage, Berlin :: Fee: 100 :: Number of participants is limited to 15 :: Register - enka_nk [at] gmx.de .

Born in Krakow, Poland, in 1958, Zbigniew Karkowski is one of the most significant artists working in the field of experimental and contemporary music. For the first time in Berlin, he will give a workshop for sound artists, musicians or composers who are interested in his approach to composition and live performance on both the technical and formal level. This workshop gives the participants an opportunity to gain insight into the working methods of one of the most challenging composers / performers of electronic music today. Continue reading

Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art) INVITES YOU TO PARTICIPATE: Two years in the making, Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art) is now open for comments, revisions, and translations. You may also submit a chapter for consideration.

active, aethetics, aggregators, authenticity, authorship, BEN FRY, BEN RUBIN, BURAK ARIKAN, collaborative, communication, data, data mining, digital traces, distributed, DIY, EDUARDO NAVAS, everyday life, flow, GOLAN LEVIN, identity, improvisation, Internet, JANET CARDIFF, JASON FREEMAN, JODI.ORG, JONATHAN HARRIS, latency, lifelogging, lifetracing, MANIK, mapping, MARK AMERIKA, MARK HANSEN, MARTIN WATTENBERG, MAX NEUHAUS, Mechanical Turk, mediation, memory, music, narrative, NastyNets, NATHANIEL STERN, net art, network, NICK KNOUF, nonlinear, OLIVER LARIC, participation, performative, persistance, PETER TRAUB, platform, postmodernism, presentational, privacy, prosumer, prosurfer, ranking, realism, reality, real-time, relational, remix, representation, research, RYBN, SCARLET ELECTRIC, SCOTT KILDALL, SCOTT RETTBERG, search engine, self, self-exposure, SHIFTSPACE.ORG, social networks, software, sousveillance, STEVE LAMBERT, storage, surveillance, tactical media, telepresence, THE HUB, THEY RULE, TrackMeNot, transmission, TV, user-generated, visualization, web 2.0, webcam, widget, Wikipedia Art, YES MEN. Continue reading

‘The Piano Etudes Project’ A Space for Play — Review by Les Loncharich, furtherfield.org: The Piano Etudes project by Jason Freeman, with Akito Van Troyer and Jenny Lin, is a move towards opening the forbidden city of musical composition. The project is based on piano etudes, musical compositions in which the pianist can rearrange connections between some open form pieces. Site visitors are invited to create their own etudes from four short compositions by Jason Freeman. Each etude is transcribed graphically into something that resembles an organizational chart. Each visual component of the chart has a corresponding audio note pattern. The pitch of a note pattern is roughly indicated by the height of a horizontal bar that is part of the graphic. A site user can select graphic elements and arrange them on a time-line to hear the resulting sound piece. Pieces created on the site can be saved and transcribed into musical notation so that pianists can perform pieces created by site visitors. More >>

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AC [Institute Direct Chapel] presents Tone and Temperament :: June 18 - July 18, 2009 :: Opening: June 18; 6:00 - 8:00 pm :: AC [Institute Direct Chapel], 547 W. 27th St, 5th Floor, #519-529, New York, NY.

Tone and Temperament is a group-exhibition that considers the temporal and expandable material of sound. Curated by Sophie Landres and in collaboration with the eight participating artists, this exhibition concentrates on sound as a condition for personal, social, political and metaphysical experience. In addition to the permanent fixtures in the gallery, performances will be scheduled to occur throughout the duration of the exhibition.

Tone and Temperament was conceived as an opportunity to explore literal and conceptual ideas of harmony versus discordance and innocence versus criminality that subsist within the framework of conflicting social norms and art historical precedents. 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

Several Silences – with Lewis Baltz, Manon de Boer, Troy Brauntuch, Paul Dickinson, Ryan Gander, Geissler and Sann, Gran Fury, CM von Hausswolff, Harold Mendez, Jonty Semper, Harry Shearer :: April 26 - June 7, 2009 :: Opening Reception: April 26; 4:00–7:00 pm :: Talk: 5:00 -6:00 pm — Hamza Walker and Thomas Trummer :: The Renaissance Society, 5811 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.

Titled after an essay by the late philosopher and literary theoretician Jean-Francois Lyotard, Several Silences is a group exhibition exploring various kinds of silence. As a discourse, the aesthetic of silence has been thoroughly domesticated within the visual arts. Although silence as a discourse in art arose out of conditions calling for the negation of art, it has subsequently become familiar subject matter no longer operating as the avant-garde ideal it once was. Continue reading

Field Recording Workshop — with Clay Chaplin :: April 5, 2009; 2:00 - 5:00 pm and April 11, 2009; 2:00 - 5:00 pm :: Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado, Los Angeles, CA.

This two-part workshop will discuss the aesthetics and practice of field recording. The first session will cover the possibilities and history of the genre through listening examples and discussion. We’ll also cover how to make field recordings with information on microphones, field recorders, and techniques for improving your sound. You will have access to a field recorder which you can use to create a recording of your own. Session two will be a listening and discussion session where everyone presents their field recording. Continue reading