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

FILTER and ONOMATOPEE at P40 in Hamburg present Shotgun Architecture at P40 — A sound and light installation by Justin Bennett :: until 11th of January 2009 :: Alte Pathologie/P40, Friedrichsberger Strasse 32, D-Hamburg.

Can one make sound visible? What happens to our thought processes and emotional perception when sound and its movement is performed or even manipulated in space? Mapping urban space and its architecture through the sound of a gunshot, the method Justin Bennett is currently using, entails numerous domains of expression.

P40 is a turn of the century building with an ornamental red brick facade, a cupola roof and spaces with high ceilings. Built as pathology department for the Eilbek hospital until its privatization, the space has been used and redefined for different purposes over the last decade. Bennett analyzed this piece of architecture with a gunshot and recorded its echoes. Continue reading

Corpus, by Art of Failure (Nicolas Maigret and Nicolas Montgermont), uses the potential which has any object to be set in vibration, and to produce its own tone. Every presentation is based on a specific place and context, and aims to express an usually imperceptible potential of the various present elements (furniture, walls, objects). These various elements are set in vibration by low frequencies via an computer program which analyzes the resonances of the site. Every element then produces its own sound signature. The architectural space is discovered in the form of a complex volume but also through the resonant specificities of its various components.

This installation is based on a program which analyzes, in a given place, the frequencies that makes the objects and elements it contains entering in vibration. This first phase is realized by the broadcasting in the place of a test sound signal that is simultaneously recorded and analyzed. Continue reading

The concept of ‘Soundscape’ appeared in the sixties in the work of the Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer- reaching a larger audience in 1973 through the World Soundscape Project and in the book The Soundscape - Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, published in 1977.

Even if one disregards his naturalistic approach to the idea of a landscape, there remains in Schafer’s work an obstinacy to make art out of what is perceived as sonic nuisance — an important step which laid the foundation of an attitude that is still alive among scholars and composers today.

More than 30 years on, the programme Soundscape Forever revisits the concept with an original series of sixteen pieces by international artists (Michael Batalla, Yannick Dauby, eRikm, Xavier Fassion, Zoe Irvine & Mark Vernon, Damien Magnette, Patrick McGinley aka Murmer, NG, Etienne Noiseau, Jean-Philippe Renoult, Kassian & Ulrich Troyer, Els Viaene, Chris Watson). Continue reading

Jeff Talman–A Play of Flows - The Mediterranean Sea “tuned” to a Genovese landmark :: October 23–November 4, 2008 :: Galleria Mazzini, Genoa, Italy.

Galleria Mazzini, the elegant 19th Century architectural gem in the heart of Genoa, Italy, serves as the framing space for international artist Jeff Talman’s newly commissioned installation A Play of Flows. The work’s sonic environment, based on site resonance and the nearby Mediterranean Sea, initiates a meditation on the contributing currents that enliven this spectacular urban site. Recorded at a nearby Genoese beach, crashing wave sounds provide the sonic source material for the installation. Talman filtered these sounds to align them with the resonant frequencies or “tuning” of the Galleria. The sea wave sounds, shaped into a series of spatial and site-harmonic progressions, engage the architecture as the “voice” of the sea sings in the Galleria, turning it into a vast resonating instrument. Continue reading

Jeff Talman’s sound installations focus on notions of “self-reflexive resonance”, often using no other sound source than the natural ambient resonance of the installation site. His works also have a strong visual component, owing to his dual backgrounds in music and the visual arts. His latest work, “A Play of Flows” premiers on October 23, 2008 at the Galleria Mazzini in Genoa, Italy. Talman was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Sound Art in 2006 and was a recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Award in Computer Arts in 2003. He currently resides in Manhattan.

Due to the nature of his pieces, Talman does not provide sound samples on his website - the pieces are simply too site-specific to experience in any other way than first-hand. As such, we will only be providing photos and discussion with this interview.

Peter Traub: Before you began creating sound installations in the mid 1990s, you were a more ‘traditional’ computer music composer and musician. Could you discuss how you made the transition into sound installation work? Was there a particular experience of a space or place that pushed you in this new direction? Continue reading

In This Place of Safety is a new large-scale outdoor audiovisual installation by artist Larisa Blazic, looking into how safe do we feel and why. The installation can be heard each day and seen each night at Novas Contemporary Urban Centre from July 14 - 20, 2008.

In This Place Of Safety (ITPOS) uses a building as a projection screen to explore intersections between temporary video interventions, architecture and art. It combines images of empty playgrounds projected across NOVAS gallery building facade and sound of children’s voices on a playground. Continue reading

Situated Technologies Pamphlets 2: Urban Versioning System 1.0 :: Matthew Fuller and Usman Haque with illustrations by David Cuesta :: now available from Lulu.com.

The second volume of the Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series asks the question: what lessons can architecture learn from software development, and more specifically, from the Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) movement? Written in the form of a quasi-license, Urban Versioning System 1.0 posits seven constraints that, if followed, will contribute to an open source urbanism that radically challenges the conventional ways in which cities are constructed. Continue reading

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council has just announced the selection of 13 artists and arts organizations to receive support through its Grants for Art in Public Spaces program, made possible with the support of the September 11th Fund. The list can be found here. It includes the following by David Byrne:

The landmark Battery Maritime Building will be the site of artist David Byrne’s massive undertaking, Playing the Building, produced by non-profit arts organization Creative Time. The 9,000 square foot building will be transformed into an interactive musical instrument through the use of a retrofitted antique organ, which will serve as the interface for the public’s interaction, triggering musical sounds produced by the building’s structure. Continue reading

TUNED CITY

Over five days, July 1-5, the symposium will approach the topic architecture and sound from five different theoretical and spatial perspectives. The chosen venues - spaces built for the production or reception of sound, acoustically flawed or impossible spaces, public and semi-public urban spaces, finished and planned spaces, wasteland or cultivated spaces, indoor and outdoor locations - each serve to illustrate the topics of that day, and offer a mixture of lectures, artistic presentation, performances and examples of working architectural practice.

Below you will find a rough overview of the themes, places and times. For information on the single slots of these blocks and to the participants please visit our website: http://www.tunedcity.de Continue reading