RGB musiclab: pixels into music - There’s a downloadable freeware application that converts the RGB (Red, Green & Blue) values of an image to chromatic scale sounds. The program reads RGB value of pixels from the top left to the bottom right of an image. 1 pixel makes a harmony of three note of RGB value, & the length of note is determined by brightness of the pixel. Continue reading

In an August 24th post on Short Sharp Science, David Cohen, New Scientist features editor, speaks of the strange missions on which New Scientist writers can be sent. He goes on to tell the story of how one morning early this August he got up at the crack of dawn and drove down Death Valley highway to the Dumont Dunes (CA) – “one of only 33 known sites worldwide where dunes have been known to sing.” His mission: to hear the singing. Once there

I sat down, dug my hands into the sand and started inching down the slope, feet-first like a giant caterpillar. Nothing happened. Sure, sand was moving, but all I could hear were gentle burping noises emanating from the sand beneath my feet with every push. I checked no-one was watching (imagine the humiliation of coming all this way and not hearing a thing) then dug my arms deeper into the sand and sped up. This sucker was going to sing if I had to dig up half the dune.
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Glass shards, glaciers, trees, hyenas, and whales Cheryl E. Leonard’s music finds its raw materials just about anywhere. Her works embrace the spectrum of musical possibilities: improvised to composed, acoustic to electronic, diaphanous to bombastic, notes to noise. These investigations often include the creation of new instruments, primarily from found materials.

In Music for Rocks and Water three performers play water and a variety of rocks, which are dripped, drizzled, poured, rolled, rocked, brushed, rubbed, stacked and even tickled. Sometimes the rocks are played underwater. Listen: Continue reading

Premiere of Labyrinthitis by Jacob Kirkegaard :: September 2, 2007 (times to be announced) :: Part of the Art and Biomedicine: Beyond the Body conference :: University of Copenhagen, Nørregade 10, DK-1017 København K, Denmark :: afn[at]adm.ku.dk :: +45 35 32 26 25.

The Medical Museion has invited the sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard to create a new work, which will focus on the problematic arising in Art and Biomedicine: Beyond the body. Kirkegaard has turned his listening ear inwards – to his own ear – and by using specially developed listening equipment, he has captured the micro activity which the hair cells of the ear broadcasts. Listen to some of his music here.

Sound Economy is Stanley Ruiz’s “audio-visual approach to economics.” He used the Philippines’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP per capita) as his source to create sounds and manipulate video. GDP values were converted to MIDI data using a gesture-based sensor interface (the data is being sent as he moves his hand). Converted MIDI values were then processed in a custom program written in Max/MSP. He used MIDIsense as sensor interface. The output is an algorithmically composed music, as well as manipulated video (in this instance the video’s frame rate and contrast were manipulated). Sound Economy was the first in the series to be shown in public at the 4th Asia-Europe Art Camp in Helsinki, Finland (June 2006). Continue reading

UNDER SOUND UNDER (2007) A Jeff Talman Soundspace Installation at St. Lawrence Church, Klatovy, Czech Republic will open at 3 PM, June 2, 2007 and remain open until July 29, 2007.

As humans we tend to hear in a horizontal plane. Speech, music performance and TV and radio broadcast are ready examples of typically horizontal or near-horizontal listening situations. But the human ear can hear three-dimensionally, such that perceptions of different altitudes and depths of sound are possible. In UNDER SOUND UNDER different planes or strata of sound are made apparent in the installation. Further, sound motion from loudspeaker to loudspeaker across and between strata dynamically engages the space creating volume-field effects. Continue reading

ATH-LDN presents a wide panorama of contemporary audio production emerging from Greece across various platforms & venues in London: an aural journey through sound installations, experimental live art performances, independent record label showcases, art-rock performances & actions, audio-visual experiences and radio sessions. An eclectic mix of established and emergent art practitioners who focus on the creative use of both digital and analogue sound, multi-media and other current technologies, while finding inventive ways to perform, communicate and distribute their work. Creative direction & project coordination: Chloe Vaitsou.

One of the events in ATH-LDN is Statistical Harp, an interactive audiovisual installation by Coti & Dimitris Charitos which opens next Monday at E:vent Gallery and will be open from 16 till 29 April. Statistical Harp takes its name from the ancient Aeolic Harp, which was probably the first ever sound installation (6th century B.C.) that was usually located on hilltops and produced sound by the wind vibrating its strings. Continue reading

Urban Interface | Berlin :: A symposium, exhibition and curatorial research project exploring the interspaces between public and private urban space :: April 15 to May 6, 2007 :: Berlin and Oslo ::

Ways of walking (gaits) are among the most distinctively individual human movement patterns – almost like fingerprints. Through the sound of footsteps they become audible for us; the regularity with which we place one foot in front of the other generates our unique rhythm.

go your gait! – (part 2), by katrinem, studies on the public square is a video-sound installation in which the video becomes the score. Like an outsider, the viewer observes the happenings in Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt. Protagonists go their own ways, leaving behind visible and audible traces that begin to blend – merging with or counter pointing each other – and once again fade away. The rhythms and structures that momentarily arise through the individual gaits encode the public square in that moment, before the space again opens up for new impressions. go your gait! – the heading denotes a constantly growing series of projects that articulates the individuality of our ways of walking and the traces they leave in public space. Continue reading

Vocal Interpretations of the Market

: A vast amount of information in the shape of index graphs is constantly being created at the different stock markets of the world. In the project NASDAQ Vocal Index the graphs of companies listed on the NASDAQ are transformed into music. Computer software converts the graphs to sheets of music, and the scores are presented online on a projection screen, to be read and sung by a member of a local choir. Every company has got its own voice and together the choir vocally interprets the current situation on the market.

The project has among other places been performed in Tirana Biennale, Yamaguchi, Japan and at Furgfabriken, Stockholm.

The Heart Chamber Orchestra is a one-hour performance that literally creates music “from the heart”. The orchestra consists of 12 classical musicians of the Trondheim Sinfonietta and the artist duo TERMINALBEACH (made of Pure and Erich Berger.) Using their heartbeats, the musicians control a computer composition and visualization environment. Continue reading