urMus - Mobile Music Instruments and Environments with Georg Essl :: June 6, 2010; 3:30 - 8:30 p.m. :: Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, 596 Broadway, Suite 602 New York, New York.

How do music information retrieval (MIR), music performance, and music composition overlap? What tools are being developed in MIR research that may have interesting uses in creating new music? How might the needs and practices of composers and performers inform MIR work? How can we support better collaboration and cross-visibility between MIR researchers and the computer music community? These are some questions that we believe are worth exploring in a dedicated workshop at ICMC.
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Variable 4 by James Bulley and Daniel Jones :: May 22-23, 2010; noon-noon :: Dungeness, Kent, TN29 9ND.

Since the earliest civilizations, a complex relationship has existed between human society and the weather systems that define the world around us. We make sense of seasonal cycles through rituals and folklore, passing down ways of harnessing the natural elements whilst constructing defenses against those which threaten our existence.

Variable 4 transforms these weather patterns into a living musical composition with the same unpredictability as the elements themselves. Using meteorological sensors connected to a custom software environment developed by the artists, the wild weather conditions of the Kent coastland act as composer, navigating through a map of 24 specifically written movements. Every aspect of the piece, from broad harmonic progressions down to individual notes and timbres, is influenced by changes in the environment: wind speed, rainfall, solar radiation, humidity, tropospheric variance, temperature, and more. Continue reading

Trenton Area Festival of Electronic Arts — An exploration of electronic environmental and performance art :: February 27, 2010; 12:00 - 11:00 pm :: Grounds For Sculpure, 18 Fairgrounds Road, Hamilton, New Jersey.

An exploration of electronic environmental and performance art. Interact, learn and network f2f (no voltage required) where AV geeks are vanward and hip. Sights and sounds will stretch the imagination. Performances, exhibits, and seminars will mark the event along with an e-drum circle and an open Personal Media Player jam. Bring your favorite music or visual apps and we’ll do our best to plug you in to an impromptu multi-media happening. Or simply come treat your senses in a space transformed by light paintings, video sculpture, ambient soundscapes and experimental music. Continue reading

in clean air we fly — a new outdoor electronic symphony for 8 channels, inspired by London’s air pollution by Kaffe Matthews :: Call for Participation: 200 cyclists needed to power sound installation! :: December 6; 12:00 - 9:00 pm :: Staged the weekend before the UN CLimate change conference in Copenhagen, in clean air we fly it continues indoors at the Vortex Jazz Club,Gillett Square, December 7-11; 12:00 - 6:00 pm.

World-renowned sound artist Kaffe Matthews has made a new eight-channel audio work which will be an electronic symphony surrounding Gillett Square. The artwork invites audiences, and cycling participants, to reflect on her clean air paths playing through the polluted London air. This one-day installation on Gillett Square is also the inaugural event of the Invisible Dust enquiry by artists and scientists into air pollution, health and climate change which is led by the Hackney-based curator Alice Sharp. Continue reading

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

Electronic Music Foundation presents Ear to the Earth 09 annual festival of environmental sound :: October 8-10, 2009 :: Judson Church, 55 Washington Square South, New York City.

image: Yoko Ono’s Secret Place

Ear to the Earth is a worldwide network based on the idea that environmental sound can connect us to the environment with a special vibrancy and emotional depth. The goal is to heighten environmental awareness through sound, inspire engagement in environmental issues, and sustain engagement through ongoing activities. Continue reading

Introducing FM :: Gustavo Matamoros – David Dunn – Rene Barge. Frozen Music (or FM) is a new artist research collective and experimental music ensemble that designs and realizes interdisciplinary music in response to the acoustical characteristics of a given site. It focuses upon the making of otherwise inaudible phenomena audible in science, nature and architecture. Each performance is a kind of acoustical “tuning” or redrawing of the existing aural landscape through direct sound generation and amplification.

Their first event is Canal by Frozen Music :: November 7, 2009 :: Dade Canal, Miami Beach, FL (as part of Sleepless Night).

Canal is an exploration of an outdoor environment in Miami Beach using specialized audio devices capable of hearing the hidden sounds that occur underwater, inside the ground and surrounding plant life, and above or below the normal human hearing range. Continue reading

International Call for Participation :: Lovely Weather Artists’ Residencies related to art and climate change :: to take place in 2009-2010 :: Donegal County, Ireland :: Deadline: August 3, 2009

Five residencies are proposed in the five Electoral Areas of County Donegal, Ireland. One per area. Artist must apply to one of the 5 areas. Residencies will be of 4 - 11 weeks in duration (although proposals for shorter or longer periods can be considered). The successful artists will not necessarily have to be resident in Donegal for the entire duration of the project. But they must demonstrate a commitment to working on the ground during at least part of the residency.

The commissioned artists will receive a fee of circa €15,000 for fees/research/travel & materials. Please note exact amounts will be confirmed at a later stage in the commissioning process. Continue reading

Routes + Routines Follow Blind Workshops by Peter Westenberg and Wendy Van Wynsberghe (Constant vzw) :: July 15, 2009; 10:00 am - city walk starts at Timelab - Sint Pietersnieuwstraat 23 - 9000 Ghent :: To participate email summercamp [at] timelab.org.

This workshop is a detour through the city of Ghent guided by environmental data. Fit up with a self-made antenna, city walkers are dwelling through the electromagnetic fields of Ghent.

Part 1: EMF Antenna: After a contextualization of the workshop by a presentation and introduction of EMF, participants will make their own EMF antenna. Tools and material are provided by Constant. Duration: 3 hours. Continue reading

A10lab, Area10, Apo33, Noise=Noise, Beyond Signal, Fibrr Records & Sound Research Practice, Goldsmiths presents: Rainforest IV - David Tudor — “a collaborative environmental work, spatially mixing the live sounds of suspended sculptures and found objects, with their transformed reflections in an audio system” :: July 3-4, 2009; 2:00 - 11:00 pm :: AREA10 PROJECT SPACE, Eagle Wharf, Peckham Hill Street, London.

“In 1973 I made Rainforest IV where the objects that the sounds are sent through are very large so that they have their own presence in space. I mean, they actually sound locally in the space where they are hanging as well as being supplemented by a loudspeaker system. Continue reading