Violins to Fences: A Life of Experimentation in Music by Jon Rose :: July 27, 2012; 6:00 pm :: Village Roadshow Theatrette - State Library of Victoria, 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne.

At one end of the continuum is the violin — iconic, an instrument of perfection, a bastion of western culture; at the other end is the fence –- metaphor for duality, the instrument of our species’ desire for control, ownership, and exploitation. For most of the last forty years, Jon Rose has explored the musical possibilities of the string and the wire in all sizes and situations. In this lecture he connects the radical with the traditional, and the unique experience with the commonplace, in a practice of music that has led him into previously unexplored sonic worlds and sometimes into confrontation. Continue reading

Turbulence Commission: Public Works by Chris Mann [Needs Firefox and Speakers/Headphones]:

Either/Or performed the world premiere of Public Works at ISSUE Project Room on June 23, 2012.

For any standard instrumentation (string trio or quartet, wind quintet, whatever) playing standard repertoire. Having chosen a piece from repertoire, each player to play other than their usual instrument (first violin to play cello, for example), and play only those notes they deem necessary (because they give the player an opportunity to change their mind, because they make other notes possible, or for some other reason other than their mere existence). Once started, there should be no attempt to synchronise time.

Public Works is a 2012 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. for its Turbulence website. It was made possible with funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Continue reading

x_sound: John Cage, Nam June Paik and After :: March 9 - July 1, 2012 :: Nam June Paik Art Center, Paiknamjune-ro 10, Sanggal-dong Giheung-gu, Yongin-si Gyeonggi-do, Korea.

The year of 2012 marks the 80th anniversary of Nam June Paik’s birth and the 100th anniversary of John Cage’s birth. The exhibition includes Cage’s and Paik’s works, but also works of today’s sound artists inheriting the two frontiers’ experimentations.

The term “x_sound” has a triple meaning: a sound that is unknown(x), that is ex-panded and that ex-pels fixed ideas about sound. “Sound” itself is literally a neutral and straightforward term, but in the contemporary art’s context, it’s a complex arena of different questions and discourses. Continue reading

Infantcore: Experimental Music by Babies. Motion tracking software converts the performers’ movements into sound :: February 18, 2012; 11:00 am – 4:00 pm :: Machine Project, 1200-D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, CA.

Taking the term “experimental venue” to one of its possible extremes, Machine Project brings you Infantcore. We have garnered a cadre of infant volunteers, graciously donated by their parents, who will serve as variables in an algorithmic sound composition. Scott Cazan has written some software for the occasion that uses a camera and a computer to track the babies’ movements and convert that information into different sonic phenomena. How will this sound? As we have never done this before, we really have no idea. It could sound terrible, not work, be boring, embarrass everyone and end in tears – like most everything at Machine Project. Continue reading

Freedom to the Black: Erdem Helvacıoğlu :: February 10-26, 2012 :: ARTER - space for art, Istiklal Caddesi, 211, Beyoglu, Istanbul, Turkey. Continue reading

CONA Institute for Contemporary Arts Processing presents ZVO.ČI.TI. so.und.ing Collection, a podcast collection of Slovenian sound artists, composers of electroacoustic, experimental, algorithmic, electronic, improvised and composed works. The DVD release of the ZVO.ČI.TI so.und.ing Collection represents the final part of the multi-year project devised to be a continuous production of thematic radio and podcast audio programmes about specific authors and works of theirs that were created in the studio or performed live.

The purpose of the project is to connect and highlight Slovenian authors who make contemporary music in the music performance, sound, intermedia, performing, online and other areas and to present them, using existing communication possibilities, into the wider arena of world contemporary sound creativity. Continue reading

Workshop: Neuro Reality Check (Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science, Berlin) Performance: GenComp Collective Berlin & Book Launch: Critical Neuroscience: A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience :: December 2, 2011, 10:00 pm :: N.K., Elsenstr. 52/2, Hinterhaus Etage 2, 12059 Berlin :: Open to the public (register for the workshop here).

GenComp Collective Berlin: Chaotic, cybernetic, and hybrid systems — Neurological and cybernetic research techniques have been adopted by many experimental music protagonists, such as Louis and Bebe Barron, Alvin Lucier, David Tudor and others. Continue reading

Calling Out Of Context :: November 14-22, 2009 :: Institute of Contemporary Arts, (ICA) London, The Mall, London.

The ICA is pleased to announce Calling Out Of Context, a festival of experimental music and sound which fills the building for nine days in November. One of the ICA’s Galleries is being used as a performance space, while the other features a recording studio, and the Theatre is hosting gigs, workshops and discussions. The programme across these spaces includes an incredible range of musicians and artists, revealing the vitality and relevance of the sonic avant-garde.

Calling Out Of Context features over forty performers and groups, including both emerging figures and well-known names. Many of the participants cross the boundaries between different musical traditions, and the festival (which takes its title from a song by the American underground musician Arthur Russell) draws on the explosively experimental ethos of the 60s and 70s. 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

Plateaux Festival :: November 19 - 22, 2009 :: Poland.

A 4-day festival presenting the world’s leading groundbreaking multimedia artists, praised and prize-winning audiovisual and VJ art, experimental films, and live electronic and electroacoustic music. A fully interactive event, Plateaux will be spread across Poland’s two adjacent and culturally rich cities of Toruń and Bydgoszcz, combining a number of different venues to create the widest possible range of multimedia and audiovisual performances.

Plateaux is committed to providing an extra depth of experience beyond simple spectatorship. For this reason, artists performing during the festival will also act as guide and teachers in workshops, lectures and discussions, addressing the theoretical, practical and technical aspects of audiovisual domain. Continue reading