Matteo Milani: Christina, could you tell us about your background, and how you arrived, through your career, to conceive the “Electrical Walks” project?

Christina Kubisch: When people asks me what I am, what do I do, I always struggle to answer. I am an artist, a composer, I work with magnetic inductance, but I also write pieces for other musicians. I am a performer, I draw. It’s hard to define me. I was a flautist, I studied Composition with Franco Donatoni at the G.Verdi Conservatory of Milan, and also Electronic Music with Angelo Paccagnini . At the end of my studies at the Mila Conservatory, I started a much more personal and effective research, attending for 2 years night courses in Electronics. During these courses, I discovered a telephonic amplifier, a small cube, from which came curious sounds. This cube had inside some coils, and it amplified the magnetic sounds close by. Fascinated by this system, I had 50 special cubes built, and with them I created my first installations. Continue reading

Spatial Dissonance, Subjective Imagination and Locative Media: An Interview with Paula Levine, conducted by Barbara Crow, April 3, 2008 on Skype using Call Recorder, Wi Journal: Paula Levine’s “… recent installation, Signature, is inaugural work in the new Contemporary Project Space at the Sonoma County Museum in Santa Rosa, California. Signature is a contemporary portrait of seismic history as it intersects with local lives and landscape. The work uses GPS satellites to trigger the sound of the 1906 Bay area earthquake. The same overhead satellites also cause the surface of a projected digital image of Santa Rosa to rupture and reveal the hidden presence of the Rogers Creek Fault that runs directly through the centre of the city. The sound is converted from a selection of seismograph recordings of the 1906 quake. Santa Rosa was severely destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and subsequent fires. While the Rogers Creek Fault has been quiet for many years, current seismic research refocuses attention on it as a possible continuation of the more active Hayward Creek Fault, lying to the south of the city…” Listen to the Interview and/or Continue reading >>

SIP - SoundLAB Interview project :: In preparation for the launch of SoundLAB VI - soundPOOL next week (9-14 March 2009), SoundLAB- sonic art project environments is happy to announce the online release of 52 new interviews with participating soundartists on SIP - SoundLAB Interview Project

SoundLAB - sonic art project environments is a corporate part of [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne, the experimental platform for art and new media from Cologne/Germany.

[Image: 29, the symphony, by Luca Bertini] Interviewing the crisis is a series of articles hosted on artsblog.it in which Salvatore Iaconesi and penelope.di.pixel analyze some of the issues of the rising financial crisis through a sequence of reports and interviews.

The project starts out with an introduction. The first interview is with Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green of Turbulence.org. Next will be Marc Garrett of Furtherfield, followed by Simona Lodi of Torino Share Festival.

The focus is on the crisis’ impact on art and, specifically, on new media art disciplines, organizations, artists. Continue reading

Suzan Sherman: In the past your work has focused on the natural world, and toying with the intricate and seemingly set systems within that world. But for this project, The Marfa Jingles, you’ve honed in on Marfa, Texas — the systems of shops and business and organizations that are this tiny town’s glue. Like some of your other work, your jingles seem to be an attempt at organizing and arranging (you’re literally arranged the music and the lyrics for them). At the same time, I would have never expected you to come up with a project of writing and producing a series of audio advertisements. How did this idea come about for you?

Nina Katchadourian: I’m often looking at the natural world, but just as often I’m looking at the human and social world. The Marfa Jingles looks at the town as a social structure — as a place where people live, work, and run businesses and organizations. I’ve kind of collected Marfa, and used the project as a vehicle to get to know the town. Continue reading

Roulette TV 2008 - David Behrman :: Marilyn Crispell with Lotte Anker :: Andrew Cyrille with Bob Stewart and Roy Campbell :: Joan La Barbara :: Oliver Lake :: Phoebe Legere :: Margaret Leng Tan :: Kathleen Supové :: Blue Gene Tyranny :: Lois V Vierk.

Roulette TV is an on-going, innovative video series which presents unique contemporary music in compelling and engaging performances given by the creators themselves. Each performance is followed by an insightful interview which offers the opportunity to get close to the artists who range from those who often speak about the rich associations and ideas they have developed during the course of their work to those who are revealing their creative processes for the first time. The wealth of concepts, personalities, real-world experience, sonic and visual beauty available from this Roulette TV series builds a springboard of inspiration and information for students, and creates enlivening, deep musical encounters for the enterprising viewer.

Roulette TV is presented in partnership with UbuWeb.

Last fall I posted about espaceSONO, a sound art show at the SAT in Montreal curated by Tobias c. van Veen. Tobias is an old friend who is active as a musician and DJ, curator and critic and in his spare time he plugs away on his Ph.D in communication & philosophy at McGill. I have wanted to interview Tobias about his creative practice for a while, but we have held off having this dialog for several months so we could specifically address his new turbulence-commissioned project, ’til death do us a part. Tobias will be performing this piece and participating in the Programmable Media II symposium in New York City (today) at Pace University.

Greg Smith: Your recently launched turbulence piece ’til death do us a part is decidely lo-tech. Not only is underlying reel-to-reel technology slightly archaic but even your references are coated with a fine layer of dust. Listening through the piece, it feels very much like an autopsy for “dead media.” Could you talk about the inspiration for the piece? Continue reading on Serial Consign.

London’s audiovisual Howlin’ Wolf (it’s a sideburn thing), Toby Harris (aka *spark), has been steadily building strong live video performances since the turn of the century, exploring his real-time video skills at countless festivals, sophisticated audiovisual performances and most recently on giant touchscreen plasmas within motor shows. He also founded AVIT, the real world spin-off of vjforums.com that prompted festivals around the world, so it was a pleasure to meet him @ Sonar in Barcelona mid 2007, as well as get his reflections on audiovisual possibility. Lotta words to follow, but worth the read for the pixel-inclined…

What appeals about real-time video manipulation, about ‘live cinema’?

The world is catching up with vjs in enjoying a spot of real-time video manipulation: just watch people using PhotoBooth on any modern Mac. Continue reading

I often describe people I write about here at Serial Consign as friends and peers and both of these terms definitely apply to David McCallum. David is a Toronto-based artist and musician whose subverts electronic hardware, software and networks towards playful and performative ends. He has a background in physics and music and received a Masters in Art and Technology from Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden.

I met David in 2006 at Mutek, and got to know him and his work through his excellent curation of our Vague Terrain issue on locative media. David’s creative practice is quite varied, and perusal of his recent work reveals interests in improv performance, modified timepieces and insect orchestras. Continue reading

“The energy behind the growing practice of audiovisual performance is intriguing; what is it that sparks the passions for creators and theorists working within this art form? The diversity of the concepts, techniques, and aesthetic qualities is remarkable, suggesting that this practice is not rooted in any one particular mindset, but instead, emerges from a wide range of trajectories that are converging within a contemporary form of media based performance art. However, live video mixing performances certainly address a hunger for immersive and synaesthetic sensory experiences where aural and visual elements work together to create a whole that is something beyond the sum of the parts. Continue reading