Sun Boxes in Rhyolite Nevada. A twenty speaker piece powered by the sun by Craig Colorusso.

Sun Boxes are an environment to enter and exit. It’s comprised of twenty speakers operating independently each powered by solar panels. There is a different guitar sample in each box all playing together making the composition. The guitar samples are all of different lengths so the whole piece keeps evolving.

Participants are encouraged to walk amongst the speakers. It sounds different inside of the array. There is a different sense of space inside. Certain speakers will be closer and louder therefore the piece will sound different to different people in different positions throughout the array. Creating a unique experience for everyone. Continue reading

Posted by Alex McLean: I wrote a paper with Dave Griffiths and Nick Collins on the visualisation of live code, exploring ideas around live coding interfaces, accepted for the EVA London 2010 conference in July. A HTML version is below, or see the PDF Preprint.

Visualisation of Live Code by Alex McLean (Goldsmiths), Dave Griffiths (FoAM), Nick Collins (University of Sussex) and Geraint Wiggins (Goldsmiths) — Abstract: In this paper we outline the issues surrounding live coding which is projected for an audience, and in this context, approaches to code visualisation. This includes natural language parsing techniques, using geometrical properties of space in language semantics, representation of execution flow in live coding environments, code as visual data and computer games as live coding environments. We will also touch on the unifying perceptual basis behind symbols, graphics, movement and sound. Continue reading

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

Coincidence Engines by [The User]: The first two works in the Coincidence Engines series are subtitled One: Universal People’s Republic Time, and Two: Approximate demarcator of constellations in other cosmos. These two installations approach the idea of “co-incident” events from complementary perspectives. Coincidence Engine One (watch) assembles a large number of unsynchronized clocks whose combined ticking sounds produce an unusual and intriguingly organic sonic environment. Coincidence Engine Two (watch) develops a sophisticated synchronization control and amplification system around a group of specially-modified clocks that enables the artists to articulate audio-visual compositions by programming and sequencing the clocks’ ticking behaviour.

The notion of concrete sound, and the specificity of the listener’s relationship to sound sources in space are central to [The User]’s approach. Continue reading

Videotage is proud to present Hong Kong-based Portuguese artist Joao Vasco Paiva as the first selected artist-in-residence of fuse:: residency program 2010. The objective of fuse:: residency program has always been encouraging individuals interested in the field of new media art, be it art & technology, art & science or art & anything, to create new works. With the support from Videotage, Joao Vasco Paiva will bring the audience a new sculptural sound installation Chirps, through which he creates a score by determining rules.

The prototype of the work (v1) was presented in the Microwave International New Media Art Festival 2009 in which a set of toy birds performed a sequence of calls and movement interfered by the passers-by at the lobby of Langham Hotel, while this time, Vasco has made the toy birds migrate to the raw space of Videotage where they would react to the motion and sound of a new player - a real mynah bird. 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

If the earth could make music, what kind of songs would it sing? This crazy contraption, called the Terrafon, actually lets us find out the answer to that question! Designed as a huge turntable tone arm and transducer, this musical instrument plays the earth like a big gravelly vinyl record. — Moe Beitiks

Harvest (2009) is a new art piece for the terrafon, traditional ensemble and cropland, by Alunda Kyrkokör (Olle Cornéer and Martin Lübcke). In the performance the Alunda Church Choir, conducted by Cantor Jan Hällgren, played the soil of northern Uppland (in Sweden). Harvest was exhibited at the Volt Festival in Uppsala in June. There is more to come. There are still many croplands still untouched by terrafon. The only thing needed is a powerful local musical ensemble that can sweat it out. This is a demanding piece and sound — well, take a listen: Continue reading

New York-based composer and multi-media artist Miya Masaoka has developed The LED Kimono Project, an installation-based media and performance piece featuring a kimono fabricated from over a thousand LEDs that have the capacity to respond to musical, visual and physical conditions throughout the course of a performance, or as an installation in a gallery setting. The work has been performed at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival and at the Japan Society of San Diego. It will be performed at the New York Electronic Art Festival on October 17, 2009; 6:00 - 11:00 p.m. at Roulette, 20 Greene St. @ Canal, New York City. Ikue Mori & LEMUR, Peter Blasser, David Galbraith, and Laetitia Sonami will also perform.

Miya Masaoka has created works for koto, laser interfaces, laptop and video and written scores for ensembles, chamber orchestras and mixed choirs. Her work has been presented in Japan, Canada, Europe, Eastern Europe and she has toured to India six times. Continue reading

Longplayer combines an interactive sculpture and a systems-theory experiment in the service of a 1,000-year-long musical composition. An ambitious project for anyone who ever wondered about humanity’s ability to pursue trans-generational art, Longplayer was launched in 1999 by composer (and Pogues member) Jem Finer and an advisory board that included Brian Eno. In 2000, the project was turned over to the Longplayer Trust, a compendium of experts dedicated to its preservation until the 2999 completion of its first cycle.

Survival strategies for the project, including schematics for analog (i.e. human) performances featuring hundreds of Tibetan singing bowls, self-adjusting computer software, and a global radio signal are illustrated at the website. Continue reading

TOPLAP presents PUBCODE2 — Featuring: chr15m (making machines that make machines that make music); MCLD (beatboxing + livecoding, is it possible?); Yee-King + Click Nilson (algorithmic choreography); openSlub (crowdsourced livecoding) :: August 5, 2009; 7:00 - 11:00 pm :: The Roebuck, 50 Great Dover Street, London.

Live coding is a new direction in electronic music and video, and is starting to get somewhere interesting. Live coders expose and rewire the innards of software while it generates improvised music and/or visuals. All code manipulation is projected for your pleasure. Continue reading