Florian Hecker :: February 12 – March 28, 2010 :: Lecture: March 18, 7:00 pm :: Chisenhale Gallery, 64 Chisenhale Road, London E3 5QZ.

Chisenhale Gallery is pleased to announce a major solo exhibition by Florian Hecker, his first in a UK public institution, comprising a new installation of sound pieces co-commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London and IKON Gallery, Birmingham. Hecker’s new commission continues his investigation of sound in relation to the body and space, employing idiosyncratic psychoacoustic propositions in order to examine and disrupt spatial perception.

At Chisenhale Gallery Hecker will present a series of four independent, electro-acoustic works that lead the visitor around the gallery space, where each work exposes a fault line in the traditional categorizations of auditory events, auditory objects or streams. Continue reading

Vortex, Part 2: a search for time distortion :: December 16, 2009; 7:00 - 9:30 pm :: Alte Schmiede, Schönlaterngasse 9, 1010 Vienna, Austria.

Vortex is an interdisciplinary music project by composer / pianist Belma Beslic (AUT/SLO) and Viennese composer / sound artist Bernhard Gál (AUT). It deals with different aspects of temporal perception, and its implication for our human sensory and cognitive apparatus.

PROGRAMME: * B. Gal: 88 (for piano and light projection) * B. Beslic: Utopia Planitia (audiovisual composition) * B. Gal: relive (laptop performance) * B. Gal: textur#4 (audiovisual composition) * B. Beslic: Expanse (for piano and sound projection, premiere). Annelie Gahl – violin (Utopia Planitia)

The Blackest Flux featuring Yutaka Makino:: December 10, 2009, 8:00 - 10:00 pm :: AXIOM Center for New and Experimental Media, 141 Green Street, Jamaica Plain, MA.

The Blackest Flux is an experiment toward abstraction of space/body. By using acoustic and psychoacoustic phenomena, it creates a state of disorientation and a series of tactile movement of sound masses over space.

Yutaka Makino is an artist and researcher currently based in Los Angeles. He seeks to amalgamate the historic precedents of computational composition and science, involving research in non-standard sound synthesis, spatial perception, acoustics, collective behavior, complex dynamical systems and emergence. Continue reading

Collision Zone Live by Gast Bouschet and Nadine Hilbert w/Otobong Nkanga and Y.E.R.M.O. — Premiere at Philharmonie Luxembourg :: November 29, 2009; 8:00 pm :: Installation at Luxembourg Pavilion Ca’ del Duca, 3052 Corte del Duca Sforza, 30124 San Marco Venice, until November 22, 2009.

Every thing must have a beginning, and that beginning must be linked to something that went before…

Collision Zone Live will mix field recordings of natural and urban sounds with improvised music by Y.E.R.M.O. and intuitive vocals by Otobong Nkanga. The show will include large screen projections of videos recorded at the edge of Europe: satellites, radars and surveillance patrols, brutalist architecture, informal human settlements, geological imagery of mountains and caves, steaming volcanic craters, insect hunters and their prey… Continue reading

Cafe Scientifique presents Making Noise, a night of perceptual exploration :: October 26, 2009; 7:30 p.m. :: The Horse Hospital, 30 Colonnade, WC1N 1JD, London, UK.

Join our scientists, artists and musicians as we ask the questions: When does noise gain meaning? And - Are we nearly cyborgs?

Short talks by Dr Mick Grierson’s demo of his computer brain interface - generating noise environments from brain waves! Patrick Degenaar, on visual prosthetics for augmented vision - and the prospects for bionic eyes. Lauren Stewart on what our brain does with music, and why some people (with amusia) just don’t get it. And Joydeep Bhattacharya on why sounds stir our emotions. Continue reading

Some scientific sessions and some concerts of the ongoing SMC 2009 Conference — July 22-25, 2009 at the Casa da Música, Porto, Portugal — will be transmitted in real-time on the internet via the webcast platform of the Casa da Música, where the conference is taking place. Here is the programme of the webcast:

The Curators’ Concert, including works with live electronics, re-animated electronic circuitry, network performance and improvisation — July 22; 22:00 (Portugal time) Continue reading

International Interaktionslabor 2009: Peninsulae of Perception :: July 20 - August 2, 2009 :: Site of the former coal mine Göttelborn in southwest Germany.

This year the main focus of the workshop is on perceptual processes. The project title — Halbinseln der Wahrnehmung/ Peninsulae of Perception — is a reference to a diary written by a person afflicted with Asperger’s Syndrome. The diary has been proposed as research libretto for investigations into differing perceptual channels and psycho-social research on autism, synaesthesia, music composition and real-time performance. The acoustic-musical dimension of the 2009 laboratory is complemented by research into design or wearable audiophonics and acousmatic architectures and sound perceptions. Continue reading

Graeme Miller :: Bassline :: July 9 - 26, 2009 :: Barbican Centre’s Car Park, London.

A series of projections reveal the landscape of the City as seen by 15 Londoners. See and hear the recorded testimonies of an hour- long walk made by the 15 participants accompanied by a double-bassist. The piece reveals participants’ memories, associations and perceptions of the area, capturing its unseen characteristics. Underscoring the work is a solo bass line mapping out the territory, based on a piece by Henry Purcell, to mark the 350th anniversary of this London-born composer.

Co-commissioned by barbicanbite09. Part of CREATE 09, part of the Barbican’s Do Something Different Weekend, part of Open Weekend. Continue reading

rota by Carsten Nicolai :: July 3 - September 26, 2009 :: Ernst Schering Foundation, Unter den Linden 32-34, 10117 Berlin.

rota, which sees itself as an experiment, deals with the effects of the so-called neurofeedback on human perception. Taking his cues from the dreamachines or mind machines — developed by Brion Gysin since the 1950s in the context of the Beatnik movement to alter the viewers’ state of consciousness through the emission of alpha waves — Carsten Nicolai presents a test set-up, where visitors can experience for themselves how the brain responds to different visual (and acoustic) phenomena. Continue reading

Birdcage: Zeedijk — Audrey Chen (US), Wun Thong (AU), Byungjun Kwon (KR/NL), dj sniff (JP/NL) :: July 4, 2009; 7:00 - 11:00 pm :: Toko Dun Yong Store Front, Zeedijk 88, 1012, Amsterdam.

One of the first things you notice in the Netherlands are exposed windows. Whether it’s a family having dinner or a half naked lady luring you into her red lit room, the interface between the interior and exterior is often transparent. In contrast, for many Asian cultures you can barely catch a glimpse inside. Perhaps this has to do with how each culture deals with the gaze - looking at or being looked at. However, what is more interesting to us, is how do we listen within the politics of this gaze.

Birdcage: Zeedijk is a listening experience, about the way our ears can focus or drift in a given multi-sensory environment. Continue reading