Sound Art. Sound as a Medium of Art with works by John Cage, La Monte Young, Rolf Julius, Timo Kahlen, Steve Roden, Carsten Nicolai, Ryoji Ikeda, Iannis Xenakis and more :: March 17, 2012 – January 6, 2013 :: Opening: March 16, 2012; 7:00 pm :: ZKM_Foyer, Lorenzstraße 19, D-76135 Karlsruhe, Germany. Continue reading

“Moving across two and a half decades from the windy north Atlantic coast of Canada to the center of Warsaw, the large-scale Aeolian instruments of Gordon Monahan form a temporal bridge between the Fluxus-propelled experimental music of the sixties and seventies and contemporary sound art production. Taking the former’s deconstruction of musical heritage and combining it with an approach closely related to land art, in 1984 Gordon Monahan made his first long string installation in the snow covered plains of New Brunswick. His Long Aeolian Piano had wires 20 to 50 meters long attached to its sounding board. The wires were strung across a field so that, when exited by the wind, they produced Aeolian tones that would travel across the landscape, placing a spell on the quiet Canadian countryside. In 2010 Gordon Monahan produced a new work for the old city center of Warsaw, A Piano Listening To Itself – Chopin Chord. Continue reading

Locustream Promenade @ City Sonic :: August 27 - September 11, 2011 :: Maison Folie, Margin’Halle, Brussels AND Festival Todaysart :: September 29 - October 1, 2011 :: Midi Train Station, Brussels.

Locustream Promenade is a sound art installation composed of sonic beams ( 10 parabolic dishes equipped with sound speakers and small computers). The parabolas are suspended in the public space in such a way that a visitor only hears the sound from the beam when he or she is directly underneath it. Each beam plays a different stream from the Locustream project. Continue reading

Artist Bill Fontana is opening a public art sound installation in the landscaped passageway between the Financial Center Tower, 250 W. Main Street and its parking garage in Lexington, KY on July 29, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. The project will make audible the underground Town Branch River along with the toll of the bell in the Old County Courthouse.

Speakers have been installed along the passageway between the Lexington Financial Center, the city’s blue high-rise, and an adjacent parking garage. Microphones dip beneath to pick up the sounds of Town Branch rushing by. Most people would never know the Town Branch of Elkhorn Creek runs under downtown Lexington if they were not told. There has long been no visual or audible evidence of the rushing water that runs just below the high-rise buildings and busy streets of the city — until this week.

The project will be on permanent exhibit after Thursday afternoon. Continue reading

UrbanRemix is a collaborative and locative sound project developed by Jason Freeman, Carl DiSalvo, Michael Nitsche, and many of our students at Georgia Tech. Our goal in developing UrbanRemix was to design a platform and series of events that would enable participants to develop and express the acoustic identity of their communities, and enable participants to explore and experience the soundscapes of the city in a novel fashion.

The UrbanRemix platform consists of a mobile phone system and web interface for recording, browsing, and mixing audio. It allows users to document and explore the obvious, neglected, private or public, even secret sounds of the urban environment. Continue reading

Nancy Garcia :: April 9 - June 9, 2011 :: Opening: April 9; 7:00 - 10:00 pm :: Bas Fisher Invitational, 180 NE 39th Street, Suite 210, Miami, Florida.

Nancy Garcia’s interdisciplinary practice incorporates choreography, music/sound, video, performance, image making, and new media. Often slinging the viewer to the edges of performative events, Garcia draws attention to the exultant body, considering it as a site as well as a vehicle for sound and movement. For her first solo exhibition in Miami, Garcia shows a new body of work incorporating photography, a new video entitled Power Trio, and a concept audio compilation, Lover’s Alarm Clock, for which she asked artist friends to “create a sound you want your lover/s to wake up to.” Each track will be downloadable and sharable as a smartphone ringtone at www.loversalarmclock.com, and be available for listening in the gallery. Continue reading

Locustream Promenade — @ Festival MIMI, July 1-14, 2010, Marseille, Iles du Frioul, France — is a sound art installation composed of sonic beams (10 parabolic dishes equipped with sound speakers and small computers). The parabolas are suspended in the public space in such a way that a visitor only hears the sound from the beam when he or she is directly underneath it. Each beam plays a different stream from the Locustream project. The live streamed sounds are soundscapes coming from remote locations through the Internet. The space where the paraboles are hung is virtually connected to geo-distant spaces. By moving from one beam to another the audience walks through audio windows opening out onto a worldwide soundscape. Invited to take part in this experience the listener becomes conscious his or her immediate surroundings in a new way, perception of the local audio environment is modified. Continue reading

Stephen Vitiello’s new multi-channel sound installation A Bell For Every Minute :: Beginning on June 23, 2010 :: High Line, 13th - 14th Street, NYC.

A Bell for Every Minute will fill the 14th Street Passage, a semi-enclosed tunnel between West 13th and West 14th Streets, with sound recordings of bells taken from all over New York City and beyond. Sounds range from the iconic rings of the New York Stock Exchange bell, the historic Dreamland bell days after it was discovered in the water off Coney Island, the United Nation’s Peace Bell, and more everyday and personal sounds of bike bells, diner bells, and neighborhood church bells. Bells are used in our culture to mark the passing of time, act as warnings and alerts, mark celebrations, and memorialize those lost. While there are numerous conditions under which bells are heard in our city, they are universal sounds that all of us can appreciate as part of the auditory landscape of our lives. Continue reading

An Interview with Chico MacMurtrie by Suzan Sherman, NYFA Current:

Chico MacMurtie’s Red Hook studio, otherwise known as Amorphic Robot Works, was formerly a church used by Norwegian sailors at the turn of the century, when this section of South Brooklyn was a vital fishing industry. Filled now with plywood boxes, plastic coils, various machines, works in progress, and the remnants of his previous projects, MacMurtries’ studio initially appears to be the messy, albeit inspired, interior of a garage monkey. Since founding Amorphic Robot Works in 1992, MacMurtrie has collaborated with over 20 artists and scientists in making over 100 robots to populate his elaborate performances and interactive environments. Most recently his work has shifted away from literal robotic depictions for which he became known into more abstract sculptures which when inflated with air directly interact with humans. While giving me a tour of the space he showed me the makings of Inflatable Architectural Growth, comprised of various plastic tubes suggesting intestines, which he was prepping to be shown at the San Francisco Art Fair.

TIMESSQUAREARTS :: Request for Letters of Interest :: Art Projects and Art Events in 2010-2012 :: Deadline: July 15, 2010

The Times Square Alliance seeks letters of interest from arts organizations and artists across disciplines to present contemporary art projects and art events in the public spaces in and around Times Square. In a one-page letter, applicants can propose a single project or series for anytime between September 2010 and December 2012. Artists and arts organizations are encouraged to propose projects that address the unique nature and rich history of Times Square. Projects should be able to have an impact in a space defined by dynamic activity and continuous, competing visual stimuli. Organizations, curators and artists are encouraged to consider how their projects will change or effect the space during the presentation and how the 350,000 people here every day (as well millions of virtual viewers) will interact with the presentation. Continue reading