Chris Hand was commissioned by Rick Bamford of Essential Music for All “to design and program a device that would allow a roland SP-606 sampler to be controlled by a shed. Six sheds, in fact, each one produced by a different artist or group. This was the culmination of a public art project looking at what ordinary people get up to in their sheds. Found sounds from local participants were loaded onto a sampler in each shed, along with an amplifier and speakers. Each device comprised a BASIC stamp microcontroller with an ultrasonic sensor to detect proximity of audience members, triggering random sounds on the sampler via MIDI.” Link.

Jon Cambeul, sound artist and designer, member of someth;ng and creator of the Speech Guitar has three works created since 1997 bearing the name Auto Confessional (version 1, 2 and 3) which remind me of the confessional booth in THX 1138. The second and third are particularly interesting as they have networked aspects, however information on these works is minimal on Jon’s youtube site and there is no information that I can find on the something site.

Auto Confessional 1 (video below) or Automatic Confessional Machine “…was designed and built in 1997 in Swindon UK and exhibited in specific public spaces around the East End of London, and various rural locations in Wiltshire between 1997-1998. Continue reading

Implications of Paranoia in Sound Art

These days, a radio is a common transmitter of music and information. Historically, radios have had notorious alternative functions as instruments of surveillance. In this article, Anastasiya Osipova discusses how recent sound artists have incorporated the psychology of paranoia into their work, fitting for an environment where surveillance is constant and technology is fervently deployed to detect that which is hidden.

“Newly recruited member of the Resistance walks down the street. Anxiety circulates under his skin. Several uniformed men block his way. “What is inside your suitcase, sir?” “Radio.” They let him pass. He walks into what appears to be a shop, hands the radio transmitter to a portly woman who is standing firm on her high heels, cigarette held to her mouth. At that moment he feels that she, who he is seeing for the first time in life, is closer to him than any family member could possibly be.
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Our sonic environment has a far more direct impact on daily actions than just suggestive image production. Soundscapes define economic, social, and cultural territories. In response to the question “How does sound influence our society?”, eleven artists deal in site-specific works with two issues: control and the production of space. Ear Appeal is not a sound-art exhibition: instead, it approaches sound as conceptual and analytic material, examining the ways sound defines space and exerts control.

Every day, we are surrounded by sound waves in the city, functional music in shopping malls, elevator music, telephone please-hold-the-line loops, and the comforting tinkles in hotel lobbies, restaurants, and doctors’ waiting rooms. Audio-branding confronts us through radio and television, but also in the slam of a car door or the crunch of a cookie. We perceive noises not only with our ears: sound waves are also absorbed by the skin, nose, mouth, and bones. Continue reading

10 Exercises to get the City out of your Body

Amsterdam Inc. - In the streets of Amsterdam, we are not only inhabitants or visitors of the city, but we also are part of a brand, that blends the individual being and the city into a common identity: ‘I amsterdam’. There is no being in the city without being the city. The public sphere becomes the showroom for the new brand Amsterdam. Continue reading

From Street to Chatroom

When live and located, In Conversation provided the means for individuals in the street and on the Internet to engage in a live dialogue with each other. This work by British artist Susan Collins aimed to examine the boundaries and social customs of distinctly different kinds of public spaces - the street and the Internet/chatroom-each with its own established rules of engagement.

Passers-by encountered an animated mouth projected onto the pavement and, through loudspeakers, could hear voices triggered by internet users trying to strike up a conversation. When the pedestrians responded, a concealed microphone and surveillance camera transmitted the responses to the website via a live video stream (webcast). Through the website, online visitors could view the surveillance video and hear the people on the street. They could type messages and send them ‘live’ to the installation where they were converted into speech and broadcast to the street through loudspeakers.