A music search engine that uses a novel technique to classify songs,will go into beta this week, Erica Naone writes in the November 2 Technology Review blog.

… It was designed by researchers from the University of California, San Diego, including assistant professor Gert Lanckriet. The researchers have trained the search using information contributed by Facebook users, via an application called HerdIt. The goal is to train the system to tag songs automatically–using statistical analysis applied to the waveform patterns that represent each song…

Cheryl L’Hirondelle nikamon ohci askiy (songs because of the land) :: until February 2009 :: Vancouver, B.C.

This project explores the relationship between sound, space and identity as experienced through a cree worldview. By creating a “performative audio map”, L’Hirondelle will negotiate a journey through new territory, developing a nomadic relationship with the land. Her actions/singing will be in direct response to her encounters within the territory - the physical environment she finds herself in and its inhabitants.

During the month of December, the artist will make daily journeys throughout Vancouver and “sing” the landscape she encounters. These encounters will be captured by mobile phone by the artist and whatever other technologies are made available by participating viewers/audience (video, photo, audio). Continue reading

The Montréal Sound Map — Call for Participation: Sound maps are in many ways the most effective auditory archive of an environment, touching on political, artistic, cultural, historical, and technological aspects. Montréal Sound Map’s aim is to create an archival database of sound recordings from all over Montréal.

They are accepting all (unprocessed) audio recordings (past and present) of Montreal’s sound environments. As they gather submissions, they will be placing them into a browsable tagging system based on criteria including: Sound Source (characteristics); Location (borough, neighbourhood, municipality); Date (time of day, month, day of week, year, season); Environment Type (park, metro, indoors, outdoors, etc…); Equipment (recording device, microphone, etc…). Files can be uploaded through the form on the ‘Uploads’ section of the website. Continue reading

Turbulence Commission: Bronx Rhymes by Claudia Bernett and Maria Ioveva: Bronx Rhymes illuminates the history and significance of Hip Hop in the Bronx by tagging important locations for Hip Hop (1520 Sedgwick, for example) with posters. Each poster describes the historical significance of that location in the form of a rhyme, and invites people walking by to join in a rhyming battle by txt-ing their own rhyme from their mobile phone. The website displays the artists and locations along with all the submitted rhymes elevating the most recent submission. Eventually, visitors to the website will be able to rate existing rhymes, and add their own. Continue reading

audioTagger, by Eva Sjuve, will be presented at Digital Art Weeks, Zurich :: July 10-14, 2007.

audioTagger is a mobile - phone - sound - art - in - urban - space research project, or can be defined as, wireless phonography (”mobile sound writing”). audioTagger is a momentary exploration of urban space, to capture a sonic moment using mobile technology. Anybody with a data enabled mobile phone can participate and contribute to AudioTagger’s exploration of the environment, using the mobile phone as a field recorder, “phonographic tool”, ubiquitous and artistic. The mobile phone is used in this application, being the most ubiquitous tool at present, within wireless architecture; creating a seamless computing environment with the Internet. Continue reading