Call for Papers:: The Status Of Sound: Writing Histories Of Sonic Art :: Due August 15, 2012 :: Notification: September 1, 2012

Is “sound art” defined more by the medium of sound or the context of art? It is with this deceptively simple question that we invite papers for The Status of Sound: Writing Histories of Sonic Art, an interdisciplinary conference on sound art and experimental music to be hosted at the Graduate Center, City University of New York on Friday, November 30, 2012, with Dr. Christoph Cox, Hampshire College, serving as the moderator for a roundtable of eminent scholars, composers, and artists including David Grubbs, Branden Joseph, and Marina Rosenfeld. Continue reading

Violins to Fences: A Life of Experimentation in Music by Jon Rose :: July 27, 2012; 6:00 pm :: Village Roadshow Theatrette – State Library of Victoria, 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne.

At one end of the continuum is the violin — iconic, an instrument of perfection, a bastion of western culture; at the other end is the fence –- metaphor for duality, the instrument of our species’ desire for control, ownership, and exploitation. For most of the last forty years, Jon Rose has explored the musical possibilities of the string and the wire in all sizes and situations. In this lecture he connects the radical with the traditional, and the unique experience with the commonplace, in a practice of music that has led him into previously unexplored sonic worlds and sometimes into confrontation. Continue reading

Sounding through Empty Words IV:: an installation version of the April 5, 1991 performance by John Cage in Miami during Subtropics 3 :: adapted for the Listening Gallery by Gustavo Matamoros:: opens September 5th and runs through October, 2012 :: The Listening Gallery – 800-810 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach – an ongoing public art installation that offers sound art to millions of pedestrians visiting Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road annually :: Its exhibits are free and open to the public at all times. For more information and updates visit: listening-gallery.subtropics.org

From Technology Review :: The ability to create phonons and then steer them using laser beams could lead to a new generation of applications, say physicists ::

Zap an optical fibre with a couple of laser beams and the resulting interference pattern causes an interesting effect–it squeezes the material, an effect known as electrostriction. This creates a compression wave called a phonon, a packet of sound, which travels along the fibre.

Not to be outdone, phonons also influence light because they change the refractive index of the material. This bends light and alters its frequency, an effect known as Brillouin scattering.

After that, things get complicated…. Read on: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428515/how-to-steer-sound-using-light/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-07-17 OR: THE PHYSICS ARXIV BLOG Monday, July 16, 2012

Turbulence Commission: Public Works by Chris Mann [Needs Firefox and Speakers/Headphones]:

Either/Or performed the world premiere of Public Works at ISSUE Project Room on June 23, 2012.

For any standard instrumentation (string trio or quartet, wind quintet, whatever) playing standard repertoire. Having chosen a piece from repertoire, each player to play other than their usual instrument (first violin to play cello, for example), and play only those notes they deem necessary (because they give the player an opportunity to change their mind, because they make other notes possible, or for some other reason other than their mere existence). Once started, there should be no attempt to synchronise time.

Public Works is a 2012 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. for its Turbulence website. It was made possible with funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Continue reading

((( MUME 2012 ))) :: 1st International Workshop on Musical Metacreation :: to be held at the Eighth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE’12) :: Stanford, Palo Alto, California, USA :: October 9, 2012 :: Deadline for Paper and Demo Submissions extended to: July 15, 2012 :: Continue reading

Sea of Curves (2012) – shoreline installation premiere :: July 14-20, 2012 :: Shoreline, Pouch Cove, Newfoundland, Canada :: shown daily at 7 PM, weather permitting :: Free admittance ::

Project sound, created by ocean waves, was recorded in the media of water, land and air by way of hydrophone, seismometer and microphone. A collboration with ocean researchers Matt Fowler and James Traer, this multi-channel work presented in view of the ocean engages the crashing waves as a sonic backdrop from which the work’s sound again emerges. Project sound includes the ‘hum of the earth’ – the vibrational sound of the earth as created by the worldwide impact of ocean wave sounds on the sea floor.

The Global Composition: Conference on Sound, Media and the Environment :: July 25-28, 2012 :: Hochschule Darmstadt / Media Campus Dieburg ::

Sound is ubiquitous and permanent, and embraces us as an envelope. Therefore, the experience of the auditory can be considered an environmental experience par excellence. The term and concept of soundscape reflects this idea. It implies, that sounds do not exist in isolation, and have to be understood as being embedded in and interacting with other sounds and perceptions coining the perceptional abilities of individuals and societies and their social relations: soundscape is a system in which all elements are interdependent. Continue reading