Turbulence Commission: Panemoticon by Ali Miharbi and John Priestley [Needs Firefox (16 or later recommended), headphones/speakers, mouse/trackpad]:

We know how you feel. Panemoticon observes your behavior, makes a few inferences about your emotional state, and plays music to match your mood. Your mouse/trackpad use says a lot about your energy level, confidence, and perceived control over your environment. Panemoticon tracks and analyzes these data to create an image of your mood, and then generates music, adjusting properties such as tonality (major/minor), harmonic & rhythmic complexity, tempo, timbre, and proximity. Collective mood is calculated for all Panemoticon users on a given site. Continue reading

Dear Friends,

We need your support! Donations are tax-deductible for US Residents.

About to embark on its 33rd year, New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. — an independent not-for-profit organization founded in New York City — continues to commission networked art for its world-renowned website Turbulence.org (1996-): its over 220 works span a crucial 16-year period of exploration and innovation in digital networked environments, ranging from hypertext to data visualization, blogs to social networks, and interactive dance/musical compositions to 3-D architecture and iPhone apps.

The following commissions launched in 2012:

• We Ping Good Things To Life: An Interactive Networked Installation in 5 Acts by Ephraim & Sadie Hatfield
• Space Video by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett
• Searching for Michelle/SFM by Maja Kalogera
• Memorial Project for Jobbers’ Canyon Built with ConAgra Products by Nicholas O’Brien
• Awkward_NYC, or New York City Map of Awkward Social Interactions in Public Spaces by Zannah Marsh
• Word Market by Belen Gache
• Crow_Sourcing by Andy Deck
• WoodEar by Peter Traub
• Panemoticon by Ali Miharbi and John Priestley

L-Carrier, by Eli Keszler, was installed and performed at Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, and Chris Mann’s Public Works was performed at Issue Project Room.

Launching in 2013 are:

“Nothing You’ve Done” by Jason Nelson; “iSKY-TV” by iKatun; “Constellations over Playas” by Joe Moore; “Mark-It” by Esmerelda Kosmatopolous; “Submersible” by Yotam Mann; and “Valley of the Deer” by Jillian Mcdonald.

Andy Deck and Zannah Marsh will participate in a panel discussion about artistic uses of participatory media at Harvestworks. And Peter Traub will exhibit “WoodEar” at Pace Digital Gallery.

Please help us keep doing what we’re doing by making a donation via PayPal on http://turbulence.org or by sending a check to:

New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.
124 Bourne Street
Roslindale, MA 02131
United States of America

We wish you all a peaceful and prosperous 2013.

Warmly,

Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green
Co-Directors

PS: Connect with us on Facebook (turbulence.org; nrpa.org) and on Twitter.

Physicists use electrical signals from slime mould (Physarum polycephalum) to make music. Using the electrical signals generated by slime mould to make music creates an instrument musicians can ‘play’ by zapping the creature with light, the Physics arXiv blog reports.

“Slime mould, is a single-celled creature that has attracted considerable attention in recent years for its ability to compute in unconventional ways. Various research groups have watched in barely disguised amazement as these single cells have solved mazes, recreated national motorway networks and even anticipated the timing of periodic events.”

Now this extraordinary creature has … another skill…”

For more, read on: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/508531/physicists-use-electrical-signals-from-slime-mould-to-make-music/

Share your ideas for the next generation of musical instruments at Georgia Tech’s Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.

Submissions are being accepted online until December 1, 2012. Preliminary and final performances will take place in Atlanta April 11-12, 2013, where contestants will battle for $10,000 in cash prizes.

This year, winners will be selected by an expert jury panel comprised of experimental performance artist Laurie Anderson, composer, performer and educator, David Wessel, and electronic musician and sound designer Richard Devine.

More details and submission form at:

http://www.gtcmt.gatech.edu/guthman2013

Share your ideas for the next generation of musical instruments at Georgia Tech’s Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.

An annual event to find the world’s best new ideas in musicality, design and engineering, Wired magazine has called the competition an “X-Prize for music,” and contestants have likened it to a TED Conference for new musical instrument designers.

Submissions are being accepted online until November 15, 2012. Preliminary and final performances will take place in Atlanta April 11-12, 2013, where contestants will battle for $10,000 in cash prizes.
Continue reading

Turbulence Commission: WoodEar by Peter Traub [Needs download, and Speakers/Headphones]:

Bringing the body of the tree to the network is a natural fit — a tree is a network too: roots sensing and absorbing nutrients, leaves sensing and photosynthesizing sunlight, and phloem and xylem running throughout to carry nutrients across the structure. WoodEar attempts to merge the dynamic qualities of this biological network with the digital network. A series of sensors attached to the tree stream data on the state of its environment — light, temperature, air pressure, and wind. This live data is merged with photos and recordings of the tree’s immediate surroundings into a generative application/installation. By downloading and running the application, anyone can access the live environmental experiences of the tree — one that may be very distant from them, but that still shares the same air, sun, earth, and sky. Continue reading

Timo Kahlen @ Mediations Biennale :: September 14, 2012 to October 14, 2012 :: at the Mediations Biennale in Poznan, Poland :: with Bill Viola, Martin Creed, Stephan Baumkötter, Misha Kuball, Corinna Krebber, Magdalena Jetelová, Tadeusz Kantor, Jaroslaw Kozlowski, Oscar Munoz and others :: Curated by Tomasz Wendland, Fumio Nanjo, Denise Carvalho, Friedhelm Mennekes :: Opening: Friday, September 14, at 6:00 p.m. :: See Timo Kahlen’s work at the Muzeum Archidiecezjalne

Current exhibitions:

“Sound Art. Klang als Medium der Kunst” (Sound as Medium of Art), ZKM Karlsruhe / Germany 16.3.2012 - 6.1.2013
With Steve Roden, John Cage, La Monte Young, Ryoji Ikeda, Rolf Julius, Carsten Nicolai, Timo Kahlen, Iannis Xenakis, Douglas Henderson, Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag and others. Curated by Peter Weibel and Julia Gerlach. Continue reading

[Chris Salter working at his installation in the Exhibitions Gallery of the Art Centre. Photo:LABoral/Sergio Redruello] n-Polytope: Behaviors in Light and Sound after Iannis Xenakis - A performance-installation by Chris Salter in collaboration with Sofian Audry, Marije Baalman, Adam Basanta, Elio Bidinost and Thomas Spier :: until September 10 :: LABoral, Los Prados, 121, 33394 Gijón, Spain.

n-Polytope: Behaviors in Light and Sound after Iannis Xenakis is a contemporary re-imagining of the Greek composer and architect Iannis Xenakis’s radical architectural environments called Polytopes (from the Greek poli, ‘many’ and topos, ‘space’). Continue reading

Listening in Place - Window — an interactive sound text about everyday sounds and listening, in memory of John Cage — by Katharine Norman.

Live Interfaces: Performance, Art, Music :: September 7-8, 2012 :: ICSRiM, School of Music, University of Leeds, Leeds, East Yorkshire LS2 9JT, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland :: Registration until August 30, £30 for both days.

Live Interfaces is an international conference on research and practice in live performance technology. The conference seeks to investigate cross-disciplinary understandings of performance technology with a particular focus on issues related to the notion of liveness in interaction. A preliminary programme with a list of papers and performances is available here.

Here is a summary of the conference structure: Continue reading