My Space Sound by Sawako Kato [Requires Mac OSX, Flash Player, and a fast Internet connection] – My Space Sound is an audio popup book about the village called MySpace. The story starts like this: “Once upon a time … there was a village called MySpace. It is the era when so-called ‘Web 2.0’ is still a novelty…” Users can participate in the story by entering their MySpace URL, as well as by just browsing the story. In a world composed of both facts and fictions extracted from the database, the audience gets a chance to rethink the chaotic social network space.

“My Space Sound is the result of my fieldwork about MySpace, with some help from my friends. It is just a tiny point or node in a huge social network, and it is a starting point rather than an accomplishment. This is just my story, and I am curious to know your story. My Space Sound is the artistic observations and everyday sketches of the imperfect processor named sawako about the state of networks and individuals.”

My Space Sound is a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. for Networked_Music_Review. It was made possible with funding from the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

BIOGRAPHY

As a musician, Sawako Kato has recently made a name for herself with her own unique combination of field recordings and DSP combined with a noticeably feminine touch. As a new media artist, she created “2.4GHz Scape,” which explores the urban WiFi signal scape; “ishi ~ listening stone,” a sound art piece that uses a crystal radio and stones, and an ephemeral timeline drawing with Max/MSP/Jitter.

Sawako has solo releases from 12k, and/OAR and Anticipate, She has collaborated with a wide range of musicians such as Taylor Deupree, Andrew Deutsch, Kenneth Kirschner, Taku Sugimoto, Toshimaru Nakamura, asuna, Ryan Francesconi and Jacob Kirkegaard; and has performed in Tonic, Diapason, Roulette, Issue Project Room, Monkey Town (NYC); MUTEK Festival (Canada), Corcoran Gallery (Washington DC), UCLA Hammer Museum (LA), Batofar (Paris), Kunstraum Walcheturm (Zurich), offsite, Apple Store Sinsaibashi (Japan); m12 (Berlin), Glade Festival, Resonance FM, ICA (UK); and other venues in the US, Europe and Japan.