Audio Data courtesy of CARISMA, operated by the University of Alberta, funded by the Canadian Space Agency. Special Thanks to Andy Kale.

Made for the exhibition Invisible Fields at Arts Santa Monica in Barcelona Spain.

05.00 minutes. / HD / 2011
HD single channel and HD 3D single channel.
20Hz is co-commissioned by Arts Santa Monica + Lighthouse . Supported by the British Council.

Lineup: Bernd Schurer (CH) Zurich :: Daisuke Ishida (JP) Berlin :: Lee Gamble (UK) London :: Martin Supper (DE) Berlin :: Yutaka Makino (JP) Berlin.

Bernd Schurer (CH): My artistic focus lies on the work with sound in a broad spectrum of different contexts: a constant shift, although, mostly investigating the experiential relationship between sound and what one would generally describe as space. There is a strong fascination in the study of the perception of sound and our interpretative patterns, and i have done some artistic “research” in the domains of Psychoacoustics, Architecture, Auralization, Sonification and AudioVisual Representation.

Presentations may vary from Computer Music Diffusion to Installation work to abstract Sound Art. Some of it has been exhibited internationally on various scales, from micro galleries to public space, from “art at home” to the Venice Art Biennial. Since 1996 he is co-editor and curator for electronic sound pieces at the domizil.ch imprint in Zurich, together with Marcus Maeder.

Bernd Schurer was born 1970 in Zurich; he studied Philosophy and Film Science with Professor W. Schobinger at the University of Zurich in 1993 and Visual Art at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts 1998. He currently is a Master Student with Professors Germ?n Toro- Per?s and Martin Neukom of Electroacoustic Composition and Theory / Media-technology at the Z?rich University of the Arts (ZHdK). He lives in Zurich and Berlin.
see: http://www.domizil.ch/

Daisuke Ishida (JP) :: Daisuke Ishida is a Berlin based artist working with sound and contemporary media.
He is interested in designing processes, physical environments in artistic contexts. His works pursue aesthetics and consequence of computer music, and seek to realize synthetic space in sound. His research includes Acoustics, Auditory Perception, Complex Systems and Machine Learning Based Algorithm.

Ishida established AUSREIHE, an independent organization committed to experimental electronic/computer music since 2009, is involved with the artist collective NK, which is dedicated to sound art practices in Berlin. in 2005 he participated in the MobLab project, a Japanese-German media camp. Together with Ken Furudate, Kazuhiro Jo and Mizuki Noguchi, he founded The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA and The SINE WAVE QUARTET in 2002, which received Honorary Mention in Digital Music category of the Prix ARS Electronica 2004 and Stiftung Niedersachsen work stipends for Media Art 2009 at Edith Russ Site for Media Art.

Daisuke Ishida has presented his artistic activities internationally such as ICC - InterCommunication Center(Japan), deaf - Dutch Electronic Art Festival(The Netherlands), transmediale(Germany), ART + COMMUNICATION WAVES - ARSENALS of the Latvian National Museum of Art(Latvia), SMT - Sendai Mediatheque(Japan), YCAM - Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media(Japan), International Triennale of Contemporary Art YOKOHAMA(Japan), Japan Now modern performing arts festival(Germany), MART - Museum of Art, Rovereto and Trento(Italy), Interferenze new arts festival(Italy), ISEA - Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts(USA), steim(The Netherlands), La G?n?rale(France) and Edith Russ Site for Media Art(Germany).

Lee Gamble (UK) :: Founding member of the UK-based CYRK collective, explores abstraction through computer software, improvisation, digital synthesis, process, and the deconstruction, mutation and reconstruction of form.
He has performed solo throughout the U.K and Europe and in collaboration with electronic composer John Wall. His computer compositions are published via UK label Entr’acte. His recent full-length album Join Extensions has just been released; his second full length will be released in late 2010 on Berlin based computer music imprint AUSREIHE. Collaboration with artist and researcher Yutaka Makino follows, also a work for Thomas Bey William Bailey’s Belsona Strategic Label and GX Jupitter Larsen’s Zelphabet series.

Lee has curated and co-curated various events and has produced and curated radio series? for London arts radio station Resonance 104.4FM. He has DJ’ed for many years at venues and on several radio stations. He has created podcast mixes for various organizations, the most recent one for the Icasea podcast series.

Martin Supper (DE) :: Supper has studied computer science, linguistic and musicology in Technical University Berlin. As a DAAD stipendiary, he studied computer music and electroacoustic music with Gottfried Michael Koenig in The Institute of Sonology in University of Groningen Utrecht, The Netherlands. He holds Diplom in computer science and PhD in musicology. Since 1985, He is the director of the Studio for Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art in Berlin University of the Arts.

Yutaka Makino (JP) :: Yutaka Makino is an artist and researcher currently based in Berlin. His research seeks to amalgamate the historic precedents of computational composition and science, involving research in non-standard sound synthesis, spatial perception, acoustics, collective behavior, complex dynamical systems and new materiality. His works range from sculpture to sound works including computer music compositions and spatial sound installations that utilize spatial projection processes such as Wave Field Synthesis to achieve total physical immersion.

Makino’s works have been recognized/performed at numerous festivals and competitions internationally. He has been awarded the Prix Ton Bruyn?l 2007 and the DAAD Berliner K?nstlerprogramm 2010. He was in residence at the MacDowell Colony, Visby International Center for Composers, TU Berlin Electronic Music Studio and STEIM.
With the turntablist Takuro Mizuta Lippit alias dj sniff of STEIM, he frequently performs as Audile.
In 2009, he founded an independent computer music label, Strukto.

AUSREIHE is an independent organization dedicated to experimental electronic/computer music, founded in Berlin, Germany 2009. Contact; AUSREIHE : Daisuke Ishida info(at)ausreihe.com

Midas project from Paul Thomas on Vimeo

Dr. Paul Thomas is the coordinator of the Master of Electronic Art and the Studio for Electronic Arts (SEA) at Curtin University of Technology. In 2000 Paul instigated and was the founding Director of the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth 2002, 2004. Paul has been working in the area of electronic arts since 1981 when he co-founded the group Media-Space, which was part of the first global link up with artists connected to ARTEX. In 1995 he founded the group Terminus=, an online research group, and in 2001 he developed the Forums for Electronic Arts Research (FEAR).Paul’s own recent practice-led research, the Midas project, in which he is researching the transition phase between skin and gold, was exhibited at Enter3 in Prague 2007, and was carried out in collaboration with the Nano Research Institute, Curtin University of Technology, and SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia. Paul is currently working on a commissioned intelligent architecture public art work for the Curtin Mineral and Chemistry Research Precinct in collaboration with Chris Malcolm (John Curtin Gallery) and Mike Phillips (Director of IDat). Paul was on the Media Art Histories program committee for the re:place conference in Berlin 2007 and is now the co-chair for the next conference, re:live in Melbourne 2009.

Paul’s PhD topic was a reconfiguration of spatial attitudes; he is a practising electronic artist whose work can be seen on his website Visiblespace. Recent videos here.

For the first time in Canada, and concurrently in Quebec City and Montreal, Christina Kubisch presents her Electrical Walks, where members of the public are invited to pace the urban space with headphones specially developed by the artist to transform electromagnetic fields into audible frequencies.

WORKSHOP: Electromagnetic Explorations of the City :: September 16 - 18, 2008 :: OBORO’s New Media Lab.

Christina Kubisch offers an audio creation workshop that explores the hidden electromagnetic world existing inside and outside spaces of the city. The workshop is for composers and artists with interest in sound art. For more info about the workshop and registration, see press release.

The Electrical Walks and the audio creation workshop are part of the interdisciplinary series Noise and Silence presented by Goethe-Institut Montreal.

Finally found a use for the NY Times from Bill Orcutt on Vimeo.

Ever wondered what a web site sounds like? Not the words, but the actual data on the site itself? Here’s a Lily application that let’s you “play” the data in a web page like an instrument.

When the patch starts, the browser enters a DOM inspection mode and mousing over a DOM element highlights the node. Clicking on a node writes the element’s data (its innerHTML value if it’s a text element or the binary data if it’s an image) as a sound file and the file is then loaded in a quicktime player in the patch. The sounds can then be triggered using OSC messages. While a DOM element is “playing”, the browser scrolls to and highlights the element with a thick black border.

In the video, I’m spazzing out on the NY Times homepage using the monome controller, but the demo should work with any OSC enabled controller. Sound conversion code based in part on a javascript port of the baudio project.

More information available at lilyapp.org

OTTO (Greek for ‘ear’) is a device that makes hidden sounds audible. This is achieved via a thin polymer piezoelectric contact that senses weak vibrations and plays them as a sound through an integrated speaker. OTTO can be positioned on almost any surface through a combination of suction and magnets. By placing several units on different objects, one can select and create a new sonic experience and a form of ambient music appreciation, thereby utilising our space as a multidirectional audio platform.

Every object and surface in our environment has a whisper; subtle tremors and vibrations that are usually undetectable to the human ear, produced by the activity and movement of daily life. What if these sounds were audible? How would that change our aural awareness, perception of space and attitude towards objects? Would it be possible to ‘compose’ our own soundtrack using our walls and objects as a new form of instruments? Madsounds is a proposal for a different appreciation of our environment, space and objects by making it possible to identify, combine and manipulate these sounds.

More projects from the RCA. [blogged by Cati Vaucelle on Architectradure]

According to the very limited information on the site, DNA, mRNA and Protein sequences are translated into MIDI to generate the sound and control the image variables in realtime. When presented in live performance a MIDI controller is used. The gene information and sequences are available here. Other audio samples are available here.

Landscapes reflect the lives and histories of the people who live in them. Scientific analysis of the soil can be used to examine how people lived in the past and provide lessons for future management of landscapes in extreme or fragile environments. We invite you to become part of the shifting scenes of the Sahel in image and sound and reflect upon its presence and history…

Soils can store information recording the way people have affected the land over thousands of years. Microscopic fragments of different objects found in the soil can tell us about past landscapes. The colour, size and number of fragments offer further clues about the management of landscapes. The latest advances in visual and sonic technologies allow us to illuminate and make audible these ancient landscapes. Sounds of the Sahel, and sounds made afresh are recalled and shaped by the computer using scientific information taken from the soil itself. The Sahel in Africa is an area at the fringe of the Sahara desert. It is one of the world’s most marginal environments yet is home to over 50 million people. With a dry season lasting eight months of the year and unreliable rainfall, survival is hard for farming communities. Climate change is keenly felt in the Sahel. Understanding how people managed this landscape during past periods of climate change is essential in developing successful responses to future changes.

Live Algorithms [PDF] by Tim Blackwell and Michael Young, Depts Computing and Music, Goldsmiths College, London:

“The EPSRC-funded Live Algorithms for Music (LAM) research network is establishing an inter-disciplinary community of musicians, software engineers and cognitive scientists. Our aim is to investigate autonomous computers in music.

The use of computers in live music is not new; the fields of generative (algorithmic) composition and live electronics are of particular interest to LAM. A key discriminator between these is the degree of interaction with the performer. Interaction is intrinsic to live electronics: a performer may jam with commercial or custom software; a ‘laptop-as-instrument’ paradigm, in which the computer is controlled directly. Another approach links players of traditional instruments with computers: incoming sound or data is analysed by software and a resultant reaction (e.g. a new sound event) is determined by pre-arranged processes. Such ‘reflex-systems’ can accompany performance but might also utilise stochasticity to effect surprise; as determined by organizational decisions made by the composer /designer. We would term such a system ‘weakly interactive’ because there is only an illusion of integrated performer-machine interaction, feigned by the designer. Algorithmic composition generates music off-line, although can be used in real-time.

Algorithms from such fields as fractals, chaos theory, neural networks and evolutionary computing have been exploited by composers for their patterning properties.1 Such systems are not interactive, since all the parameters needed for sound generation are pre-determined. In contrast, strong interaction is exemplified in the human-only practice of ‘free’ improvisation. This music rejects top-down organisation (a priori agreements, explicit or tacit) in favour of open, developing patterns of behaviour.2 Social theories describe experiences with a sense of certainty, and with a unified artistic intent, as ‘becoming situated’. An ‘interactional semiotics’ has been proposed, stemming from Meade’s idea of emergence: an ensemble as single entity exhibiting self-organising behaviours (see 1. for references).

LAM is interested in computer systems that might interact strongly with musicians, in both a supportive and a creative capacity and the research agenda is a marrying of algorithmic music, live electronics and free improvisation. Properties of human performance – and therefore of a live algorithm (LA) - include strong interactivity, autonomy, innovation, idiosyncrasy and comprehensibility. Strong interactivity depends on instigation and surprise as well as response. Individual decision-making is immediate, necessary and basic: when to play or not, when to modify activity in any number of parameters (loudness, pitch, tone quality), when to imitate or ignore another participant, when to ‘agree’ the performance is concluding. When to make a decision. And why. Without the capacity to innovate, listeners would lose the belief that the LA was truly engaged with the performance instead of merely accompanying it. The iterative, generative, idiosyncratic world of algorithmic organisation must be accessed, but the mechanical and the predictable must be avoided. It is the ability to innovate that distinguishes automation from autonomy. It is not hard to generate music of great complexity. Harder, though, is to ensure that these contributions are comprehensible to fellow performers in real-time who might be hearing these ideas for the first time. (But an incomprehensible, opaque system can be contrasted with a transparent one where the association between input and output is too trivial.)

Such considerations show the research goal is prescient, but there are reasons to believe that it is imminent too. The authors’ own Swarm Music/Granulator systems implement a model of interactivity derived from the organisation of social insects.3 These systems embody our idea of a proxy environment which holds meaningless sonic events. The system (human or machine) explores the environment, discovering and manipulating found sonic objects. Long term organisation can develop, just as it does in termite nest construction. Within this framework, we envisage a modular system comprising of analysis (P) and synthesis (Q) functions which interface and interpret the sonic environment and relay parameters to a hidden patterning algorithm (F) (analogous to listening, playing and musical thinking enjoyed by a human performer). This picture integrates interaction with algorithmic composition and exploits recent developments in real time music analysis/synthesis.

The network has some 70 members, including representatives from France, Portugal, USA and Australia. Activities include an open meeting and two network workshops each year. Each event features invited speakers, contributions from LAM project teams and performances. The next meeting will be December 19-20 2005, with an international conference in December 2006. LAM warmly encourages AISB readers to participate: please see www.livealgorithms.org.”

1. E. Miranda. Composing Music With Computers. Focal Press, 2001
2. T.M.Blackwell and M.Young. Self-Organised Music. Organised Sound 9(2): 123–136, 2004.
3. T.M.Blackwell T.M. and M.Young. Swarm Granulator. Applications of Evolutionary Computing EuroWorkshops 2004, Proceedings, LNCS 3005, Springer-Verlag (2004) 399-408