SoundTransit is a collaborative, online community dedicated to field recording and phonography. Phonography is the art of recording sounds from the environment around us, with an emphasis on the unintentional sounds which often go unnoticed in our daily lives. An international community of phonographers collect and share their recordings, with interests ranging from recordings of natural or urban environments to improvised situations or soundwalks, to the resonance of solid objects or the Earth’s atmosphere.

In the BOOK section of this site, you can plan a sonic journey through various locations recorded around the world. In the SEARCH section, you can search the database for specific sounds by member artists from many different places. If you are a member of SoundTransit, you can also CONTRIBUTE your recordings for others to enjoy. The Creative Commons Attribution license encourages the sharing and reuse of all sounds on the website.

During 2010, SoundTransit’s previous host in the Netherlands quadrupled the rent for the SoundTransit server, forcing it to move or consider closing. Turbulence.org offered its support and during 2011 has been working together with SoundTransit to get everything up and running again

To listen to over 2,000 recordings by 471 artists from around the world, experience a unique way of traveling via sound, and to find out how you can contribute to the SoundTransit project, please visit http://turbulence.org/soundtransit/.

Helen Thorington
Jesse Gilbert
Jo-Anne Green
Turbulence.org

Times are tough for many of us, so it is with some regret that we call upon you once more to dig deep and make a donation to New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (aka Turbulence.org)*.

Please go to http://turbulence.org to donate via PayPal or, if you’d prefer to send us a check, please mail it to:

New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.
124 Bourne Street
Roslindale, MA 02131

With Gratitude and Best Wishes for 2011,

Helen and Jo

* Donations from US taxpayers are tax deductible

The latest of edition of Vague Terrain is dedicated to celebrating the tenth anniversary of the .microsound community. Guest curated by the American composer Kim Cascone, the issue provides a range of commentary and context on “sub-atomic” musical aesthetics and a window into this globally distributed community of electronic musicians. In Cascone’s own words .microsound is a fertile middle ground between “the ivory tower of sterile academia” and “the seizure-inducing din of the dance club”. For those unacquainted with this zone of musical production, this collection of work provides a perfect introduction.

Featuring text & video contributions by Ben Neill, Charles Turner, Dextro, Joanna Demers, Pere Villez, Thanos Chrysakis, Thomas Bey William Bailey and William L. Ashline.

Feature audio contributions from Mike Rooke, Lubrication, Ronnie Cramer, [ruidobello], Richard Lainhart, sound art, TomDjll, Brett Ian Balogh, Scant Intone, Yota Morimoto, Jorge Castro, Joaquin Gutierrez Hadid, Francesco Rosati, Asferico, Water Falls, Yann Novak, John Hanes, Epoch_Collapse, Jhenner Gayap Benadrilled, Skjølbrot, Markus Jones, Jon Hawken, Adern X Fades 4:38, Julien Ottavi, Vanessa Rossetto, Kim Cascone, Larnie Fox, eddie135, Di.J Crisis, shg, Cheryl E. Leonard, Noe Cuellar, Gary R. Weisberg, Osvaldo Cibils, Kotra, Gintas K, John Kannenberg, Ricky Pannowitz, ocp, TheSAD, Margaret Schedel, Pereshaped, so/on, Eric Miller, Nux Vomica, v4w.enko, UmanoidSomeday, Epoch Collapse, Umanoid and Noe Cuellar.

This summer 30 pianos will appear in London and London City. Who plays them and how long they remain is up to each community. The pianos act as sculptural, musical, blank canvases that become a reflection of the communities they are embedded in. Many pianos are personalised and decorated. You can find maps of the locations in London and London City at: http://www.streetpianos.com/london2009/

An arts project by Luke Jerram ‘Play Me I’m Yours” questions the ownership and rules of public space; it is a provocation, inviting the public to engage with, activate and take ownership of their urban environment.

The first pianos appeared in March 2008 when 15 pianos were placed into the streets of Birmingham UK. This website - www.streetpianos.com - was made for the public to post their comments about the pianos and describe their use. The site has helped document each piano’s journey whilst connecting the street pianos and their communities across the city. Presented for the City of London Festival and Sing London, 30 street pianos were installed on streets, in public squares and parks, train stations, and markets. Like a creative blank canvas, the pianos were there for any member of the public to play and engage with. The pianos were in place for three weeks, after which time they were be donated to local schools and community groups. Play Me, I’m Yours has toured since 2008.

FIGMENT is a free, annual celebration of participatory art and culture where everything is possible. As America and New York come to grips with economic recession, a free participatory arts event is more important than ever.

FIGMENT 2009 will be held from June 12 – 14th on Governors Island, and will also be hosting two season-long projects on the island: an interactive sculpture exhibit and an artistic mini-golf course.

FIGMENT is an opportunity for artists to share their work, and our only condition for you to submit your art is that you understand and accept the spirit of FIGMENT. Our artistic vision emphasizes participation and community building, and we create an environment free from commercialism. Opportunities to participate stretch as far as your imagination – sign up now to be a part of it!

Art projects will be reviewed for FIGMENT through a curatorial process, based on artistic merit, ambitiousness, and interactivity. There is a lot of room on Governors Island to fill with art; our goal is to include as many projects as possible.

Once you have submitted your project, one of our curators will be in touch with you. For Q&A about bringing your artwork, please refer here. If you have any immediate questions, please contact us at curatorial [at] figmentnyc.org.

Please submit your art in whatever category it most closely resembles. Except where noted, all submissions are for the three-day event June 12 - 14, and artists will be responsible for the installation and de-installation of their work.

What is the sound of community organising? A five-session practice-based workshop on activism and sound art open to UK-based artists, social movement activists, community organisers, and students. The artist activist collective Ultra-red will present a workshop in five daylong sessions at Raven Row, a new contemporary art exhibition centre in Spitalfields, London. The workshop introduces participants to the art of sound and learning from what we hear in the methods and politics of community organising. For fifteen years Ultra-red has used sound to investigate anti-racist organising, the struggles of migration, social housing mobilisation, and AIDS activism. This history informs the approach to sound art and activism presented in the Raven Row Sessions.

Drawing on the experiences and investments of workshop participants, each of the five sessions will examine our understanding and practice of community organising. Workshops will include walking tours of the city; making site-specific audio recordings; an analytical listening to recorded sounds; generating new strategies for collective action; investigations into the crucial concepts of political process, participation, and political action; and a final public event held at Raven Row featuring the collaborations of participants.

Fifteen participants in the Raven Row Sessions will be selected through an application process. Ultra-red is seeking participants who have experience in community organising, social movement activism, or radical research and/or who work in sound art. Individuals do not need to be an artist or a musician in order to apply. Applicants must be 16 years or older. Given the cumulative nature of the workshop, participants must commit to attending all five sessions. Participants should be prepared to conduct site-visits in the city and listen intensively. Bring your experiences, open mind, open ears, and an eagerness to collaborate. Equipment, materials, travel stipend, and meals will be provided.

Application: Raven Row Sessions is limited to fifteen participants. Applicants must submit a 350 to 400-word description of their artistic and/or community-based work. Students are welcome to apply. Submissions must include applicant’s name, home address, email and contact telephone number. Deadline for application is Sunday 15 March. Email application to info@ultrared.org. Or send application by mail to: RAVEN ROW SESSIONS, c/o Raven Row, 56 Artillery Lane, London E1 7LS.

About Ultra-red: Founded fifteen years ago in Los Angeles, Ultra-red conduct Militant Sound Investigations alongside social justice movements where sound is both the medium and the site of the investigation. While the image serves as the foundation for much of our understanding of activist art, Ultra-red turn the focus to the ear: the sound of communities organising themselves, the acoustics of spaces of dissent, the demands and desires in our voices and in our silences, and the echoes of historical memories of struggle. These investigations take the form of audio recordings, art exhibitions, performances, or simple walking tours. The nine members of Ultra-red work with organisations such as Rural Racism Project (Devon, UK), the autonomous community development organisation Union de Vecinos (Los Angeles), the German anti-racist network Kanak Attak, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilisation Project (New York/Los Angeles), and Woodcraft Rangers which facilitates education programmes in sixty-one schools in Los Angeles County.

Contact: info@ultrared.org

Ultra-red members facilitating Raven Row Sessions include:

Elizabeth Blaney (Ultra-red member since 1997) is an organizer with the autonomous community development organisation Union de Vecinos in East Los Angeles.

Manuela Bojad?ijev (2001) co-founded the German anti-racist migratory network Kanak Attak and participates in various
anti-racist movements in Germany and across Europe.

Pablo Garcia (1999) organises inquiry-based education projects in Los Angeles County schools with the organisation Woodcraft Rangers.

Janna Graham (2005) initiated radical arts education initiatives with artists, youth, indigenous and migrant groups
in Toronto and is currently Education Projects Curator at the Serpentine Gallery.

Taisha Paggett (2006) performs extensively as a professional dancer. She also teaches dance in Los Angeles.

Elliot Perkins (2005) is a community organiser for Rural Racism Project in the southwest of England.

Dont Rhine (co-founded Ultra-red in 1994) is an activist in Los Angeles with Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project and teaches in the low-residency MFA Visual Art Progamme at Vermont College of Fine Art.

Robert Sember (2005) has taught art and public health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University New
York, UCLA, and NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Leonardo Vilchis (1997) is executive director of Union de Vecinos in East Los Angeles coordinating initiatives around
fair housing, urban planning, and participatory local government.

This workshop is presented as part of Ultra-red’s residency at Raven Row, a new contemporary art exhibition centre run by Alex Sainsbury. While in the UK, members of the group will support Ultra-red’s ongoing anti-racist work in the rural Southwest of England and early sound investigations with students and teachers in the Edgware Road neighbourhood, the latter undertaken in partnership with Serpentine Gallery.

NEXUS/foundation for today’s art has transformed its gallery space into a low powered radio station for two months. NEXUS has invited artists, musicians, performers, djs, activists, poets, scholars, local community groups and other members of the public to use the radio broadcast during gallery hours. The broadcast can be heard in Philadelphia at 1650 AM.

NEXUSradio reintroduces a sense of urgency into our media landscape by intentionally not providing an internet stream. By making the broadcast purely analog, listeners have to be in the surrounding area in order to tune in.

Mark Amerika says: “Turbulence is a permanent part of the digital art and electronic literature curriculum I have developed at the University of Colorado and a major component of our special topics courses too. The students who pass through our media arts program are amazed at everything Turbulence has achieved over the years. A common response is something like “I had no idea artists made work like this.” And then, with a little more direction, they too begin making networked art projects. To us, Turbulence is one of the most important cultural institutions on the planet! (Helen) and Jo have single (double)-handedly played a huge role in making it possible for higher arts educators like myself to successfully teach the networked arts.”

We know for a fact that many of you use our resources to teach digital art and new media. And many others have written to tell us how great an impact we’ve had on their careers. Please, show us how much we matter by making a donation right now.

2008 was our most active year yet. We launched 30 COMMISSIONED WORKS on Turbulence.org and Networked_Music_Review; co-presented two exhibitions – MIXED REALITIES (with Ars Virtua and Huret & Spector Gallery) and LUMENS (with Greylock Arts and MCLA Gallery 51); co-presented two symposia – FLOATING POINTS 5: MIXED REALITIES (with Emerson College) and PROGRAMMABLE MEDIA II: NETWORKED_MUSIC (with Pace Digital Gallery); co-presented UPGRADE! BOSTON (with Massachusetts College of Art and Design); and participated in Upgrade! International: CHAIN REACTION (Skopje Macedonia).

We would very much like to continue, but cannot without your help.

No amount is too small!

Pay via PayPal on Turbulence or send a check to New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., 124 Bourne Street, Roslindale, MA 02131.

Thanks for your generous support.

Warm Regards,

Jo-Anne Green and Helen Thorington, Co-directors
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.

Resonating Bodies is a series of mixed media installations and community outreach projects, which focus on the biodiversity of pollinators indigenous to the ecosystems of the Greater Toronto Area. Conceived by Sarah Peebles with Rob King, Rob Cruickshank and Anne Barros, the installations illuminate aspects of local biodiversity, such as bumblebee colonies and their foraging activities, ultraviolet bee vision, and pollinator / plant co-evolution. Some of these projects feature colour-coded DNA barcodes, a new technique for species identification pioneered by Canadian researchers.

Resonating Bodies coincides with the release of Toronto’s first guide to native bees, A Guide to Toronto’s Pollinators, by Laurence Packer, Professor of Biology at York University and published by the David Suzuki Foundation. Free copies of this booklet will also be available throughout July at several locations. The topic of the booklet - some 23 genera of bees found in Toronto - is the focus of our exhibition. Collaborating researchers Laurence Packer, Jessamyn Manson, Peter Hallett and Stephen Buchmann will be giving talks throughout the period of the exhibition.

Bumble Domicile, the first installment of the Resonating Bodies project, uses an on-site bumblebee hive at *new* Gallery (906 Queen street West) and displays video and audio of its internal activity. Headphones that “plug” into the actual hive give the viewer opportunity to hear the bees in real time. Ultraviolet video of flowering plants in the building’s communal garden is projected onto the North wall of the gallery to provide live tracking of the bees pollination.

Continuous audio transformations of pre-recorded bees and shoh (the Japanese mouth-organ, an instrument which has utilized beeswax since ancient times) fill the gallery space. Visitors are invited to place aromatic offerings into a heated copper tray, which resembles the interior of the hive. This copper tray was created through a unique process involving the remnants of a discarded bumblebee hive.

Viewers are also invited to take free bee trading cards, featuring macro photography of bee anatomy, life facts and colour-coded DNA barcodes of some local bumble bee species. These cards are the first in a series of trading cards of pollinators featured in Resonating Bodies at both *new* gallery and at the bee-wasp condo at the Franklin Children’s Garden on Toronto Island.

Speakers Series: Indigenous Pollinators, Habitat and Co-evolution
Researchers and artists speak about pollinator and bee biodiversity, habitat and related topics throughout the month of July at various venues. Co-presented by Seeds of Diversity and InterAccess, Dorkbot and Franklin Children’s Garden.

Thursday July 17, 7:00 p.m: “Barcodes and Bees?”
Featuring Professor Laurence Packer (York University) and Resonating Bodies artists. A Dorkbot event at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre Studio, 9 Ossington Ave at Queen W. (http://dorkbot.org/dorkbottoronto)
Dr. Laurence Packer, Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at York University, author of “Bees of Toronto” will discuss pollinator diversity and pollinator-habitat relationships, emphasizing recent research regarding DNA barcode data in understanding the bees of Canada. Artists Sarah Peebles, Rob King, Anne Barros and Robert Cruickshank will be present to discuss their interdisciplinary work, “Resonating Bodies - Bumble Domicile” in this context. Topics include visualization of pollen gathering data, ultraviolet video, the electroforming process, and audio transformations of bee sounds.

Sunday July 20th at 4pm: “Plants affecting pollinators: How plants lure bumblebees into making plant babies”
Featuring Jessamyn Manson (University of Toronto)
Location: Garden at 900 Queen W next to *new* gallery (enter by the blue gate), NW corner of Crawford and Queen W. Rain location at *new* gallery (visitors will be directed to the appropriate room in the building).
Jessamyn Manson, a PhD candidate from the University of Toronto’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, will speak about the interaction between plants and their pollinators, focusing on how plant traits like their flower’s colour and scent convinces the bumble bees to act as pollen vectors.

Sarah Peebles will perform solo shoh improvisations at *new* gallery on Saturday, July 26th, 1:20 p.m. as part of MUSIC(in)GALLERIES - an afternoon of Live Creative Music in Twenty Queen Street West Art Galleries (1-5pm). Details at http://www.somewherethere.org.

The featured artists in Resonating Bodies-Bumble Domicile are:
Sarah Peebles: audio material, audio programming; overall concept, facilitation
Rob King: visual programming, data gathering and projection
Anne Barros: electroformed copper offering plate with micro-controlled heating elements (collaboration) and silver bowl;
Rob Cruickshank: technical assistance, live video, ultraviolet video/tech development, technical and artistic consultant

Collaborating researchers: Laurence Packer (York University), Jessamyn Manson (University of Toronto), Peter Hallett (University of Toronto), and Stephen Buchmann (University of Arizona, Tucson).

Bios
Anne Barros, RCA, specializes in small functional hollowware and flatware. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Seymour Rabinovitch, and the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre. She has received numerous awards, including the Canada Council’s Paris Studio.

Sarah Peebles is an internationally renowned artist who “has an ear for contrasting density and inventive transformation”(The Wire Magazine). She has performed and exhibited worldwide, and has collaborated with a wide range of musicians and artists, Her music is available on a number of audio and video publications.

Robert Cruickshank is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist. He works in various media includes electronic, kinetic and robotic installations, sound art, electroacoustic music and lo-fi and stereo photography. He has exhibited in Toronto and internationally.

Rob King is currently finishing a MA degree in the Communications and Culture joint graduate program at Ryerson and York Universities. He is a New Media artist based in Toronto, Ontario. His work explores the social dynamics of networked spaces, the potentials of mobile and ubiquitous computing, and system theory.

Dr. Stephen Buchmann will present his lecture “The Forgotten Pollinators” at 7pm after the opening at *new* Gallery. He has authored and co-authored 8 books, along with 150 scientific publications, and is an adjunct professor of entomology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is the International Coordinator for the tri-national (Canada, USA, Mexico) North American Pollinator Protection Campaign and its Pollinator Partnership.

Laurence Packer is a melittologist - in other words, his research specialty is wild bees. At York University he teaches entomology and biodiversity. He is a member of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and is as active as he can be in promoting an understanding of the importance of bees.

Resonating Bodies is generously supported through the Drylands Institute, the City of Toronto Parks and Recreation and InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre and New Adventures in Sound Art and is co-produced by Sarah Peebles and InterAccess.

Trading Cards, colour-coded DNA barcodes and more! http://resonatingbodies.wordpress.com/.

http://pollinator.org and http://pollinationcanada.ca.
Pollinator Partnership provides information on pollinator - habitat conservation, pollinator gardens, co-evolution and more.

www.drylandsinstitute.org/.

Related: Honeybee Ballet Planting.

abertura is a one-day event which presents VJing and realtime audiovisual performances, presentations, discussions and workshops, by national and international artists. In its second edition, abertura2, the theme of which is Communities, Collectives and Collaboration, in which theory can be developed in conjunction with technology (last year’s “abertura 2007″ theme), we will explore a variety of approaches people use to work together in the making of “live performance”, and its related expression and dissemination. The event has a strong experimental component and this second edition brings to Portugal a large international palette of people and work.