Swiss acoustic artist Robin Meier and Ali Momeni manipulate the sounds of insects and birds to create ethereal soundscapes. Read an interview with him about his mosquito-inspired musical installation Truce recently aired in the French city of Nantes. Meier talks about firefly synchrony and setting up feedback loops in nature.

From the interview:

Why did you choose to work with mosquitoes?

Male mosquitoes serenade potential mates with a ‘love song’ by vibrating their wings. They synchronize their wingbeats with those of the females to mate in mid-air. … The constant glissandi — gliding from one pitch to another — and ‘tuning in’ of mosquito wingbeats reminded me of dhrupad, an ancient form of Indian classical music often sung by brothers in unison. My collaborator Ali Momeni and I played male mosquitoes some dhrupad and, sure enough, they tuned in.

Bartholomäus Traubeck’s artwork Years is a converted record player that can play cross-sectional slices taken from a tree trunk. [via]

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After a 10 month hiatus the SoundTransit project is back, hosted by Turbulence.org.

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. Continue reading

Soundwalk and Chicago Phonography Concert :: Saturday, October 8, 2011 from 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. :: Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education — 100 North Lake Street,
Gary, Indiana:: Created By Dan Godston for the World Listening Project.

The Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology and World Listening Project continue their partnership with the National Park Service to present a concert by Chicago Phonography and a Miller Woods soundwalk at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education. All ages, free and open to the public.

Explore the natural soundscape of Miller Woods trail with a soundwalk led by the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology. Continue reading

“There’s a free concert taking place at a forest in Germany, and the headline acts have come from far, far away. NPR guest host Jacki Lyden talks to New York-based artist Jeff Talman about his German sound installation, Nature of the Night Sky. Working with astrophysicist Daniel Huber, Talman used radiation and seismic data from stars and shaped it into music, played back after sundown each night in a Bavarian forest.” (National Public Radio)

The sounds come from the star Procyon in Canis Minor. With the help of astrohysicist Daniel Huber, Talman has transposed the sounds so that we can hear them. The program is available on National Public Radio: hear Talman talk about his Bavarian forest sound installation, and listen to the sounds: here.

You can learn more at Talman’s website.

Artist-technologist Honor Harger listens to the weird and wonderful noises of stars and planets and pulsars. In her work, she tracks the radio waves emitted by ancient celestial objects and turns them into sound, including “the oldest song you will ever hear,” the sound of cosmic rays left over from the Big Bang. Related.

Sounds of Nature: An Introduction to Recording Wild Soundscapes :: led by Bernie Krause, Ph.D. and Martyn Stewart :: June 20 - 23, 2011 :: Workshop limit: 10 :: Please contact Linda at linda@earthfireinstitute.org for details and reservations.

In a rare, world-class opportunity, two of the best sound recordists in the world will team up to teach this workshop based at Earthfire Institute with its rescued wildlife. We will be going out into the pristine wilderness areas near Grand Teton National Park and surrounding areas around Teton Valley, Idaho. Continue reading

New York Electronic Art Festival :: Victoria Vesna’s and Jim Gimzewski’s Blue Morph :: Opening Reception: Sunday, June 19, 2010 from 3:00 -5:00 p.m. :: St. Cornelius Chapel, Governor’s Island, NY :: Exhibition Dates: May 30 – September 25, 2011 — Hours: Friday 11:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Sat/Sun 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and by appointment ::

Blue Morph is a site-specific interactive installation that uses nanoscale images and sounds derived from the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Harvestworks is pleased to present this art-science collaboration between media artist Victoria Vesna and nanoscientist James Gimzewski. Continue reading

Francisco Lopez: Hyper-Rainforest :: April 28, 2011 to April 30, 2011 :: 8:00 p.m. ::Concert Hall, EMPAC, Troy, NY :: Tickets are required and are available through the EMPAC box office for $15 general admission; $10 for students, seniors, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty and staff; or $5 for Rensselaer students.

World premiere of an 80 channel immersive concert based on a decade of natural sounds recorded in the world’s rain forests.

Rainforests are inhabited by an incredibly rich variety of sounds—much like a piece of electronic music: the astonishing variety of sounds comes from sources that are concrete yet overwhelmingly invisible. Continue reading