Junction by Micah Frank is a sound sculpture generated by thousands of New York City taxi cabs as they move through the city. Through the use of publicly available live footage from New York’s Traffic Management Center, Junction tracks the movements of taxis in some of the city’s busiest intersections. It uses their position, velocity and overall density to synthesize sounds… A taxi’s position might control only one partial of a complex frequency spectrum, or a single frame of a granular cloud. Up to 40 taxis are tracked on the grid simultaneously. They are indexed and vectored every 50 milliseconds. Once a taxi leaves the scene, its index dies and a new taxi is tracked.

Speakers have been installed along the passageway between the Lexington Financial Center, the city’s blue high-rise, and an adjacent parking garage. Microphones dip beneath to pick up the sounds of Town Branch rushing by. Most people would never know the Town Branch of Elkhorn Creek runs under downtown Lexington if they were not told. There has long been no visual or audible evidence of the rushing water that runs just below the high-rise buildings and busy streets of the city — until this week.

The project will be on permanent exhibit after Thursday afternoon.

For more information, here. With thanks to Rich Copley [rcopley@herald-leader.com]

For a description of the work: http://www.lexarts.org/participate/public-art/Bill%20Fontana/

“Soundw(e)ave, (Christy Matson’s) piece on show, is a self-referential textile, where the actual sounds of computerized Jacquard looms were used to create woven compositions. Her noisy sound waves were turned into three patterned pieces of fabric, made by hand-operated, computer-assisted and fully automated (Jacquard) looms, respectively – each weave growing progressively denser with the more advanced technologies used in their production. The piece, says Matson, was a huge turning point in her practice; it pointed her towards a kind of digital craftsmanship, where she was better able to place value on the ideas, materials and skillfulness needed to be an artisan across contemporary digital, craft and art domains.

For example, Matson then began weaving copper wire directly into her fabrics, and, using the magnetic waves our interactions generate and alter, engendered new aural compositions. In other words, her sonic sculpture turns cloth into a Theremin, where movement and hand-waving at the gallery are transformed into the kinds of musical gestures often associated with science-fiction films of the seventies. While Matson’s earlier, sound-generated works were generative and performative on some level, here she moves into real-time interaction, invoking our embodied relations to textiles, craft, technology and language, all in one fell swoop.”

Reflection II is an augmented sound data sculpture representing a musical piece, which is characterized by 12 musical motives that appear in an almost linear succession.

An FFT frequency spectrum analysis was performed on all audio clips. The resulting intensity values were arranged in a coordinate system consisting of frequency and time. Higher intensity values for a given frequency at a given time resulted in an elevation of the generated mesh. This produced a height-field representing the spectral structure of the music. The sculpture is augmented by way of a projector: when the music starts playing, each sample is visualized by a scanline passing over it. Each time the scanner passes a motif, it gradually receives more light, where the amount is defined by the number of occurrences in the song.

Watch the sculpture in action:

Reflection II from Datdatdat / A. N. Fischer on Vimeo.

Thanks to information aesthetics

Other sculpture in action:
. Laser-Cut Sound Analysis Sculpture
. Sound of Light Sculpture
. Cylinder: Tangible Sound

FKL and TempoReale invite you to submit scientific and musical contributions related to the theme of soundscape to the fifth symposium of Forum Klanglandschaft to be held in Florence (Italy), May 20 - 22, 2011.

The conference is held in cooperation between the two institutions, together with the contemporary art center EX3, and offers the opportunity to present, in the conference, papers, sound-works, installations and videos.

The title “keep an ear on …” suggests, as the specific theme for this edition, the need to pay attention to and also to control what we all hear, both from the point of view of the danger of noise pollution, and from the one of the aesthetic quality of our sound environment.

Scientific papers: Scientific sessions are planned with papers of 20 minutes. To submit a paper you have to send an abstract (max 400 words) and a short biography (max 200 words).

Abstracts and biographies, both in your own language and in English, must be submitted to the following email address: convegno2011@temporeale.it

A stereo audio system and a video projection system will be available during the symposium.

Soundworks: There are two categories of soundworks:

1 - Soundscape composition (also in multichannel format) Send an the audio recording of the work with a short description (max 400 words) and a short biography (max 200 words). All the documents must be submitted, both in your own language and in English, to the following email address: convegno2011@temporeale.it A stereo recording of the audio material, marked “FKL-Soundscape Composition”, must be sent to the symposium address.

2 - Works on the theme “Music and environment” (without live musicians, also in multichannel format) Send an audio recording of the work with a short description (max 400 words) and a short biography (maximum 200 words).
All the documents, both in your own language and in English, must be submitted to the following email address:
convegno2011@temporeale.it

A stereo recording of the audio material, marked “FKL-Music and environments must be sent to the symposium address.

Sound installations: Send a short description of the work (max 400 words), a short biography (max. 200 words) and a documentation file. The documentation file should contain pictures or drawings of the installation, explain clearly the working of the installation, contain all the technical data, the required space and everything else that is needed.
Describe as accurately as possible all the technical and space requirements, and specify also what you can contribute to the realization of your work and what you would need to be provided by FKL. A movie or a video simulation of the installation will be appreciated.

All the documents , both in your own language and in English, must be submitted to the following email address:
convegno2011@temporeale.it

The documentation file as well as the attached materials (movies, audio files etc), marked “FKL-sound installation”, must be sent to to the symposium address.

The accepted installations will be hosted by the Centre for Contemporary Art EX3. At the address: http://www.paesaggiosonoro.it/keepanearon/ex3_spazi, you can see the spaces that the contemporary art center EX3 makes available.

Address for all materials:
FKL 2011 Symposium
TEMPO REALE
Villa Strozzi - Via Pisana 77
50143 Florence (Italy)

The scientific and artistic selection committee will include board members of FKL and TempoReale and will choose the papers, musical works and installations (together with a member of EX3) be presented during the symposium.

Please note that in case of acceptance of your scientific proposal , in order to present it at the conference you must be or become a member of FKL.

For more information and details
convegno2011@temporeale.it
http://www.paesaggiosonoro.it/keepanearon
http://www.temporeale.it

Performers: Anna Troisi: sounding sculptures and theremin; Antonino Chiaramonte: live electronics and audio sequencing; Giorgio Distante: trumpet and electronics; Roberto Paci Dalò: bass clarinet and electronics.

Electroshop [Concrete sound workshop] is a performance/workshop involving musical sculptures and compositions created at ICCMR. The sculptures are fitted with sensors that connect to computers and synthesizers. Performers play the sculptures by running their fingers over the sensors, and can even change the sound quality by subtly turning and moving the whole structure. The signals are then relayed to synthesizers, which produce the music. Acousmatic interludes with original text by Gerard Maroney.

This performance will be in the spirit of an auction for bidding on the sounding sculptures.

- Reuse, Recycle and Remix (12 min.) Eduardo Reck Miranda (2009)
- Nebbia alla Valle (8 min.) Anna Troisi (2009)
- PLY (10 min.) Roberto Paci Dalò (2009)
- Spire II (8 min.) Cesare Saldicco (2009)
- MARaAL (8 min.) Giorgio Distante (2009)
- Etheric Bodies (12 min.) Antonino Chiaramonte (2009)

The prototype of the work (v1) was presented in the Microwave International New Media Art Festival 2009 in which a set of toy birds performed a sequence of calls and movement interfered by the passers-by at the lobby of Langham Hotel, while this time, Vasco has made the toy birds migrate to the raw space of Videotage where they would react to the motion and sound of a new player - a real mynah bird.

This autonomous species, with its amazing imitative abilities, will respond to the sounds and motion of the 120 plastic birds while the electronic songbirds inherit their own kind of copying ability and react to the environment accordingly. The duo combination is a blown-up orchestra inviting visitors to observe both the psychology and intelligence of the natural-born and the computational singers. Together they become a feedback loop system, a true cybernetic nature.

“Every toy bird is built with an audio sample and movements that resemble the real birds, a cheap attempt to emulate the real ones. The mechanical bird is therefore the perfect object to create an artificial output based on the natural conditions of the environment. The sound and motion of the mynah bird will be used as the value that calibrates the amount of voltage sent to control the movement of the bird toys and the playback of the samples. With amazing imitative abilities, the mynah bird will respond to the sounds and motion of the plastic birds. This process will create a feedback loop, the circuit direction will be from the reading of the mynah bird’s behavior to the interference of the work itself with the environment. The orchestra will be divided into several groups and each group will have its own interpretation of the given data. The overall musicality from the bird toys together with the myna bird will be the final product of the piece.” — Joao Vasco Paiva

Joao Vasco Paiva is a Portuguese artist currently living in Hong Kong. His work is based on the exploration of sound and visuals produced through the isolation of physical patterns. He uses digital and analog systems to depict scores in everyday life situations and rearrange them as sound and visual compositions. He presents his work as live performances, single channel videos and audio visual installations. He graduated from a Fine Arts Degree in Porto Art School. (E.S.A.P.) In 2006 he was awarded with a 2 years scholarship from Fundacao Oriente, a Portuguese Foundation that supports young artists in Asia. He obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Media in the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, where he currently teaches. His work has been showed in festivals such as FILE Hypersonica International Festival of Electronic Language, London Exploratory Music Festival, Athens Video Art Festival, CityTransit, 2pi Festival, Hong Kong and Shenzen Architecture and Urbanism Biennial and other venues and locations in Beijing Hong Kong, London, Porto, Hangzhou, Sao Paulo and Vienna.

[image: by Peter Esmonde ]

He writes about the film, Trimpin: The Sound of Invention, an homage by the director Peter Esmonde to the creative genius, artist, inventor and musician Trimpin, and about Trimpin’s life and work: Among his works of art, I would like to remember Sheng High, i.e. an installation created in 2009 for the Ojai Music Festival, in which the author make use of a principle typical of the Chinese world of thousands of years ago. It is a sound sculpture that interacts with a natural element, in this case water, and whose main character is a sophisticated system of shaking bamboo woods. Another project titled Klompen, developed for The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, is made of 96 Dutch clogs with a little hammer inside hanging in the air through a thread and which diffuses a rhythmical symphony controlled form a PC.
To read more about this unusual artist, who says he left Europe to scout around for junk and found it in America, where he has remained ever since, go here.

A Thing About Machines is Coventry’s first and best *OTHER* Art Festival dedicated to local hero Delia Derbyshire exploring art and music that uses, reinterprets, reviews or renews technology invented in the past 100 years..

This year’s festival was inspired by Tangerine Dream’s 1976 concert in Coventry Cathedral (we like unwieldy analogue synths and use of unexpected venues here). We want to explore the relationship Art can have with its surroundings. Transformation of a space, transportation from a place, response to surroundings, interaction and reaction.”

Sonic events include:

Janek Schaefer, British composer of the year, turntablist and sound artist will be performing a brand new commission especially for A Thing About Machines using an FM transmitter and processed samples of Tangerine Dream records. NB Please bring a battery powered FM radio/boombox to fully appreciate this performance.

“Ghosts”, a sonic installation by Barry Farrimond, seeks to explore perceptions of both physical space and physical presence. As audience members make their way up or down the staircase at the Herbert Gallery they are accompanied by various sonic apparitions that ascend and descend with them, walking past or even seeming to pause and listen to the installation when they find audience members doing so themselves, and moving off only when they think no one is there any more. The work invites audience members to question their role in this exchange: Who is listening to who? Who is the installation?

“Binary” by Wil Bolton is inspired by the Victorian wallpaper at Oxburgh Hall, a Tudor manor house in Norfolk. Computer software was used to convert a photograph of the wallpaper into sound, which was digitally edited and processed to produce a haunting atmospheric soundscape. The sound was also transferred back into images printed onto canvas, ghostly echoes of their origins.

And many others!

Survival strategies for the project, including schematics for analog (i.e. human) performances featuring hundreds of Tibetan singing bowls, self-adjusting computer software, and a global radio signal are illustrated at the website.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKiPLPhyrxY

Listen live online, buy Finer’s limited-edition books, stream talks with noted thinkers, and if you’re in London, attend an event featuring a live performance and speakers including Jeanette Winterson.

The original Longplayer installation, running since the 31st December 1999, is situated inside the 19th century lighthouse at Trinity Buoy Wharf, 64 Orchard Place, London E14 0JW

Opening Hours: From the 21st June 2009 open every weekend, 11am - 5pm (winter times, December - March inclusive, 11am - 4pm). Visitors are advised to check the news page for any last minute schedule changes. Free of charge, though donations are welcome.

Thanks to Flavorwire.com.