Listening to MP3s of sound from outdoor installations can be a bit like watching an Akira Kurosawa film on your laptop: less than faithful to the original. That said, as site-specific art with audio becomes more common, a seven-megabyte file sure does trump a roundtrip plane ticket for cost efficiency. Michael Samos created sound as part of a multi-speaker installation by sculptor Barbara Westermann, herself a specialist in audio-oriented art, like concrete-steel renditions of baby monitors and reliefs that suggest the music of the spheres. Their exhibit, Observatory Sounds, isn’t due for display until this coming autumn, at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, New York. But there are already two ways to hear it. Pick up a copy of Loud5, a “sound magazine” with a focus on sound art (more info at loud5.com) or download a seven-minute excerpt of casual noise, cycling tones, chance field recordings and light sonic manipulations (MP3) from Samos’ website, michaelsamos.com.
-
about
Marc Weidenbaum founded the website Disquiet.com in 1996 at the intersection of sound, art, and technology, and since 2012 has moderated the Disquiet Junto, an active online community of weekly music/sonic projects. He has written for Nature, Boing Boing, The Wire, Pitchfork, and NewMusicBox, among other periodicals. He is the author of the 33 1⁄3 book on Aphex Twin’s classic album Selected Ambient Works Volume II. Read more about his sonic consultancy, teaching, sound art, and work in film, comics, and other media
Subscribe
Current Activities
Upcoming
• July 28, 2021: This day marks the start of the 500th consecutive weekly project in the Disquiet Junto music community.
• December 13, 2021: This day marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of Disquiet.com.
• January 6, 2021: This day marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.Recent
• There are entries on the Disquiet Junto in the forthcoming book The Music Production Cookbook: Ready-made Recipes for the Classroom (Oxford University Press), edited by Adam Patrick Bell. Ethan Hein wrote one, and I did, too.
• A chapter on the Disquiet Junto ("The Disquiet Junto as an Online Community of Practice," by Ethan Hein) appears in the book The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning (Oxford University Press), edited by Stephanie Horsley, Janice Waldron, and Kari Veblen. (Details at oup.com.)Ongoing
• The Disquiet Junto series of weekly communal music projects explore constraints as a springboard for creativity and productivity. There is a new project each Thursday afternoon (California time), and it is due the following Monday at 11:59pm: disquiet.com/junto.• My book on Aphex Twin's landmark 1994 album, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, was published as part of the 33 1/3 series, an imprint of Bloomsbury. It has been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018).
Most Recent Posts
disquiet junto
Background
Since January 2012, the Disquiet Junto has been an ongoing weekly collaborative music-making community that employs creative constraints as a springboard for creativity. Subscribe to the announcement list (each Thursday), listen to tracks by participants from around the world, read the FAQ, and join in.Recent Projects
• 0484 / A Movable Heart / The Assignment: Transplant the sounds of Chris Kallmyer's wind chimes to a new location.
• 0483 / Type Set / The Assignment: Use a recording of yourself typing something as the underlying rhythmic track for a piece of music.
• 0482 / Exactly That Gap / The Assignment: Make a musical haiku following instructions from Marcus Fischer.
• 0481 / Capsule Time / The Assignment: Record a time capsule for yourself in the future.
• 0480 / Ongsay Aftcray / The Assignment: Record a piece of music by employing Pig Latin as a technique.Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 484 consecutive weeks to date.Tags
app audio-games brands of sounds Buddha Machine chiptune classical comics copyleft current activities field-recording film free free download gadget generative i-hop IFTTTgram installation ios ipad iphone ipod ipod touch junto live-performance live performance modular netlabel noise recommended stream remix saw2for33third science-fiction score site-maintenance software sound-art sounds-of-brands studio journal this week in sound turntablism TV video video-games voiceMost Recent Comments
- Pranjal on Q: Why Blog? A: Blogs Are Great.: “What have I just discovered. This was awesome. ”
- Jeremy Cherfas on Q: Why Blog? A: Blogs Are Great.: “An excellent piece, to which I will refer anyone who asks. I know you don’t want to get into plumbing… ”
- Jason Richardson on Q: Why Blog? A: Blogs Are Great.: “I like this and hope your encouragement of bloggers will become as increasingly entertaining going forward. Seriously, you should interview… ”
- Marc Weidenbaum on This Must Be the Place: “PS: I’ve gone ahead and done what Ray and others have suggested. I compiled much of the Twitter thread into… ”