Month: March 2008

Two Hyper-Delicate MP3s from Autistici

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Two complete tracks off Autistici‘s Volume Objects album, released in January, are up for free download at the website of its label, 12k, 12k.com. The mix of field recordings and computer-generated sound is transformed with an emphasis on a kind of listening that requires attention moment by moment — the pieces are more akin, in that respect, to short stories than to songs, and they’re atmospheric short stories at that.

“Wire Cage for Tiny Birds” is a delicate construction in which tiny water drops balance with guitars whose strings are plucked with an emphasis on pristine, bright sound (MP3). “Heated Dust on a Sunlit Window” is both darker and softer by comparison; it emphasizes broader textures as it slowly gains chopstick percussion that plays in the stereo field (MP3). More on Autistici at autistici.com.

tangents / Sound Art (Furlong, sonochemical, toys …)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Recent Items from the World of Sound Art: Interview with early sound-art figure William Furlong, founder with Michael Archer of the publication Audio Arts, by Ilari Valbonesi (at ecopolis.org): “The tape was also an economic form of production and distribution.” … Interview with Adam Nash, whose sound work has been exhibited within the online simulation zone Second Life, at transition.turbulence.org: “I really love music, but I think new environments like this reveal music as an outdated concept”; more on Nash and his partner, Mami Yamanaka, at yamanakanash.net. … Interview with Pipilotti Rist on how technology has become more portable … more “ladylike”: “When I started, the recorders and the cameras were so heavy”¦and we are, at least physically, weaker [laughs]. You know, it made a big difference” (at tokyoartbeat.com).

Images of Dan McPharlin‘s toylike renderings of fictional synthesizers at samadhisound.com (from which the above picture is borrowed); more info at danmcpharlin.com. … Images from a presentation by Rob Cruickshank (interaccess.org). … Video footage from a corridor of computer fans by Studio Roosegaarde at engadget.com (screenshot directly below); more on the organization at studioroosegaarde.net.

Lina Dzuverovic notes the current “love affair between the museum and the arts of sound” — and asks, “But will it last?” (axisweb.org). … Documentation, including video, of a subway “Ghost Station” installation by Kristen Roos in Toronto: ghoststation.blogspot.com; more on Roos at microradio.ca. … Details on the Microwave International New Media Arts Festival, which ran in Hong Kong last November, at microwavefest.net; participants included Interactive Sonic Systems (reactable.iua.upf.edu), Henry Chu (pillandpillow.com), FM3 (fm3buddhamachine.com) and others.

Examples from Ingeborg Marie Dehs Thomas‘s “encyclopedia of radio waves” at nearfield.org, including the one below:

Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand‘s installation Camera Lucida: Sonochemical Observatory, “an installation work [that] visualizes a sonic wave which should be invisible,” was honored at the 2007 Japan Media Arts Festival (plaza.bunka.go.jp). … DJ Olive is among the participants at the Whitney Biennial in Manhattan (nytimes.com); he’s hosting a “sleepover” at the museum; elsewhere in the sprawling exhibit, a piece by Bozidar Brazda includes “a microphone [that] picks up ambient sounds from visitors to the room.” … Submissions due for the Prix Ars Electronic 2008 by March 19, 2008; details at aec.at.

Reviews: Christian Marclay-curated Ensemble at ICA in Philadelphia (artcal.net); Brian Belott at the gallery Canada in Manhattan (artfagcity.com); Ivin Ballen at Winkelman in Manhattan (newsgrist.typepad.com); Chia-Ying Lee‘s Sonic Graffiti, along with work by Mike Fleming, Kang Chang, and Kyle Millns (we-make-money-not-art.com); Phil Kline‘s Unsilent Night in Baltimore (citypaper.com); Luis Gisbert at Mary Boone in Mahattan, with a score by Phoenicia (nytimes.com); Georg Gatsas at James Fuentes LLC, with a “recording of dark ambient rumblings and tribal drumming by the band I.U.D.” (nytimes.com).

Back in December, sound art made Liz Smith‘s column at nypost.com; the subjects included artist-brothers Shelby and Latham Gaines, who had an exhibit running at the gallery Think Tank 3 (thinktank3.com).

ODC/Dance’s Musical Season (San Francisco)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

A flyer arrived in the mail from a San Francisco performing arts organization, listing upcoming shows featuring work by Darius Milhaud, Osvaldo Golijov, Laurie Anderson, Michael Nyman and David Lang, among others. And it wasn’t a new season of the San Francisco Symphony. As it turns out, those are just some of the composers whose music will be heard as part of the Downtown 2008 series of performances by the SF dance ensemble ODC/Dance.

Now, ODC/Dance, led by artistic director Brenda Way and co-artistic director KT Nelson, has always had an adventurous streak when it comes to music, and not just because its theater hosts concerts by the sfSoundSeries (sfsound.org). But this upcoming season, which runs throughout March, may be ODC/Dance’s strongest yet in that regard. The recently announced programs running throughout March include music by the above composers, as well as by Meredith Monk, Brian Eno and David Byrne, not to mention JS Bach, Heinrich Biber, Arcangelo Corelli and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer.

More details, including the complete schedule, at odcdance.org. Downtown 2008 will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (ybca.org). Technically, compared to the ODC’s own theater, the Yerba Buena is “downtown” San Francisco, but culturally speaking the temporary move is more “uptown.”

Quote of the Week: Electric Infancy

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

On the influence of electronic toys on today’s musicians:

After all, arguably, electronic toys are the midwives and nursemaids of gamers.

Electronic toys were what we played with before we even knew what video games were. In their stilted, stuttering voices they taught us to count, to spell, to recognize shapes. They sat on our bedside tables and told us the time, and with a pull of a ripcord they repeated the lines of our favorite TV show, our celebrity idol, our most beloved creature from Sesame Street, The Smurfs, The Wombles, The Muppet Show. They played music to us when no-one would pay us attention. And they let us make our own music, even when we couldn’t play a tune.

From an article by Drew Taylor at gamasutra.com about Toydeath, an Australian band of circuitbenders (toydeath.com).