../mediateletipos)))

Sound:Space es un interesante evento que incluye conferencias, pases de vídeo, instalaciones sonoras, proyectos de sonido y arquitectura, arte radiofónico, intervenciones sonoras medioambientales y una exposición. La apertura oficial del festival será esta misma tarde, aunque las actividades principales se concentran en el simposio que se celebrará el sábado 1 de noviembre. [+info]

The symposium event on Saturday 1st November attempts to pack in a rich and diverse selection of work and presentations into the day. We begin at 11.00am with the first of three Chris Watson surround sound pieces in our Cinema and run through to 7.30pm when the event will end with a performance by Max Eastley and Peter Cusack inside the “Kinetic Drawings” installation in the Gallery. There will be breaks during the day to allow viewing of the other works in the exhibition programme, Sound:Space - Screen in the Cinema, and the SoundLAB V “Sound Stories” collection in the media lab.

http://www.unsworn.org/telemegaphone/

What is a telemegaphone?

Telemegaphones are tall loudspeaker sculptures that automatically answers incoming phone calls and projects the sound of the caller’s voice into its immediate surroundings.

Telemegaphone Dale stands seven metres tall on top of the Bergskletten mountain overlooking the idyllic Dalsfjord in Western Norway.
When you dial the Telemegaphone’s phone number the sound of your voice is projected out across the fjord, the valley and the village of Dale below.
Telemegaphone Dale is generously supported by Nordic Culture Point, Unsworn Industries and nkd - nordic artists’ centre in dale. Special thanks to Nicklas Marélius, Svein Ove Løseth, landowner Ingolf Viken, and Jörgen Bladh at Kylprodukter i Kivik.

Vía: opaco.org

Seguimos apurando las informaciones de eventos situados en Berlin y en particular de Tuned City, la cita que nos llevó hasta allí. Le toca el turno a una de las performances sonoras que más nos impactó y cuya componente visual fue merecedora de grabar un pequeño video de recuerdo.

Thomas Ankersmit + Antoine Chessex from mediateletipos on Vimeo.

El duo de saxofonistas Thomas Ankersmit y Antoine Chessex realizaron un ’sondeo acústico’ del auditorio de la Funkhaus Nalepastraße, los antiguos estudios de la GDR Radio, que sirvieron como emplazamiento de lujo para los eventos de la última jornada del festival.

Unos días después escuchamos de nuevo a Chessex, esta vez en duo con el baterista Chris Corsano, en lo que fue una impresionante actuación en el espacio West Germany, una de las venues ‘underground’ de la escena improv, noise y experimental de la capital germana. (Recomendación: si pasais por la ciudad no va nada mal echar un ojo a lugares como la agenda online de Echtzeitmusik para estar al día de los eventos más frescos que por allí se cuecen).

Chris Corsano + Antoine Chessex from mediateletipos on Vimeo.

Alexa - performance by AGF
03.07.08 / Tuned City day 3 : sound and social commmunication
Alexa shopping mall, Alexanderplatz - Berlin (DE)

Algunas semanas después del evento, rescatamos otra de las audioacciones realizadas en Berlin como parte de Tuned City. Antye Greie (alias AGF) realizó una performance al mediodia en Alexa, un gran centro comercial situado en Alexanderplatz, uno de los puntos más concurridos de la ciudad y en cuyas inmediaciones tuvo lugar la programación del festival aquel día, dedicada al sonido y la comunicación social. No pudimos asistir pero ahora leemos las impresiones de la propia artista en su blog y acceder a este video documentando la performance.

[video of the performance - filmed by QUIO]

…another performance in the frame of a architecture versus sound festival Tuned City it was very very impressive to perform via the house / muzak system into all the shops and toilets and floors. people were stunned and outrageous, teenagers shouted at me (you sound shit), security guards flirting and ice licking grannies wondering, shop owners calling police and the head of the shopping mall was insulted by the sound (this is no music) but was impressed about the reactions of the people, many artist friends were very touched while wondering through all the levels and shops in this disagreeable space. thanks much to carsten stabenow and gesine pagels and their team for realizing this event.

y la info oficial del festival sobre esta audioacción dice así:

The interplay of this exhibit helps flesh out the contours of performance in contemporary art. AGF works with performance strategies that articulate a distinct relationship between artist and community. By placing this show into a shopping mood, the expression into a public consumer environment comes off stage.

It is all about nature of future. About the audible site of development, speed energy, compositions with technical noise, sound that wants you make to hear the building of your own heart. How the volume of the speaker systems changes if your skin would be the membrane. And how it brings protest strategies into an architectural sound context.

AGF won’t mention social change: she will sow and catalyze it in order to comment from a personal perspective on the systemic problems that prevent human progress. This self-imposed task suggests an allegorical confrontation with psychological barriers more than a way to address specific injustices (although these barriers are connected to societal inequities).

Como ya sabeis los que habeis ido leyendo estas páginas en las dos últimas semanas, hemos estado publicando info sobre los proyectos participantes en el festival Tuned City (1-5 Julio) celebrado en Berlin. Ya están online las imágenes que hemos recogido documentando el festival y siguen apareciendo imágenes aportadas por varios de los asistentes en el pool de flickr creado para la ocasión.

[Tuned City - mediateletipos photo documentation]
[Tuned City Group Pool at Flickr]

** Punktierter-Garten at Hamburger Bahnhof

Peter Ablinger - Hearing Listening
21.06.2008 to 03.08.2008
Haus am Waldsee - Berlin

Aprovechando la estancia en Berlin, visitamos hace unos días esta exposición de obras del compositor austríaco Peter Ablinger, además de acercarnos por primera vez a la ‘Haus am Waldsee’ y conocer el agradable entorno en el que se encuentra ubicada. Aquí la documentación fotográfica de la expo y de esta visita.

The exhibition “Hearing Listening“ introduces the Austrian composer Peter Ablinger for the first time in an artistic context and offers insight into his complete works from 1992 to 2008. His works will be accompanied by several paintings by Leipzig born Daniel Biesold who lives in Berlin. The work of Peter Ablinger born in 1959 deals with the relationship of the sound event and its interface between mimesis and noise. The spatial context refers to listening in the sense of acoustic photography. Visitors encounter speaking pianos, the roaring of artificial waterfalls, snail houses tuned to E-major as well as the (un-)acute differences between the sounds of nature and those of civilization.

Outside the house, acoustic pieces from the cycle “WEISS/WEISSLICH“ (White/Whitish) created in the mid-90s will be heard. Wearing headphones with built-in microphones, visitors will acoustically experience their environment in a new way. They can take seats on the open terrace like at a concert and listen to the sounds of daily life that so typically go unheard: traffic from the street, birds, language, machines. Stringing the sounds together “sound photographs” are created. However, it quickly becomes very clear that just hearing part of a sound in nature is harder to classify than a visual detail in a photograph. The auditory awareness is not trained sufficiently to register these impressions.

In the interior of the Haus am Waldsee the themes of sound, the perception of space, and language are resumed and further condensed. Ablinger spectacularly conjures up the spirit of Arnold Schönberg’s voice with a computer operated piano. On the top floor of the house visitors are also actively drawn into a sound installation. The tour will bring about a new awareness to the listening experience generally absent from our consciousness.

In this exhibition, the composer’s work meets the white paintings by Daniel Biesold. Born in Leipzig in 1964, Biesold studied in Hamburg and Frankfurt. Just like Ablinger, Biesold is a fervent admirer of the minimalist painter Agnes Martin (1912-2004). Both name the great American as a decisive point of reference for their work. The exhibition becomes an experiment consisting of the encounter of the visual composer and the acoustic painter.

5th Sound and Music Computing Conference
‘Space in Sound – Sound in Space’
July 31 - August 3, 2008
Technische Universität Berlin - Germany

http://www.smc08.org

Every era develops its specific, culturally defined awareness of space as well as forms of its aesthetic reification. In music, we can trace a development from an architectural place of sound to the symbolical space of formal and structural projections and finally to the imaginitive, musically immanent space of compositional fantasy. From thereon the actual space can be functionalised musically, it can, however, also be opened to and expanded by technical spaces. These, as digital simulations, enable both universal manipulation and boundless scaling. The conception of an “acoustic cyberspace” becomes constitutive for new aesthetical conceptions of form as well as for the generation and manipulation of sounds.

In 2007 the Technische Universität Berlin has installed the largest wavefield synthesis system worldwide with 832 channels and 2700 loudspeakers in a 700 seats lecture hall. During the 5th SMC „Space in Sound – Sound in Space“ works for this system will be performed. This system will be augmented by a 20 channel Klangdome and an Acousmonium provided by GRM Paris in the same hall. The simultaneous installation allows a combination of different sound systems with their individual qualities as well as an analytical listening of the same works performed on different systems.

The scientific program of the SMC08 will have a special focus on different concepts and technologies of spatialisation, including sound art, acousmatic music, stereophonic reproduction, and wavefield synthesis. The talks will cover historical, aesthetical, technical as well as genre specific aspects of sound and space.

Sound and Music Computing (SMC) is supervised jointly by AFIM (Association Française d’Informatique Musicale), AIMI (Associazione Italiana di Informatica Musicale), DEGEM (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Elektroakustische Musik), and HACI (Hellenic Association of Music Informatics). It aims at promoting exchanges between European countries around topics related to sound and music computing, and to give them an international dimension.

Organised by the German Association of Electroacoustic Music (DEGEM ) in collaboration with the Audio Communication Group.

Otro de los proyectos interesantes que descubrimos en Tuned City hace unos días fueron los “Location Sound Films” de John Grzinich. Aquí sus videos en youtube.

The Location Sound Films project starts with the concept of site-specific artistic activity while integrating contemporary sound recording practices that cross the areas of ‘performance’, ‘field recording’, ‘improvisation’ and ‘documentation’. With the site being the prime focus, the artist as actor and instigator uses the means of sound to investigate the qualities of the surrounding space and his place in it. Various techniques are used to make recordings, some more clearly visible than others, depending on the type of sound captured (stereo condenser microphones or piezo transducer contact microphones). Video in this case correlates more closely with film as it is an attempt to make use of the image as non-narrative document on site-specific, location based sound activity.

This concept has been integrated into other projects such as the Riga Sound Locations, which was a four day workshop that took place at various spaces around the capitol city of Latvia. The aim of the workshop was to visit 6 different locations around the city in order to investigate site-specific sound activity related to each place. The sites included an abandoned apartment, construction site, former power station, abandoned warehouse, old military airport and a backyard. Apart from the backyard all of these locations were temporary in the sense that they either being developed or destroyed at some point in the near future. So not only were we documenting our activities we attempted to capture the transitional feeling of the spaces.

** Metal Door Tones - contact microphones on a metal door - with: Patrick McGinley, Hitoshi Kojo, Fantomas

TUNED CITY: BuckyMedia
performance by Farmers Manual
03.07.08 / Alexander Platz (Berlin)

Una de las muchas cosas que la apretada agenda del Tuned City no me permitió visitar fue esta performance del grupo vienés Farmers Manual, que tuvo lugar en Alexanderplatz dentro de la jornada dedicada al sonido y la comunicación social. Abajo un pequeño video que recoge al incansable Derek Holzer, uno de los organizadores del festival, jugando con el artefacto. (El video es de Randy H Yau).

[concept + info]

Buckymedia is a work conceived by Farmers Manual as 80-sided, 5m diameter “bucky balls”, in reference to the architect and visionary Richard Buckminster Fuller. By moving these structures, the viewers can navigate through different interpretations of real and virtual spaces and time. Metaphorically speaking the big balls represent the globe, the net, and the circular communication of the web. As physical object they are a space within a space, it is an offer of a different type of architecture, one that is circular, expendable and infinite. Their meaning is created in the moment when a viewer is interacting with them - walking into and through them, standing within them, watching or even touching them. The installation is about making oneself available to a continual barrage of meanings and themes, so that one is transformed into a being spread, distributed a different configuration of the self.

Sounds belong to the City. They determine spaces and identities. For years, artists have been using city noises as a material to stage or to question urban space – new
territory, however, for most architects and planners within the routines of functional planning procedures. Tuned City – Between Sound- and Space Speculation searches for a new evaluation of architectural spaces from the perspective of acoustics. This volume
presents various positions of architects, artists and theorists to expand the architectural discourse with the dimension of listening.

With contributions by: Anne Kockelkorn und Doris Kleilein, Barry Blesser und Linda-Ruth Salter, Gisela Herzog und Gerhard Steinke, Susanne Hauser, Thomas Ankersmit, Pascal Amphoux und Grégoire Chelkoff, Raviv Ganchrow, Mark Bain, Arno Brandlhuber und Markus Emde, Michael Bull, Stefan Kölsch, Jacob Kirkegaard

Tuned City - between sound- and space speculation
Edited by Anne Kockelkorn, Doris Kleilein, Gesine Pagels und Carsten Stabenow
200 Seiten, german/english, with Illustrations by Andreas Töpfer

EUR(D) 25,00 / EUR(A) 25,70
ISBN 978-3-937445-36-6
KOOK BOOKS 2008

Available direct from us or via bookselling.

TUNED CITY : Little Helpers
acoustic “orientation system” by Will Schrimshaw
all festival locations / 01.07. - 05.07. 08

Otra de las instalaciones presentes en Tuned City. ‘Little Helpers’ son unos pequeños dispositivos vibratorios que reaccionan ante nuestra presencia, activando las propiedades acústicas de las superficies sobre las que son instalados, haciéndolas resonar mediante sencillos motores. En Tuned City estuvieron ‘de gira’ por las diversas localizaciones en las que cada día tuvieron lugar los eventos principales del festival.

[+info y documentación en la web de Will]

Little Helpers draw attention to the resonant properties of matter. They act as vibrational prostheses, extending and enhancing the material force in sound and its impact upon an environment. They occupy architectural spaces, drawing out the audible qualities of architectures that may ordinarily go unheard.

Bodies moving through a space trigger motors, sounding whatever object they are attached to. Movements acquire a resonant trace. The use of movement as a trigger is intended to initiate performative engagement, drawing passersby into interactive exchange and making audible the impact of their movements upon their immediate surroundings.

Quotidian and interstitial spaces such as pavements, corridors and lifts are the preferred locations for installing Little Helpers. They are autonomous units that can be deployed in almost any location (railings, cupboards, fences, hedges, lampposts…). They require little power to function, using their numbers to make up for what they lack in individual power. Readily available materials such as elastic bands, string and sticky tape are used to fasten them to suitable objects. This enables quick deployment in suitable sites. An installation/occupation can be set up and taken down in a short space of time, without requiring lengthy consultations with property owners or institutional support. Their construction is light and flexible in order to allow a greater range applications within diverse spaces.

** Little Helpers at Funkhaus Nalepastraße

TUNED CITY: Inwound
installation by Raviv Ganchrow
Bahnhof Potsdamer Platz (Berlin)

Esta instalación fue una de las más intensas que encontramos la semana pasada en Tuned City. Seis acelerómetros ubicados en diferentes puntos de la estación de tren de Potsdamer Platz recogen las vibraciones de ese entorno, que son convertidas a señal de audio, mezcladas y espacializadas en tiempo real en una instalación de 12 altavoces + subwoofer situados en el techo de una sala subterranea de la estación. El resultado, un cambiante paisaje sonoro industrial.

Más abajo un extracto del sonido de la instalación que grabamos allí mismo. Es una grabación binaural, asi que se escucha mejor con auriculares.

[installation sound - binaural recording, better on headphones]

Inwound plumbs the reciprocal exchanges between sound, location, and listeners at Postdamer Platz. In the first week of July, public access will be granted to a provisional listening chamber set up within the subterranean mechanical spaces of the Postdamer Platz station. The surrounding environmental vibrations at the site of the station will be reconfigured into an intensified relational field of sound. The project utilizes transducers that are literally plugged into the urban clutter. By attaching the transducers, the host structures become quasi-microphones listening outwards as well as in on themselves.

A selection of zones in and around the station will transmit their live signals to the chamber where they then get collected and emitted via a phased-array of suspended loudspeakers. Within the listening chamber, the various signals are brought into critical play as amplified material vibrations are interlaced with defamiliarized ambient sounds to form an immersive tapestry of sonic-spatial configurations.

By approaching the environment as sonically continuous and the site as materially unstable, Inwound empirically taps into the fluctuating undercurrents of everyday experience in order to render palpable the oscillations from which both ‘listener’ and ‘place’ emerge inherently interwound.

La apertura de Tuned City tuvo lugar con una conferencia del Dr. Barry Blesser, considerado uno de los padrinos de la revolución del audio digital y co-autor del libro “Spaces speak. Are you Listening?”, un genial compendio de información sobre arquitectura sonora. Tras él, un par de presentaciones a cargo del arquitecto español Antón Garcia-Abril y del austríaco Nik Hummer, con su instalación “Sperrgut”.

Y tras eso, la sección de lives del día. Primero, una corta performance a cargo del duo BMB con. (Justin Bennett + Roelf Toxopeus), dedicada a Michel Waisvisz, director de STEIM y conocido sobre todo por ser el creador de la cracklebox, que falleció hace un par de semanas. En su performance utilizaron microfonos parabólicos Telinga, una cracklebox, un par de laptops, radios fm y objetos para jugar con el sonido espacialmente en la sala donde se celebró el evento, en lo que fue una performance espectacular visualmente y con un resultado sonoro interesante, en particular un momento de climax con un feedback que construyeron en la sala.

Después vino el plato fuerte, el set Infrasound, de Scott Arford y Randy H. Yau. Personalmente, llevaba bastante tiempo esperando experimentar en mis carnes este proyecto tras conocer su existencia hace algunos años y perdérmelo en una edición en Valencia del festival Observatori, la única ocasión en que visitaron España (creo). Y la cosa fue impresionante ( ( · ) ) . En este link un video de otra ‘infrasound performance’ en París.

Infrasound : A spatial acoustic concert series by Scott Arford + Randy H Yau

Hear with your body. This is not about music. This is not about performance or the performer. The goal is sound and the explicit translation of sound into physical force. The goal is internal and external realization. It is about provoking new modes of perceiving and experiencing one’s own body – triggering variable and autonomous psycho-physiological response. It is about the total acoustic sense of space – observing sound to measure the capacity of architecture. It is about the phenomenon of resonance or sympathetic vibration – all things working in one continuum.

Infrasound is a spacial-acoustic concert series, initiated and performed by Randy Yau and Scott Arford with changing guests. The series investigates the possibility of sound, especially low frequencies, to measure the capacity of architecture; it is about the physicality of sound and the physical experience of sound. Each space has its individual resonance, specific frequencies are amplified, others muted. Each space is filled with as much frequency as needed until the space starts playing itself. Things in the space start to vibrate or to rattle. The audience feels the frequencies on their own bodies. Each concert is bound to the architecture of the venue. As an acoustic container, the space becomes a laboratory for experiments.

** INFRASOUND performance, Tuned City, Berlin (1 Jul 2008)

http://tunedcity.de

Hace unas semanas anunciabamos Tuned City, una serie de eventos que se celebran esta semana en Berlín El proyecto propone una nueva evaluación de los espacios arquitectónicos desde la perspectiva de lo acústico. Con un discurso amplio e interdisciplinar, se fomenta la discusión y el intercambio de ideas para re-pensar el contexto del espacio urbano, buscando estrategias y métodos de trabajo tomando elementos de la arquitectura y del diseño urbano y expandiéndolo al contexto del arte sonoro.

El festival ofrece una programación muy amplia e interesante, que se ha estado gestando en los últimos meses. El pasado enero ya tuvo lugar una preview de este evento, dentro del contexto del Club Transmediale, con un symposium de un día en el que se presentó el proyecto y algunos de sus contenidos, y una noche de performances, los cuales documentamos desde estas mismas páginas.

Tuned City se estructura en dos partes principales un symposium y un programa de instalaciones site-specific, que se completan con performances, paseos y algunos workshops. Cinco días, cada uno en torno a un tema, con los eventos localizados en distintos puntos de la ciudad, escogidos para la ocasión por sus características.

En la programación se incluye la presencia del proyecto Soinumapa (un mapa sonoro de el Pais Vasco), que será presentado por Oier Iruretagoiena y Xabier Erquizia, junto a su participación en una performance partiendo de las grabaciones presentes en el mapa. También participa en la jornada de apertura el arquitecto madrileño Antón García-Abril.

Tras nuestra visita en enero, la organización nos invitó amablemente a asistir al programa principal estos días. Ya que sigo iniciándome en el fascinante mundo de la fonografía, estoy aprovechando la ocasión para asistir al workshop de Chris Watson, en el que con su guía estaremos escuchando la ciudad y realizando algunas grabaciones. Esto me impedirá asistir a toda la programación, pero estos días estaremos publicando información sobre algunos de los artistas y proyectos incluidos en Tuned City y tratando de documentar un poco lo que ocurra en el festival.

[tuned city >> programme]

performances

Scott Arford / Randy Yau
Infrasound
01.07.08 / opening

BMB con.
01.07.08 / opening

Mark Bain
BUG
02.07.08 / building with sound

tamtam
Hometown
02.07.08 / sound - space - architecture. ohrenstrand: singuhr - salon

agf
Alexa
03.07.08 / sound and social commmunication

Farmers Manual
BuckyMedia
03.07.08 / sound and social communication

Martin Howse
active city circuit
03.07.08 / sound and social communication

Staalplaat Soundsystem / Lola landscape architects
Composed City
04.07.08 / design of acoustic environments

Bulles
live-installation by Julien Clauss
04.07.08 / design of acoustic environments

Lasse Marc Riek, Richard Francis, Harold Schellinx, Soinu Mapa (Oier
Iruretagoiena und Xabier Erkizia), The Phonographic Arkestra (Wolfgang
Dorninger, Richard Eigner, Stefan Messner, Joachim Knoll, Stefan
Kushima, Michael Petri, Iduna Sickinger, Johannes Staudinger)
das kleine field recordings festival
04.07.08

Thomas Ankersmit / Antoine Chessex
diffusion - acoustics
05.07.08 / radio space

Jacob Kirkegaard
Labyrinthitis
05.07.08 / sonic derive

Chris Watson / BJNilsen
Storm
05.07.08 / talking sound and building space

installations

Auditory Corridors
architecture prototype for acoustic design
Sam Auinger und magma architecture
Pfefferberg

BUG
Mark Bain and b&k, Arno Brandlhuber
Brunnenstraße 9 / 02.07. 08 opening (permanent installation under
construction)

Punktierter Garten - Punktiertes Fragment
Jens-Uwe Dyffort / Roswitha von den Driesch
Tafelgarten Hamburger Bahnhof by atelier le balto Berlin / 01.07. -
20.07. 08

Inwound
Raviv Ganchrow
Bahnhof Potsdamer Platz

Sperrgut
Nik Hummer
Pfefferberg-City-Nalepastraße / 01.07. - 05.07. 08

Sirens - An Evolution from Water, through Water, to Water
An exhibition by curator James Beckett
General Public / 01.07. - 14.07. 08

Stadtmatraze
Installation for public space by raumlaborberlin
Am Fernsehturm (03.07. 08) Wriezener Bahnhof (04.07.08)

Little Helpers
acoustic “orientation system” by Will Schrimshaw
all festival locations / 01.07. - 05.07. 08

Location Sound Films
film installation by John Grzinich
Wriezener Bahnhof / 04.07. 08

Bulles
live-installation by Julien Clauss
Wriezener Bahnhof / 04.07. 08

partner exhibitions:

Echolocation (a project by singuhr - hoergalerie)
Aernoudt Jacobs
Großer Wasserspeicher / 24.05. - 13.07. 08

oto-date NA GI SA (a project by singuhr - hoergalerie)
Akio Suzuki
Wasserturm Quartier / 25.05. - 14.09. 08

Talking Drums (a project by singuhr - hoergalerie)
Ulrich Eller
Kleiner Wasserspeicher / 24.05.-13.07. 08

Room Tone, 18 sounds in 6 models
Brandon LaBelle
Staalplaat Store / Le Petit Mignon / 02.07. - 20.07. 08

Punktierte Allee
Jens-Uwe Dyffort / Roswitha von den Driesch
Tiergarten / 30.06. - 28.09. 08

lectures / presentations

* Altmann, Jürgen / acoustic weapons
* Amphoux, Pascal / sonic effects and other criteria of public space
* Ankersmit, Thomas / spatial perception and directional sound
* Aubry, Gilles / the chant of the buidings - composing with field recordings
* Behrendt, Frauke / Navigating Hybrid Spaces via Sound
* Blesser, Barry / spaces speak, are you listening?lang_en]
* Bull, Michael / Sound Moves: Media Technologies and Urban Spaces
* Chelkoff, Grégoire / Listening in Motion
* Dyrssen, Catharina / into noise
* Feldmann, Joachim / scientific echo chamber and anechoic chamber
* Ganchrow, Raviv / phased space
* Garcia-Abril, Anton / building for sound
* Hauser, Susanne / the eye, the ear and the big city
* Hepworth, Katie + Curgenven, Rob / TACIT:TACET: milan sound atlas
* Khazam, Rahma / Sounds like Architecture
* Koelsch, Stefan / from the eardrum to the heart
* Kursell, Julia / miniature space of the ear
* Leitner, Bernhard / presentation of the soundspace at TU
* Martinho, Cláudia / counter tactics
* Noll, Udo / radio aporee ::: maps
* Papenburg, Jens Gerrit / Muzak. Zum Hören des Nicht-Hörens
* Quiring, Björn / The Foundational Sounds of Vitruvius
* Rambow, Riklef / Rock’n’Roll ain’t Noise Pollution
* raumlaborberlin / Eichbaumoper
* Schäfer, Olaf + Walter, Urs / design with sound
* Sikiaridi, Elisabeth / Morphologies or the Architectures of Iannis Xenakis
* Sinclair, Peter + Duque, Alejandoro + Clauss, Julien / locus sonus
* Sonntag, Jan-Peter / Arbeiten im raum
* Steinke, Gerhard / the room is the robe of the musicsi
* tx - büro für temporäre architektur / wriezener freiraumlabor
* van der Heide, Edwin / field of overtones
* Voogelar, Frans / beyond you-topia
* Watson, Chris / listenining to the city
* Willecke, Barbara / Nauener Platz

Playing the Building: An Installation by David Byrne
The Battery Maritime Building
10 South Street, New York, NY
31 May – 24 August 2008
Open Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Noon – 6PM (Free)

Creative Time presents Playing the building, a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument. Devices are attached to the building structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.

[…] Anne Pasternak (curator of the work): I was impressed recently with a quote from Alvin Lucier that stated, “Careful listening is more important than making sounds happen.” Does this sentiment play a role in your approach to Playing the Building ?

David Byrne: This piece makes the act of “careful listening” incredibly easy. There’s almost no effort involved except going to the space. One doesn’t have the same experience when reading a description of it—one has to be physically present to really listen.

AP: I find it really interesting to consider that humans are exposed to more sounds than ever before. With this project, you seem to advocate that people pay attention to the sounds inherent in everyday surroundings and materials. Why?

DB: I’d like to say that in a small way it turns consumers into creative producers, but that might be a bit too much to claim. However, even if one doesn’t play the thing, it points toward a less mediated kind of cultural experience. It might be an experience in which one begins to reexamine one’s surroundings and to realize that culture—of which sound and music are parts—doesn’t always have to be produced by professionals and packaged in a consumable form.

I’m not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down. The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world’s popular music is a good thing, for the most part.

AP: With Playing the Building , you seem to imply that everyone can take center stage, perform, and compose with their everyday surroundings.

DB: I’m not advocating a kind of “Wiki” world of culture; but I guess I am advocating less separation between cultural producers (the artists, writers, musicians, dancers, singers) and cultural consumers.

AP: New technologies make it easy for anyone to be a “musician” or “composer.” Though he criticized the authority of the composer, I suspect John Cage would cringe at how music is being produced with off-the-shelf composing software. Those programs don’t allow for real experimentation with sound.

DB: I think there is far too much music everywhere. I don’t mean music in the John Cage sense of car horns and cell phones ringing: I mean recorded music. I find it hard to concentrate on a conversation when there’s music playing in a bar, club, or office. I understand why it’s there, but it turns music into a space filler. […]

** BoingBoing TV: DB interviewed by Xeni Jardin / Battery Maritime Building, 2008

Vía: networked-music-review