By tapping directly into the brain’s electrical signals, scientists at John’s Hopkins University, in Baltimore, are on their way to developing a prosthetic hand more dexterous than ever before. They have demonstrated for the first time that neural activity recorded from a monkey’s brain can control fingers on a robotic hand, making it play several notes on a piano.

“We would hope that eventually, we’ll be able to implant similar arrays permanently in the motor cortex of human subjects,” says Mark Schieber, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester, in New York, who is working on the project. However, researchers caution that a practical human version of the neural interface is still a long way off.

[More]

Videos:
- Watch the translation of neural activity into robotic finger movements.
- Watch a robotic hand, controlled by neural activity, play “Frère Jacques.”

Memoryscapes. Voices from the hidden history of the Thames

http://www.memoryscape.org.uk/

“Enjoy two of the most dramatic riverside walks in London and hear the voices of people whose lives have been entwined with the Thames. These sound walks take place at two of the most contrasting stretches of river in London. DRIFTING begins in the peaceful surroundings of Hampton Court Palace and DOCKERS ends up in the rarely explored industrial landscape of the Greenwich peninsula. You can listen as you walk with a CD player, ipod or MP3 player [...]”

info

On Monochrome Otomo presents 18 pieces that illustrate the entire range of his solo work from pieces constructed entirely of feedback, static and randomly generated radio noise, to sine wave experiments that bring to mind the humming of the solar wind as it wafts through intergalactic space. There are also rhythmic bursts of feedback and percussion that are almost danceable and subtle Zen like meditations full of slow sustained notes that fill the air with otherworldly overtones.
The Multiple Otomo DVD provides a dizzying compliment to Otomo’s music, full of jittery images both real and manipulated, flashes of visual white noise, strobe-like quick cuts, multiple split screens and extreme close ups that put the instruments Otomo is using into a new visual context. The 30 segments feature improvisations on turntable and guitar complimented by the imaginative video work of Masako Tanaka, Michelle Silva, and Tim Digulla
“Vinyls” has Otomo taking scratching to an extreme level, using recorded music to destroy our notions of what music should be.
On “Plucks” Otomo plays rubber bands stretched and anchored to turntable knobs, tone arms and spindles, using LPs as mallets and caressing the rubber bands with a violin bow; the music is pensive and playful. “Frets” showcase Otomo’s guitar skills in stark black and white video. The piece is full of clanging feedback and rhythmic noise producing what may be the ultimate metal guitar workout. “Tone Generator” is an oscillator solo that moves from gritty feedback to smooth pulsing sine waves accompanied by acid washed video effects.
The program ends with two calming interludes: “Blue Feedback” is a combination of gentle thrumming feedback and throbbing abstract color, while “Turntable Graveyard” is a slow, meditative eulogy for the machinery Otomo has destroyed in his performances. Staccato strings or perhaps plucked rubber bands supply a funereal soundtrack while the camera pans over the ruins of records and turntables suggesting battlefields and graveyards.

DSM™ HRTF 4+ CHANNEL SURROUND-SOUND RECORDING SYSTEMS

This is a very natural stereo recording method of 3-Dimensional ‘psycho-acoustic’ pressure-zone mic (PZM type) recording, (this is the ‘skin-proximity’ acoustic sound which surrounds our own head) and allows the recording of true sound-source directional cues created by the head’s acoustic pressure signature (a.k.a., ‘Head Related Transfer Function’ or HRTF) and later interpreted by our ear-brain perception process as true full-ambient ‘surround sound’ stereo.

In more conventional terms, the pattern received is that of two high quality very precision matched ‘spaced omni’ mics positioned in a specific area on the sides of a real person’s head…. or…. specialized ‘acoustic head’ baffle. Therefore, the reception pattern is directly related to the overall quality of the microphones to pickup the HRTF effects….the creation of acoustic psycho-acoustical spatial cues….. of the ‘head’ baffle.

Mientras disfrutábamos esta semana de unos días de vacaciones, hicimos una escapada a San Sebastián para visitar a los amigos de Arteleku y la magnífica exposición del Koldo Mitxelena Kulturenea .

La exposición muestra la dimensión espacial y temporal del uso del sonido mediante una selección de obras e instalaciones que van desde las partituras gráficas de Valcárcel Medina a la visualización física y sonora de las vibraciones sonoras de la obra Music on a long thing de Alvin Lucier.
Algunas obras indispensables de la exposición, junto a la de Lucier, son las instalaciones de Ramón González Arroyo (L’isla des neumas) y de Manuel Rocha Iturbide (Ping Roll). El primero nos presenta una instalación multicanal inmersiva, una experiencia espacial dinámica única que invita a disfrutarse durante bastante tiempo seguido (lástima que no hubiera más sillas en la sala). El segundo nos demuestra las paradojas de la escucha: la confrontación de un fenómeno sonoro sin su causa visual asociada nos lleva a una desubicación del espacio.

Tampoco hay que perderse las Partituras-Dibujos de Instalaciones del Belga Oosterlynck, un trabajo genial de condensación de su intuición creativa, ni la muestra de la Imaginary Music de Tom Johnson, que utiliza el lenguaje musical para trascender sensaciones espaciales y musicales sobre paisajes visuales de negras, corcheas, ligaduras, etc.

En fin, que si podeis, pasaros por San Sebastián a ver esta exposición. Y… a la salida de la expo yo no dudaría en tomarme un par de pintxos con unas sidras bien fresquitas.

Ya tenemos el programa de la International Computer Music Conference:

ICMC 2007 – Immersed music
International Computer Music Conference
Aug. 27-Sept.1, 2007. Copenhagen, Denmark
http://www.icmc2007.net

The ICMC scientific program is now online. We have received a
tremendous amount of papers. For the first time, the ICMC proceedings
will be divided into two volumes.

ICMC2007 is a popular event

The preparations for ICMC2007 is progressing rapidly. The interest on
international level for participation has been overwhelming, and we
have received more than 800 articles, music, installations and music
films.

Planning is well under way

We can promise a lot of unique experiences both in street level, in
clubs and concert halls, as well as in and around water and floating
in the air – but we shall tell you more about this in future
newsletters.

We are also very proud to be able to present Barbara Tillmann and
John Chowning as key-note speakers. John Chowning is quite a legend -
the inventor of FM-synthesis used in the immensely popular Yamaha DX7
that triggered the digital revolution in music production. Barbara
Tillmann is an internationally recognized expert on cognition and music.

Financial backing

A great many funds and foundations are making ICMC2007 possible. We
are proud to announce the support from The Danish Art Council,
Bikubenfonden, Tuborgfonden, The Production Funds in The Danish
Composers’ Society, Dansk Artist Forbund, The Culture Funds in
Copenhagen City, The Sonning Foundation, SAS, Cycling74 and Genelec.

We are grateful for the backing and are looking forward to some
unique days on danish soil.

Regards,

The ICMC2007 team

http://www.kunstradio.at/PROJECTS/CROSSWALKS/index_e.html

Literal:
when it clicks quickly, a green light goes on, when it clicks slowly, it turns red. it is as simple as that. or at least the austrian version is.

these senseless songlines will then be broadcast beginning march 2003 on orf-kunstradio.
playing time: 150 seconds each. nonetheless, these seconds will carry listeners off around the world and in this context provide them with unheard-of global acoustic picture postcards.
talking crosswalks, signal and sound tracks that invite listeners in their living-rooms and elsewhere on an imaginary and yet extremely real acoustic world excursion.

Link to CASE

Recently formed as the Canadian Affiliate Organization of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), The Canadian Association for Sound Ecology/ Association canadienne pour L’écologie sonore is a coalition of Canadian individuals and institutions concerned with the state of the soundscape. As Acoustic Ecology is the study of the relationship between living organisms and their sonic environment (or soundscape), it is the CASE mission to draw attention to unhealthy imbalances in this relationship, to improve the acoustic quality of a place wherever possible, and to protect and maintain acoustically balanced soundscapes where they still exist.As a multidisciplinary organization CASE includes those who are committed to caring for the quality of the acoustic environment through their respective fields. If they are creators of sound, for example, they are sensitive to the relationship between their sound production and the acoustic environment.

Danielle Wilde describes her latest project, the hipDisk, as being possibly the most undignified musical instrument ever. hipDisk exploits changing relationships between torso and hip to actuate sound.

Available online in cooperation with Raudio, is a 24 hours / 7 days a week webcast. Enjoy!

Simple horizontal disk-shaped extensions of the body exaggerate the interdependent relationship of the hip and torso. Soft switches, strategically placed around the perimeter of each disk, allow the wearer to play a chromatic scale, and thus simple melodies, restricted only by flexibility and speed of swing.

More videos:
- Video 1 1
- Video 2 2

http://www.cityinasoundwalk.org/

City in a Soundwalk proposes an augmented experience of the urban soundscape. Begin with the physical practice of the soundwalk. Add personal narrative, a forum for sharing opinion and debate, visual imagery, historical context, socioeconomic background, cultural details, sound recordings, environmental data, maps and more. What emerges is a community gathering place and multi-media accumulation point for sensory immersion in the New York City environment.

So What is a Soundwalk? The soundwalk is a practice of focused listening in which one moves through an environment with complete attention to sound. Any environment, at any time of day or night, can provide space for soundwalking. Sometimes the walks are guided by a written or verbal instruction (a “score”) and sometimes not. The participants may walk blindfolded, or stand still, or move in response to the soundfield. Sometimes the walker activates the soundscape – “playing along” with the sounds – using the voice, musical instruments or objects encountered along the way. On occasion the walks are recorded and other times they are simply free form ambles through sound filled places. The walks are usually followed by an informal conversation about the experience.

There exists a 30-year plus history of soundwalking, particularly among composers who work, either through electronic or acoustic means, with the sounds of natural and built environments. Under the guidance of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer, a small group of musicians and activists set forth on the World Soundscape Project (WSP) in the early 1970s in an attempt to document and raise awareness of the world’s acoustic environments. Myriad related projects, recordings and publications arose from this process. Today, the work of the WSP, with it’s legacy of soundwalking, critical documentation and awareness raising, continues to inspire and inform composers, researchers, ecologists and activists across the globe.

About the Artist: City in a Soundwalk was an idea hatched by composer Michelle Nagai at the end of 2005 after participating in a 24-hour migration of dance and sound through the streets of New York City, organized by the choreographer Jennifer Monson.