ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
23-11-2008 / 19-04-2009

Today’s religious movements operate predominantly with images that can be spread across the entire world in a flash by means of contemporary mass media. The electronic picture media video and television have become the chosen media for religious propaganda as they are capable of being produced and distributed especially fast. The “return of religions” that people are currently talking about does not necessarily mean that more people have become religious nowadays. Instead, religions have moved from the private sphere of personal belief out into the public sphere of visual communication. In this, religions function, for one, as machines for the repetition and mass medial distribution of mechanically produced images.

For another, the role model for this repetition is found in the repeatability of religious rituals, which is the foundation for the emergence of all subsequent medial reproduction technologies. The original media used by religions were scriptures and books, assigned the same task of distributing belief. Text served, additionally, to canonize belief. Without writing there is no church; without scrolls, no belief. Thus, right from the start, through the demand for repeatability embodied by the ritual, religion was not only bound to media, but was itself a medium: religion as medium complements media as religion.

The exhibition “Medium Religion” aims at demonstrating this medial aspect of religion using current examples of religious video propaganda and the work of contemporary artists. The horizons of religion have expanded enormously through the development of electronic media. The uncomplicated recording of the message (e.g., the video message), the rapid distribution, and huge, nearly global scope (e.g., television, Internet), offered a technological base for religions’ reentry into public awareness. Since the mass media constitute public awareness and religion makes use of mass media (e.g., the broadcast of the Papal mass from Rome), it is only logical that it, too, will shift more into public awareness. The result is the reevaluation of minority faiths and their messages.

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Technocalyps
A three-part documentary by Frank Theys

Technocalyps is an intriguing three-part documentary on the notion of transhumanism by Belgian visual artist and filmmaker Frank Theys. The latest findings in genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence, bionics and nanotechnology appear in the media every day, but with no analysis of their common aim: that of exceeding human limitations. The director conducts his enquiry into the scientific, ethical and metaphysical dimensions of technological development. The film includes interviews by top experts and thinkers on the subject worldwide, including Marvin Minsky, Terence McKenna, Hans Moravec, Bruce Sterling, Robert Anton Wilson, Richard Seed, Margareth Wertheim, Kirkpatrick Sale, Ralph C. Merkle, Mark Pesce, Ray Kurzweil, Rabbi Youssouf Kazen, Rael and many others.

Part 1: Transhuman
Part 1 gives an overview of recent technological developments (biogenetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, implants, nanotechnology,…) and prognoses made by leading scientists about the impact of these developments in the near future.

Part 2: Preparing for the Singularity
In this part advocates and opponents of a transhuman future are weighed against each other; prognoses are done when we can expect the transhuman revolution and how people are preparing for it already now.

Part 3: The Metaphysics of Technology
This part covers the metaphysical consequences of the new technological revolution. On the one hand scientist start to use metaphysical concepts to describe the impact of their research, on the other hand, a surprisingly large number of scientific projects is inspired by religious aspirations and more and more theologians from any religious or spiritual belief are getting interested in these aspirations of new technology, making the discussion inextricable complex.

Babble es un sistema para crear poesía sonora automática, inspirado en el uso de vocablos para describir sonidos musicales, jugando en el espacio entre el discurso y la percepción sonora.

Sound poetry is poetry free from the usual contraints of syntax and semantics, where only the sounds of words are used to form the structure and feel of the poem. The Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters is one fine example.

Vocable words are used by musicians to describe the sounds their instruments make, while teaching, swapping tunes and during performance. In many cultures formal systems of vocable words have developed, including the bol syllables of the Indian tabla drums, and the canntaireachd of the Highland bagpipes.

Comparitative research into the perception of sound and speech has found both differences and correspondences. That there are two conflicting modes of perception is made clear by the phenomenon of sine wave speech. On the other hand scientific research such as that carried out by Aniruddh Patel shows correlations between the rhythm of music and speech in different cultures, as well as between neurological activations of the listeners of music and speech.

Babble sits on the boundary between speech and music, allowing play with the structure and form of simplified phonetics without having our perception hijacked by speech processing.

Under the hood is a physical model of a guitar string (Karplus-Strong synthesis), and a formant filter to produce vowel-like sounds. The different consonants control the excitation and noisiness of the string, and the vowels control the tuning and the formant filter. The result is something like a speech synthesiser, but with the vocal apparatus largely replaced with a single guitar string.

Although babble’s phonetic system is quite unlike that of English or any natural language, when faced with the text that generates the sound, as well as the vowel-like queues, the listener has the sensation of ‘hearing’ speech as the brain searches for meaning.

Babble is by Alex McLean and is written in the open source HaXe language, which compiles to javascript and flash. The source code is available under the GNU Public License version 3 or later.

Piksel08 :: festival
diciembre 4-7 2008

Piksel08 :: exposición
12 diciembre 08 – 25 enero 09

¿Cómo sueña el código? ¿Cuáles son los sueños del código?

Piksel08 examina el otro lado del código, una visión alternativa a una realidad establecida de trabajo y juego. El hardware abierto y el software libre proyectan una visión utópica, pero real dentro de las economías del capital; la fábrica de sueños de la tecnología establecida.

Dentro del encuentro fortuito sobre una mesa de disección de una máquina de coser y un paraguas, el hardware y el software se aplastan.

Piksel08: code dreams explora los sueños de esta máquina abierta; licenciados programando por placer, construcciones paranoicas de ingeniería inversa, prácticas de programación automáticas, hardware flexible y magia cotidiana.

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Sound and Healing

A call for resources for Radio Broadcast.

Sound and Healing is a triangulation between artists, practitioners and researchers focusing on healing and sound. How do artists create from a healthy place or access healing energy, ideas and sounds while creating their sonic art? What are the healing modalities currently being practiced around the globe where sound is a primary vehicle for positive change, health and wholeness? What research studies and resources of these uses of sound exist and what are the implications? How is sound changing the world… serving as a vehicle for healing, and an evolving humanity? These questions and more will be explored in a series of programs created for radio, distributed globally through the digital and analog means.

The Mexican Centre for Music and Sonic Arts (www.cmmas.org) will be promoting the
production of a series of 1 hour programs about this interesting and seldom addressed topic of sound and healing. Composer Paul Rudy will be gathering music, materials, views and experiences from artists, practitioners, and researchers, to create the series of shows that will be broadcast in Mexico and other countries and will be available online at www.cmmas.org

Materials ranging from audio tracks, personal anecdotes and experiences, citations, articles, names of artists/practitioners/researchers, papers, or anything else related to sound and healing are being solicited. Please email materials to paul@cmmas.org (music be can be emailed as mp3’s or sent directly to Paul Rudy along with other materials such as review copies of books and articles). These programs are about conversations from all view points, so please do not hesitate to send anything even tangentially related to sound and healing. Submission will serve as consent for materials to be used for broadcast. All material used will be given due credit or citation.

Deadline: February 1, 2009

Address for CD’s and Materials
Paul Rudy
1317 E. 97th Terrace
Kansas City, MO 64131
USA

Noticia en El País

Literal:
EE UU podrá realizar entrenamientos con sónar en California a pesar de las ballenas
El Supremo desestima la decisión de un juez federal que obligaba a la Marina “a tomar precauciones” porque la legislación protege a los mamíferos acuáticos de la zona

El Tribunal Supremo de Estados Unidos ha dictaminado hoy que la Armada podrá llevar a cabo ejercicios de entrenamiento con sónar en la costa del sur de California sin tener en cuenta la legislación para proteger a las ballenas, delfines y otros mamíferos acuáticos de la zona.

El Tribunal desestima así la decisión de un juez federal que obligaba a la Marina “a tomar precauciones” durante los ejercicios navales que la Armada comenzó en febrero de 2007 en el litoral californiano y que está previsto que finalicen en enero de 2009.

Entonces, grupos ecologistas interpusieron una demanda argumentando que las maniobras de los buques y submarinos militares resultan peligrosas para 37 especies marinas, entre ellas la ballena azul (en serio peligro de extinción). A su juicio, las ondas emitidas por las naves afectan a la capacidad de los animales para comunicarse entre sí e incluso para navegar, causando la muerte de gran cantidad de ellos.

Seguir leyendo…

Al parecer, en Marte el sonido no viaja muy rápido, sus propiedades físicas son las mismas que en la Tierra, obviamente, pero según una simulación realizada recientemente, allí el sonido tiene un tono más bajo y un alcance más corto.

El tono más grave se debe a que la atmósfera del planeta rojo está formada sobre todo por dióxido de carbono, con pequeños porcentajes de nitrógeno y argón y trazas de vapor de agua y oxígeno.

Según Amanda Hanford, una de las investigadoras al cargo de las pruebas, “cuando respiras de un globo de helio y hablas, tu voz se escucha más aguda. Suponiendo que pudiésemos respirar dióxido de carbono (que es muy tóxico), tu voz se escucharía más grave”

La distancia a la que puede viajar el sonido también se ve afectada por esos cambios atmosféricos. Al haber una presión más baja, el sonido no llega tan lejos. La teoría sugiere que un grito humano en la Tierra puede viajar poco más de un kilómetro antes de ser absorbido por la atmósfera. En Marte, el mismo grito se movería como mucho 15 metros.

Hay otros científicos que se han preguntado cómo sonaría la música en otros planetas. Tim Leighton, un profesor de acústica de la Universidad de Southampton, subraya que “todas las sondas que se han lanzado para explorar el sistema solar eran capaces de ver a través de cámaras… pero eran sordas. No estaban equipadas con micrófonos”.

El último intento de grabar sonido en Marte lo llevó a cabo la NASA, pero se perdió la comunicación con la sonda espacial, que llevaba un micrófono en miniatura, antes de entrar en la atmósfera del planeta.

Podéis encontrar más información en estos dos artículos:
Can you hear me now? Not on Mars
Ever Heard Bach, On Mars?

HUASCO SONGS is an art project based on a travel in Valle Huasco, Chile, in January 2007, by Stian Skagen, Gerardo Gonzales and Erikk McKenzie.

The videos on the site are a compilation of some of the sounds and images we recorded, mixed with recordings from an anti-Pascua Lama demonstration in Santiago the 21th of December 2006. Well, to make it short: All these impressions of another stupid human exploit of natural resources – putting water at risk in one of the driest regions on the planet – inspired us to create a performance together. It was performed in the Theaterschool Amsterdam and in La Poderosa, Barcelona, during May 2007.

We hope that through our creative work more people will get to know the situation in Valle Huasco, so that the clean water will keep flowing through the valley for as long as plants, animals and humans will need it to survive. AGUA VALE MAS QUE ORO.

Thanks to all the people we have met on our journeys, especially to Margarita & Papo, to Marcela & to all the powerful loving people we met in Arco Iris, Conay.

more info at: www.noapascualama.org

AlJazeera English: The environmental cost of Chile’s gold mines – 08 Jul 07