Sonic Surveys of Tallinn

exploring, mapping and field recording of urban soundscapes

 

SOUND WORKSHOP
May 18-22, 2010
5 days, 12-15 people

led by: John Grzinich, Derek Holzer, Patrick McGinley
workshop module conducted in the frame of Tuned City, Tallinn 2011 Culture Capital

free and open to the public
questions and registration to: info[ät]maaheli.ee

This interdisciplinary workshop (of artists, architects, anthropologists, geographers) concentrates on exploring working methods for mapping and documenting urban spaces and architectural structures of the city of Tallinn. The methods used will combine research and practical skills in surveying and recording the “sonic geographies” found throughout the city. As Tallinn has radically different zones, both architecturally and socially  our research aims to reflect expose and reflect the variety of soundscapes to be found there.

This would include the practical elements of an overall “field recording” and “listening” workshop with an introduction to sound, soundscape and field recording techniques. The structure of the workshop divides the overall group of participants into several small scouting teams (3 groups of 4 or 5 people) that make excursions to different districts of the city. A range of locations could include the Soviet ‘plattenbau’ districts like Lasnamäe and Õismäe, the park areas of Kadriorg and Nõmme and the seaside districts of Pirita and Kopli (or whatever else can be introduced) for example.

Mapping the possible overlays of sonic regions or even specific sounds will help define potential “sonic landmarks”, as one of the main themes for the Tuned City event to be held in July of 2011. Afterward we can pool the coordinates and recordings into a “map” or Survey of Acoustic Geography of Tallinn.

satellite view on radio aporee maps

Program:

Tuesday 18.5
Introductory session: soundscape listening, sonic geographies, survey methodologies

Wednesday 19.5 – Friday 21.5
Survey sessions: field work with location scouting and sonic surveys of Tallinn city districts (parks, neighborhoods, buildings, abandoned spaces etc.), 3 groups

Saturday 22.5
working session: preparation of the Sonic Survey Map of Tallinn, assembling documents from the survey sessions (recordings, photos, videos, sketches, notes).

Saturday 29.5
presentation/exhibition at Tuned City public event, project introduction of “Tuned City – Sonic Landmarks Tallinn 2011″

About the workshop leaders:

John Grzinich (1970) has been conducting various forms of sound research for over 15 years, including field recording, kinetic sculptures, electro-acoustic composition, performance, group workshops and exercises in listening. Currently he lives in Estonia and works as a program and media lab coordinator for MoKS, a non-profit artist-run center in south Estonia.

Derek Holzer (1972) is an American sound artist living in Berlin, whose current interests include DIY analog electronics, sound art, field recording and the meeting points of electroacoustic, noise, improv and extreme music. He has played live experimental sound, as well as taught workshops in Pure Data and electronics, across Europe, North America, Brazil and New Zealand.Holzer is currently a fellow at the KHM (Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln) in Cologne. http://macumbista.net/

Patrick McGinley (1974) is an american born sound and performance artist who has lived and worked in europe since 1996. from 1996 until 1998 he lived in paris, where he studied theatre, and began his sound experiments in the context of those studies. he has composed works for several theatre performances, including the works of his own company, as well as performing live soundworks for others. in 2002 he co-founded framework an organisation that produces a weekly radio show on london’s resonance 104.4fm. his work concentrates on the framing of sounds from our environment which normally pass through our ears unnoticed and unremarked, but which out of context become unrecognisable, alien and extraordinary. http://www.murmerings.com/

About Tuned City:

Tuned City is a platform which proposes an examination of the relations between architecture and sound. This ongoing project draws the traditions of critical discussion about urban space within architecture and urban planning discourse – as well as its strategies and working methods – into the context of sound art. This expanded discussion reinforces the potential of the spatial and communicative properties of sound as a tool and means of urban practice. Tuned City continues as a platform, exploring other cities and locations with their own cultural and social settings, working theoretically and practically on the question how sound and architecture are related.
http://www.tunedcity.net/

‘New Maps of Time’ is a project and workshop about mapping architectural structures and urban spaces using sound as a means to analyze and express actions within a space. read the full project description…

Workshop organized by Full Pull, and hosted by MEDEA, on May 10th, 2010. Special thanks to Mathias Holmberg and the helpful people at MEDEA for arranging this workshop.

Below is a gallery of images taken while walking blindfolded during a soundwalk. The camera was pointed at sounds that I heard.

 

The afternoon was spent making coordinated sound exercises in the bunker-like former ship building structure.

 

Report from the New Maps of Time sound workshop Calgary Canada

‘New Maps of Time’ is a project and workshop about mapping architectural structures and urban spaces using sound as a means to analyze and express actions within a space. read more…

Workshop organized by EMMEDIA, artist-run project space, from April 20th – 23rd, 2010. Special thanks to Tomas Jonsson and the helpful crew at EMMEDIA for coordinating this event and to Eesti Kultuurkapital for travel support.

Click the image to see the Calgary Sound Map on Radio Aporee

Some notes… Calgary is a modern city that sprawls out on the plains of western Canada just east of the Canadian rocky mountains. On the surface the usual urban soundscape of car traffic and construction noise blankets the subtleties of the larger environmental context that could potentially link the city’s relatively close proximity to nature (there are few industrial relics downtown). An abundance of paths along the river and an active public life offer more space to more diverse aspects of navigating the city. This where I found some of the more unique elements explored during the workshop. There were two pedestrian suspension bridges over the river that are highly dynamic structures rich with sonic qualities. The pedestrian network downtown known as the +15 walkway system is a feature of the city that blurs the boundary of public and commercial space. A study of the bridges of the +15 system gave a different sonic and visual perspective than the standard street level counterpart. This can be seen in the videos compiled below.

The Sound Locations channel on Vimeo has 3 videos made during the workshop. All sounds were left as they were recorded (no effects or processing done during post production):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

New Maps of Time sound workshop/residency Istanbul Turkey

‘New Maps of Time’ is a project and workshop about mapping architectural and urban spaces using sound as a means to express actions within a space. read more…

Workshop carried out in the frame of my X-OP residency at Apartment Project, artist-run project space, from February 8 – March 8, 2010

click the above Istanbul Sound Map to hear the recordings in Istanbul on Radio Aporee Maps

Some comments… It was both a pleasure and an adventure spending a month in Istanbul exploring the rich and often noisy environment of this great metropolis. The workshop went as well as could be expected especially considering how busy people are, making it a challenge to work continually as a group. Regardless, having a chance to collaborate with a diverse range of artists, musicians, architects and designers was always enjoyable and productive. I am thankful particularly to Muharrem Yıldırım, Onur Güngör, İdil Tunga, Natali Arslan, Nurgül Öztürk, Cansu Tolunay and Fulya Uçanok for taking time to share in our explorations of the city and work collaboratively in the process of sound making and recording. It’s also important to mention the generous efforts of the Apartment Project team for hosting and coordinating this workshop.

Some of the activities included in the workshop this month: building microphones (contact mics, hydrophones, binaurals), various city excursions to Maçka Park and Karaköy, trips to Burgazada and Heybeliada (islands), and a trip to Santralistanbul (Bilgi University campus). We concentrated on a wide range of activities as well, from passive analysis of soundscapes and acoustic architecture to active engagement with certain locations through objects and materials we found there. The gallery below is a small overview of these activities (photos by: Enise Gökbayrak, Onur Güngör, Muharrem Yıldırım and myself).

 

The Sound Locations channel on Vimeo has 6 videos of collaborative efforts made during the workshop. Here are a few highlights:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

‘Islands’ a 14 minute film documenting trips to the Adalar (Prince’s Islands)

Click here to view the embedded video.

just a short report on the workshop at CTM which went very well considering the various weather conditions in Berlin this week. Udo Noll the creator and developer of Radio Aporee Maps has revived the possibility of integrating a GPS locating function that works with the main website. A small application loaded onto a GPS enabled mobile phone can track your movement when enabled. Your path is then recorded and when played back, is synchronized with the existing sounds on Radio Aporee Maps. The different data layers (sounds, GPS track) are then mixed to create something of a fictional “sound walk”. While the recorded paths may stay the same the mix of sounds will continually change as new sounds are added to the map. To hear some examples, visit the Radio Aporee Maps Mobile page. Click on any of the files with ‘ctm workshop’ in the title and see some paths. Also, a number of new sounds were added during the week, particularly around Alexanderplatz, Rathauspassage and Klosterstrasse by myself and other workshop participants.

From January 23rd to 29th I gave a workshop for Art Pedagogy students in Kiel. The theme was based around ‘sound installation’ yet we went through many of the basics of the behavior and properties of sound as well as perception and social aspects of sound. I want to thank Pipe Lange for organizing this and Hannah, Annika, Nadine, Yasmin, Charlotte and Ramona for their participation. (photos by Lange and Grzinich)

highway bridge in Kiel near the university

Highway bridge knocks from traffic: bridge sound kiel mp3

Kiel harbor on a winter day

Kiel harbor sounds, ice, waves, ferry, planes, birds: Kiel harbor sounds mp3

January 23 – 29
Sound workshop for Art Pedagogy students of Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Keil

January 31 – February 2
radio aporee ::: sound/tracks workshop, CTM Festival (assisting Udo Noll)

February 5, 19:00
Panel Talk: “Put Your Ear on the Wall – Tuned City: Platform for Examinations in the Field Between Architecture and Sound” CTM Festival, with Carsten Stabenow [DE] / Sam Auinger [AT/DE] Derek Holzer [US/DE]

February 6, starts 21.12 ends 23.30
Das Kleine Field Recordings Festival mid winter edition, performance with Paulo Raposo and murmer at K77

February 8 – March 8
X-OP Residency at Apartment Project in Istanbul. Conducting second edition of “New Maps of Time” workshop/project

April 2010
Portland, San Francisco, Calgary (details coming soon)

* * * * *
Presentation at Eesti Rahva Muuseum, November 26th 2009

Soundscapes of Estonia is a research project and proposal for the Estonian National Museum as a non-local real-time sound environment. The term soundscape can be defined as the totality of sounds one may hear at any given location. The project attempts to illustrate and help us understand the significance of soundscapes in relation to national heritage as aspects of both ecological and cultural spheres. The event will begin with a talk on sound, human perception and the notion of soundscape as it relates to natural and man-made environments along with an introduction to the project idea. The second part will be a soundscape listening concert composed of archive recordings made by John Grzinich in Estonia and live sound sources transmitted via the internet.

Project Proposal

This project proposal can be considered for a temporary exhibition or as a frame for a permanent exhibition in the future national museum as a non-local, real-time, interactive space.

Purpose: “Soundscapes of Estonia” is a multi-purpose platform for scientific research, artistic intervention and interactive public interface for sound as a primary human perceptual medium particularly as is relates to an understanding of the environment and our relation to it. It turns the question of “What does a country sound like?” into a perceptual process.

We begin with the notion of ‘soundscape’ as an integral component for connecting human sound perception to a greater awareness of our overall natural and man-made landscapes. Any soundscape is the totality of sounds one may hear at any given location (as a phenomenon of our perception of acoustic sounds). Soundscapes can be nearly silent or very polluted with noise depending on the activity of the area. No soundscape is “pure” and is a combination of many sources from natural to industrial that change continually from moment to moment and throughout the year in different seasons. With various technical means to capture the soundscape, sounds can be either isolated, filtered out or left as a whole. With a proper technical setup, users can be exposed to the various elements of our complex non-local soundscapes, and be given the possibility to isolate, filter and mix each location or recombine them to for new fictional environments.

Interface: The platform would encourage public involvement through 2 means; an online ‘virtual’ platform and a physical space in the museum. Both interfaces would involve establishing an infrastructure for recording and transmitting sound signals from a variety of locations or ‘soundscape environments’ around Estonia. The aim is to capture different soundscapes and relay the sources to a central point for the public to experience. Each interface would allow the users to mix the channels transmitted from the source locations to either isolate a particular environment or combine them to form a type of acoustic composition.

The signals could be transmitted live via internet streams to a central server where they could be distributed for public use. Both the online platform and physical exhibition space would function as a mixer (much like a sound mixer/heli mikser) where the sound sources can be combined. The exhibition would require a low light quiet room isolated from other sounds with a set of speakers and a mixing table of volume controlled knobs or sliders with descriptions of the sound sources (if a special room cannot be used then users can wear headphones). An online version could function in a similar way, with a mixer that outputs the sound through a users home computer. Other devices such as gps enabled mobile phones can be integrated as the technology develops (some prototypes are in development).

Soundscape environments (examples of 10 possible locations):

1. Urban (public park or square)
2. Urban (high density traffic zone)
3. Rural inhabited (small village, farm)
4.  Rural Natural (National forest/park)
5. Rural Natural (seaside, lakeside)
6. Aquatic life (underwater sea/lake)
7. Ambient interior (public foyer of the Museum)
8. Kinetic and sculptural (object interacting with natural elements of wind or water such as bridges, old telephone wires or artistic structures)
9. User contributed (via internet website or sound map)
10. Estonian historical media archive (selected museum or radio archive clips)

(anywhere from 5-10 channels can be used depending on the technological capability)

Sound research: Since the soundscape is as active, dynamic and ever-changing as any other aspect of the environment, it offers great potential for research, both scientific and artistic. Researchers such as Fred Jüssi have been studying sounds of animal behavior and messaging for decades, and have built up a significant level of information on sound and the environment as well as a database of recordings. This has had an impact on the fields Biology and Semiotics (see biosemiotics) as well as for artists and the growing general public attitudes towards sound and listening. Therefore the Eesti Helimaastikud project could also serve as a metaphor for mixing interests of these different fields and the public sector by bringing them together on  common experiential level.

kevad/spring 2009

Suur aitäh ERM, http://www.erm.ee/
Thanks to Locus Sonus and MOKS for technical support.

Workshop Dates: 9-13th October 2009

Festival Dates: 10-16th October
in collaboration with FAMU, Skolska28, Open EYE project, Four Days in Motion festival, Biennial Vesitges of Industry

online: Radio Aporee Maps | Prague Favourite sounds

Site-specific sound actions:

Museum of former Sewage Plant – Piece for 10 underground channels: mp3 file

Passage way in central Prague – Komedie Pasaz action with multiple mics: mp3 file

Stromovka Park in Prague – Clapping action with multiple mics: mp3 file

 

Video gallery on Vimeo

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Concept

‘New Maps of Time’ is a project and workshop about mapping spaces (mental, architectural and natural) using sound as a means to express actions within a space. The project process works with the basic understanding that artistic creativity can be a ritual by which we live out and  share the subjectivity of our own experiences. This inherent subjectivity must be  understood not only as an intellectual notion but through means of participatory activity on  different levels of personal, collaborative (between artists) and contextual actions (interventions in a space). The emphasis here is on subjectivity as articulated through direct experience of social intervention over the mediated representational forms of listening we are used to (“music” and “entertainment” of mass media).

Sound, as perceived by one of our primary senses hearing, is one of the best ways in which to explore the subjectivity of personal and collective experience and to test our own creative abilities. By using sound we develop means to map both space and social relations with our own cognitive process. In order to refine these cognitive maps we introduce constraints such as activities, materials, durations and the physical dimensions of the surrounding build environment. These constraints are the boundaries by which we can reference our own activities for interpretation and discussion to help further refine the activities.

In addition, we employ more objective external references (commonly known as recorded media) to add to the mix. The plethora of digital media recording devices offer a set of tools from which to develop an array audio-visual narratives for sharing on the local level and throughout any network these devices may be connected. Both processes, the cognitive and the mediated aim to increase the level at which we find recursive modes of information exchange integrated with the artistic working method.

Process Plan

The project involves spending a few days in and around the city, mapping various spaces and locations (parks, public squares, roof tops, industrial buildings etc.) through sound by using simple objects (glass jars, plates, wires, found objects etc…). One possibility is to use the same set of objects, but play them in different spaces. I  would like to work with a small team of students or local artists to help play these objects as a sort of free-form ensemble who gets to develop their abilities through the activities of the project. These participants can be local artists from abroad. I will record these actions and keep a record of the times and places where they took place (and make short films from video recordings as well).

The actions will involve generating acoustic sounds and patterns from the objects we have and/or find in the space to activate each location. Working together we will explore the balance between our gestures and movements to create sounds and the intelligibility by which we communicate through sounds (this has been thoroughly explored in various workshops. See the documentation from the Sound as Space, Sound as Language workshop developed with Patrick McGinley and Maksims Shentelevs or the Revenant sound project.

At the end of each action the working group would evaluate their experiences in a short discussion session as well as by listening to or watching the recordings. A selection of the recordings would be made and edited for the potentially use in the final performance lecture. The sound recordings would also be uploaded on the internet to Radio Aporee Maps which gives an overview from areal satellite maps of the different locations.

Performance/Lecture

The final presentation phase would be a “New Maps of Time” performance/lecture on the “sound mapping” process using the various materials collected and edited during the  residency including sounds, video, website, Radio Aporee, and even the objects used. This mix of material offers a representative experience of the workshop as compressed time, a nonlinear narrative with which to engage the public. As much as possible, the presentation space itself would be transformed into an instrument, a hollow body to enter and and be transported to the spaces and shared experiences of the working group from the previous weeks.

This workshop also will give a basic overview on both technical and artistic processes using sound, video and web based media.

———-
Past workshops:

New Maps of Time workshop, Prague/Kladno Czech Republic (10.2009)

New Maps of Time workshop, Istanbul Turkey (2.2010)

New Maps of Time workshop, Calgary Canada (4.2010)

New Maps of Time workshop, Malmö Sweden (5.2010)