Inconclusive Responses (12:17)

Composition produced from recordings made during the ‘New Maps of Time‘ workshop held in Prague, October 2009. This track is a remix of field recordings and improvisations we made at Skolska28 Gallery, Stromovka Park and the Dul Mayrau coal mine museum. Special thanks to Milos V for coordinating this and to the participants for their time and energy; Eliska S, Matěj G, Lucie P, Stanislav A, Matej K, Lucie J. Released in honor of the ‘praha – favourite sounds of‘ CD our now on Engraved Glass.

Introduced Species (12:31)

This track is a remix of an improvisation we made in the former sewage treatment plant in Bubeneč. Participants included Milos V.,  Eliska S, Matěj G, Lucie P, Stanislav A, Matej K, Lucie J.

Again, be sure to check out the ‘praha – favorite sounds of‘ CD out now on Jez Riley French’s Engraved Glass label.

‘sonic scratch cycles’ is the working title for a collaborative sound and drawing project between myself and EKU (Evelyn Müürsepp). The project is based on an ongoing series of collaborative site-specific actions recorded in different locations. Each location has its own spatial and material properties which are ‘translated’ into sounds and drawings. Each action is timed and lasts as long as it takes me to make one rotation around Evelyn, who sits in the center and draws what she hears. She wears a binaural microphone setup and listens through headphones as I improvise with activating the surroundings.

‘sonic scratch cycles’ was first presented as an installation as part of a group exhibition at Kibla in Maribor Slovenia. The drawings were presented in the circular hanging structure with two speakers providing the binaural soundtrack. The viewer/listener takes the role of of the ‘actors’ or ‘translators’ who preserved and presented the evidence of their actions.

Images and a recording from the opening performance at Kibla on August 26th, 2011.

Residency: August 4 – 21, 2011

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. This edition of the workshop focuses on the notion of personal narratives and the creation of ‘audible geographies’ through the process of exploring the sonic potential of Vienna. The workshop part is concentrated on collaborating with local guides who would show me around the town in an attempt to discover unique spaces, sonic effects and playable objects and structures. In return I share my interests in using sound to shape and form a different perspective through listening and developing simple site-specific activities and  interventions. Read the full project description…

Guides: For this edition I enjoyed working with guides for daily excursions around Vienna. The guides joined for however much time they had. Different guides joined for different days. The guides were friends or curious contacts who had an interest in walks, biking, wandering, psychogeography, urban exploration etc. Each guide showed some unique and interesting places in Vienna (parks, plazas, unique buildings or structures, abandoned or transitional spaces, rooftops, bridges, tunnels etc.). Excursions involved sound and/or video recording depending on what we found. Special thanks to the guides who took time to show me around: Tobias, Sari, Markus, Andrea, Rob, Elffriede, Uwe, Michael, Radmila,

Project timeline:

Thursday August 4th, 18:00 – Introduction and public presentation about New Maps of Time, Transforming Freedom Space in the MQ

Friday August 5th – Wednesday August 19th – field work with guides and collaborators, site-specific actions around Vienna

Saturday August 21st – presentation of workshop outcomes

click on the above image to listen to recordings made in Vienna

Residency hosted by Transforming Freedom and sponsored by X-OP

and below are two video documents edited from the material recorded in Vienna.

Click here to view the embedded video.

‘Vienna Sound Locations’ a sonic survey of various sites around the city, found while wandering and exploring.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This video shows a sonic effect of a concrete overhang that reflects the sound of water in the Wienfluss canal below. The masking effect of the water can be heard in the first minute although not in the second.

Dock e.V. (Berlin) and MoKS (Mooste) presents:

TUNED CITY TALLINN

Sonic Landmarks – a sonic path through Tallinn
official program of the European Cultural Capital Tallinn 2011

4th – 10th JULY 2011 / Tallinn Estonia

“Most people would probably say that architecture does not produce sound, it cannot be heard. But neither does it radiate light yet it can be seen. We see the light it reflects and thereby gain an impression of form and material. In the same way we hear the sounds it reflects and they, too, give us an impression of form and material”
(Steen Eiler Rasmussen – Experiencing Architecture (1959)

Hear Tallinn with new ears! Buildings and architecture are usually described in visual terms. But it is often our sense of hearing which assists us in experiencing and navigating through the spaces of urban cities.
There is no sound without space and no space without a sound. In every day life we are surrounded by the sounds of diverse nature and various origins. Language, sounds of nature and civilisation – sound as a carrier of information or as a factor of disturbance permanently encircles our consciousness.

Tuned City Tallinn will undertake an acoustic exploration of Tallinn. The goal will be to identify and explore the sonic landmarks of the city which define its identity, shape its communication and transform the perceptions of its visitors and inhabitants. A fascinating cross-section of international artists, performers, scientists and thinkers will be brought together to present their ideas about sound and space. In addition, the public will be invited to participate directly through a series of workshops and sound walks and experience diverse site-specific installations, performances and demonstrations.

[1] WORKSHOPS

[2] SPEAKING WITH SPACE – CONCERT PROGRAM

[3] SONORITY OF PLACE – CONFERENCE PROGRAM

[4] SITE SPECIFIC PROGRAM

—–

WORKSHOPS

In close collaboration with our partner Ptarmigan (http://ptarmigan.ee), we are offering a series of workshops short before and during the event in July. Invited artists will each share their individual tools for listening to the city, and offer both a deeper insight into their artistic practice and a chance for the participants to become actively involved in the program of the event. And whether those tools be telephones, acoustic tubes, electronic transducers, radio waves or physical movement, the participants in these workshops will never hear the city the same way again.

These workshops are open for registration right now:

City sounds concerts / June 28 – July 3 2011
with Ici-Même (Grenoble, F)
http://www.tunedcity.net/?page_id=1881

Methaphones workshop / July 4 + 5 2011
with Unsworn Telecom (Stockholm, SE)
http://www.tunedcity.net/?lp_lang_pref=en&page_id=1472

12-tone filter / July 4 – 10 2011 (during the event)
with eyland 07, René Rissland, Jürgen Lehmeier (Nürnberg, D)
http://www.tunedcity.net/?page_id=1478

Tuning the City / July 5 – 10 2011 (during the event)
with Mads Bech Paluszewski (Copenhagen, DK)
http://www.tunedcity.net/?page_id=1715

framework radio – documentation and production / July 7 – 10 2011 (during the event)
with Felicity Ford (UK) and Valeria Merlini (IT / D)
on behalf of Patrick McGinley, framework radio (US / EE)
http://www.tunedcity.net/?page_id=1503

An overview can be found here: http://www.tunedcity.net/?lp_lang_pref=en&page_id=950

—–

SPEAKING WITH SPACE – CONCERT PROGRAM

07.07.2011 20:00
Charles Curtis (US) – Naldjorlak (by Eliane Radigue)

08.07.2011 21:00
Charlemagne Palestine (BE) – Schlingen Blängen (organ performance)

Click here to view the embedded video.

09.07.2011 21:00
Thomas Ankersmit (NL/D) – Saxophone and Synthesizer Improvisation

10.07.2011 21:00
Maja S.K. Ratkje (NO) – Electro-acoustic Vocals

Traditional and classical music often treat the performance hall as a tabula rasa to be inscribed with sound, and even improvised music can overlook the site it is performed within as an important factor. So what happens when a musician decides to play a duo with space as the partner?

Tuned City has invited four vibrant, innovative and influential contemporary performers to address the topic of sound and space through four individual music performances. Each artist has developed a special relationship over their career with their chosen instrument–the cello, the organ, the saxophone and the voice–which becomes like a spoken idiom to them. Using this unique language, the performers will engage in dialog with a variety of spaces, from the warm, wooden intimacy of a 14th Century horse mill to the cold, concrete depth of Soviet-era industrial structures.

Read more: http://www.tunedcity.net/?lp_lang_pref=en&page_id=1268

Buy Tickets: http://www.piletilevi.ee/est/piletid/tallinn_2011/muusika/?show=22397

—–

SONORITY OF PLACE – CONFERENCE PROGRAM

This series aims at drawing correspondences between ‚architecture‘ and ‚sound‘ to a more primary relation between notions of ‚place‘ and ‚practices of listening‘. In other words to underscore an interplay between the sense of being ‚situated‘ and the intentionality of what is being ‚heard‘. It is from within this primary level of interactions that a sense of ‚sound‘ as well as a notion of ‚site‘, and by extension ‚architecture‘, are derived in the first place. For the current constellation of talks and presentations a particular emphasis is placed on an understanding of listening, not a biological constant, but rather a ‚practice‘ that both shapes and is shaped by various contexts. In this sense every mode of hearing is understood to be distributed across a diversity of practices and disciplines.

Talks and presentations as well as pertinent artist projects and presentations included in this Tuned City event draw upon recent developments in such diverse fields as urbanism, art and architecture history and theory, philosophy, sensory history, sensory ethnography, archaeoacoustics and musicology, getting closer to what may be at stake in auditory models of ‚situated-ness‘. One common approach, shared by the various practitioners, understands the ‚sonic imagination‘ to be an operative mode of thinking. It is this mode of thinking that potentially engages the social, aesthetic and even ethical, political implications of an attentiveness to the sonority of place. Please have a closer look:

http://www.tunedcity.net/?page_id=1378

—–

SITE-SPECIFIC PROGRAM

To properly explore the sonic effects possible within the cityscape, it is often necessary to move beyond the traditional model of the seated conference- or performance-audience. For Tallinn 2011, we aspire to present a selection of innovative and fresh sound experiences across several specially-selected locations in the city.

Taking place each afternoon, the Site Specific Projects are a modular series of parallel programs featuring soundwalks, performances, installations and interventions. These projects involve the audience in a new way of experiencing sound and space through the use of sculptural, graphical, musical and sonic means. Some of the projects are designed for a small group of people, keeping the experience of the project both participatory and intimate. Such projects may be offered several times during the Tuned City event. Other projects may only be offered once within the context of the conference program, and some may require registration to keep the audience within a certain size. Please check the project descriptions at our website for more information:

http://www.tunedcity.net/?page_id=1446

Gallery #1

Gallery #2

Sponsors

June 11-12, 2011, Helsinki Finland

Organized by Äänen Lumo

Led by John Grzinich and Patrick McGinley

Temporal Soundings was a unique 2 day workshop and overnight retreat that took place at Galleria Oksasenkatu 11 and the surrounding urban area in central Helsinki. The focus of the workshop was on the temporal aspects of sound recording and site-specific sound activity combining found objects and spatial interventions. The program of the workshop revolved around working with and analyzing two contrasting times of day, midnight and mid-day. Using these two times as a frame, we looked at the natural soundscape, found materials and physical spaces as ‘sonic potential’ for human intervention. This involved a range of activities from passive listening exercises to more active explorations using improvisation and game play. The focus developed into working within an hour long session at opposite times of the day, midnight to 1 am and noon to 1 pm by 3 separate groups in different parts of the city. Several concise 5 minute field recordings were made by each group that explored both active and passive approaches to interventions within specific sites. Following these ‘magic hour’ sessions we listened back to the recordings to analyze the temporal aspects of the sounds, events and actions that were documented.

The following recordings are excerpts from recordings I made in collaboration with two of the participants, Kikka and Joel. The first half of each track was from the evening and the second was from the same location approximately 12 hours later. See what differences you notice while listening.

Passive field recording, small marina

Small intervention, tree and park sounds

Site-specific action, playing the Sibelius sculpture

Special thanks to the participants for their enthusiasm and energy and to Otso and Juuso for their exceptional organization.

Special thanks to Veljo Runnel for leading an excellent workshop on Nature Sound Recording, sharing his experiences from the last 10 years and extensive knowledge on bird species. The group spent one early morning and one full evening out in the field, analyzing and collecting sounds. We then listened to the recordings that were made an identified the animal species that were heard. Comparisons of different recording setups were helpful to in defining both aesthetic and scientific approaches to the sounds that were captured.

read the full summary of the workshop on the MoKS blog

listen to this mix of four recordings I made during the workshop

1. creaking tree and morning birds by the Ahja river
2. lone Tangmalm’s Owl (Karvasjalg kakk) in the forest
3. Spotted Crake (Täpikhuik)
4. Morning chorus near Ahunapalu with Cranes

During the week of April 11-17th, I spent the week in an area of Nuremberg known as Muggenhof, as part of a mini-Tuned City event. Our base was a building known as the Quelle, an extremely large facility that for many years, housed the distribution of goods from the Quelle catalog mail order company. The company has since closed so the building remains largely unused. We were very fortunate to have access to such a facility for the workshop.

The workshops focused on a wide variety of topics from recording techniques and microphone types to perception of sound and using architecture as an instrument. Because of the relatively low turnout of participants everyone worked together sharing knowledge and experiences.

The following recording was composed from a series of sound actions that intended to highlight the acoustic qualities of seven different spaces in the Quelle. For each recording the same set objects and structure of action was used. In this case 4 metal waste baskets found in the building were dragged evenly from corner to corner by 4 people.

Other aspects of the workshop included sound recording theory and practice overview led by Derek Holzer. This led to mapping and recording of sounds throughout the Muggenhof district by participants of the workshop. A ‘sound map’ was then made using the Radio Aporee Maps interface and presented at the end of the week. Click on the image below to see the map.

The scale of the Quelle building is impressive. One can spend hours wandering the 5 floors, much as I did. A survey of the Quelle spaces can be seen and heard in this video (please use headphones):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Special thanks to Carsten, Rene, Jurgen for helping organize this, the city of Nürnberg for support and especially to the participants of our workshops for their time and energy.

Report from the New Maps of Time sound workshop Torun Poland.

Click here to view the embedded video.

‘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. This edition of the workshop focuses on the notion of personal narratives. Rather than work with a group read the full project description…

This workshop concentrated on collaborating with local guides who would show me around the town in an attempt to discover unique spaces, sonic effects and playable objects. In the end I worked with 5 guides who were very helpful and engaged in the process of exploring the city through sound.

click the map above to listen to the sounds on Radio Aporee Maps

Click here to view the embedded video.

Workshop organized by Krzysztof Gutfrański, and hosted by the Center for Contemporary Art Torun, from April 4th-9th 2011. Special thanks to Krzysztof Gutfrański and the helpful people at CSW for arranging this workshop.

Over the past year I’ve been developing a workshop concept that involves a whole range of ideas. The workshop known as “Mutopia” started somewhat accidentally last year at MoKS summer symposium AVAMAA when I decided to collaborate with Tero Nauha, a researcher and performance artist from Finland. We both had our own workshop plans but combined them to form something new. The outcome was more than we expected and therein was one of the core ideas, to create something that is collaborative, all inclusive and provides conditions for open exchanges. What follows is a general frame for the efforts of the participants to be coordinated. As I describe on the new Vimeo page:

Mutopia is a process oriented workshop environment that explores collaboration, collective creativity and open forms of authorship. This is done through social and environmental research, exercises, games and the use of mixed artistic media such as sound, collage, text, performance etc…

The videos here are composted aspects of the process but should not necessarily be considered the only “results”. The outcome is more the subjective experiences of the individuals who participate and contribute.

The collaborative aspect is essential. I’m trying not to steer a particular direction for the group and avoid the format and product mentality. The videos came out because of the possibility to layer the different processes into some composite form but other outcomes are there. Some of the texts hold well on their own as well as the readings of the texts. This is the importance of understanding the strength of subjectivity, that each participant sees their own contribution in the whole, where collective authorship is the prime motivation once people open up and get inspired. the narratives come directly out of the process and in fact are multiple.

I’m interested in being much more of a guide for the processes and mediator of the ideas than an artist who shapes the world around me to “fit” certain ideas. With each step of the process we break to desire to determine goals allowing indeterminacy to take its course.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mutopia locations:

Mutopia 1 – AVAMAA MoKS Summer art symposium – 8.2008
Mutopia 2 – X-OP symposium, Macao Portual – 4.2009
Mutopia 3 – AVAMAA MoKS Summer art symposium – 8.2009
Mutopia 4 – Polymer Culture Factory, Tallinn – 12.2009
Mutopia 5 – Jelgava University, Latvia – 12.2009
Mutopia 6 – X-OP symposium, Tomar Portugal – 5.2010

It has been a while since my last post, which was partly due to my being away in Portugal for most of April. Something of a sister project to MoKS has started up there known as the Binaural Media residency. It too is located in a rural village setting and aims to integrate the work of visiting artists into the local social and cultural climate. Also like MoKS, Binaural is committed to hosting a number of sound artists each year in an attempt to broaden the connections between sound, culture and the surrounding environment. Consequently the residency was in line with my own work and allowed me the freedom and the focused time to make a lot of great recordings.

An overview of my Nodar Flowlines project can be found here.

Before leaving Nodar, I had the chance to talk with Maile Colbert and Rui Costa about the role of sound in the mission of Binaural Media and how it plays into the work of visiting artists. Below is a 12 minute interview that I think covers a number of these topics in depth.

Sound art and Binaural Media discussion with Maile and Rui – interview (12:00): mp3 file

Resonance Ensemble is an exercise in physical interaction with material objects, challenging human perception of acoustic phenomenon and guiding peoples intuition of group dynamics. This type of sound action? is carried out in a workshop context with a group of 10-20 people. The participants of the ensemble take everyday common objects such as rocks, jars, bowls, leaves, bells, etc. and transform them into acoustic sound-making devices. When a set of uniform objects is “played”? by larger group of individuals the sound is multiplied and takes on new and unique qualities. The objects are shaken, moved or rubbed in a repetitive, sometimes rhythmic fashion, to bring out the acoustic properties of the objects. From the resulting sound, overtones, voices and patterns often form out of the “chaos”?. The overall sound fills the space and takes on the character of the group. The focus is not on the individual participant, but on the function of the group as a whole. Outside observers are discouraged. In this manner, the participants in the group are also the audience. In many cases a “sacred”? environment is created as the participants redirect their listening attention to the whole sound in the space instead of their individual actions. Several attempts of 10-20 minute sound actions for each particular object is usually necessary for people to focus their perception on listening and to achieve the “ego-less”? state of the group. The result is often an enriching and enjoyable experience for the participants. The only requirements are the spontaneity and open attention of the ensemble participants.

Resonance Ensemble installation. Stazione Topolo, Italy (7/99)
locally found objects like these ceramic roof tiles were used.

Resonance Ensemble has been held in Austin, Texas and at the Stazione Topolo’/ Postaja Topolove festival ’99 in Topolo’ Italy. Recordings of each action are archived and used in the studio for sound compositions.

A description of the Resonance Ensemble recording sessions this spring in Austin, getting to the mood of each gathering… by Seth Nehil (6.8.99)

Like a young child whose impressions are still forming, these sounds grasp at a sense of tactitlity and recognition, simultaneously eluding it. The crystalline iris-circles are open to deep emotional impressions, seeking out a new contact. These sounds carry their own weight – without the imposition of an internal progression. The processes proceed with their own momentum, moving us forward in time. Softening the skin of the inner ear, opening to the inner dynamics of wave-forms.

(2.21.99 evening)

We gathered in the empty lecture-hall of an uninhabited school building, the crisp echo of the room muted slightly by the presence of our bodies. The rows of empty chairs staggered upwards at a sharp angle – an implied audience. We passed out the plastic reeds and affixed large paper cones to them. We placed the four microphones in a rectangular fashion and distributed ourselves at varying distances. The wavering tones of the reeds pierced through the space like bleating animals or unquiet birds. Playing with vague rhythms, we overlapped and intersected the lines of wavering tones.

We are moving from an interest in specific materials and manipulations towards an interest in organization and acousticality. Organization is a self-producing, evolutionary structure, not an imposed hierarchy. Fields of intelligence and communication between people or sounds occur on a moment-to-moment basis. Influence builds, reaching a catastrophe point and giving way to a new trend which was implied by the one proceeding. Representations of natural processes are also the processes themselves in operation.

Each finding a container of various material – metal, plastic, cardboard, glass – we filled them with handfuls of bean. Tipping the containers created a wave of hushing pink noise. Dropping the beans from a height created pointillistic interspersions. We each travelled throughout the space, moving in relation to the microphones, in and out of proximity.

(3.14.99 evening)

We gathered at the house because of its quietude. The approximately square, unfurnished living-room led into a dining area with a low table, and a kitchen where food simmered. Closing the windows, we gathered in a circle, the microphones among and above us. Humming with closed lips, we started slowly and spontaneously reached a tone that resonated within the dry acoustics of the sparse room. Rumbling through the chest cavity and down through the limbs, up into the nasal cavity and vibrating the head, closed into the body by tight lips, yet resonating within the space of the room, passing through the air to interact with it. Cycles of silence and activity, inhalation and exhalation.

The concepts of consonance or dissonance have been abandoned, yet adjustment of pitch becomes an important element in the final stages of mixing – a fine tuning of the interactions of layers. Pitch has an active role in the defining the quality of moods, interlocking sound bodies into an embrace. Drops of dew in the sweetness of a kiss, as sound bodies merge into a revolving whole, take on mass and weight, begin to breathe…

see also the Sound Cellar Project