time: 5 hours per day (over 2-3 days)

size: 4-8 people

materials: large working table, quiet space with stereo sound system

This workshop is about the perception of sound and using observation to direct attention for understanding how sound affects the way we think about time and space. Space can be understood in many ways, but for our purposes we will focus on the “mapping” of space through experiences that range from cartography (map reading and making) to more personal impressions (drawings, notes, sketches). The workshop is based on making a series of listening, analysis and soundwalk exercises to highlight sensory awareness. The experiences of both public and mediated space form a base for use as material for creating different types of “maps”. The maps made help reflect both objective and subjective approaches and can be created using a range of means from drawing or photo collage to cartography and gps tracking. Through these exercises we will look at different ways of expressing the connections between sound, space and our presence that zooms from small details to the big picture, from the personal to the shared.

Participants from a diverse range of disciplines are encouraged to join (Art, Architecture, Music, Performance, Design, the Social Sciences etc.). No previous experience in working with sound is necessary. Please bring a pen, pencil and notebook. Digital recorders and/or cameras are optional accessories. Wear comfortable clothing.

Berlin workshop 9.2010

For 2 afternoons we worked in the Berlin district of Neuköln, exploring the urban cityscape, with its parks, street life and public interiors becoming a stage for active listening. Special thanks to the participants for dedicating their time and energy to this experimental field and to Mr Alebeek for coordination. The first day was spent analyzing several locations through a series of listening and observation exercises. We then paired up and made a blindfold soundwalk through the area.

going "blind" with a trusted guide

Numerous sketches and notes were generated during the exercises. What quickly becomes clear is the style and methods of expressing what one hears is as diverse and unique as the participants themselves. No clear pattern emerged other than the understanding that visual representations of sonic events and environments is not easy.

Jesse maps his memory of the blindfold soundwalk

my map of isolated sounds and typology fields relating to each other

The question of representation comes up again and again. It is humbling to take an intense listening experience and translate it into 2 dimension piece of paper. One even wonders what might be the point of such an exercise. In many ways, attempts to make visual documents may only be an excuse for opening your ears and taking in more than your average experience. The maps below are of a small area that we observed at the end of the final day. The bustling sunday afternoon activity was more than enough for our senses. Google’s satellite view hardly does justice to the space and our combined efforts only toughed the surface of the complexity of the soundscape, yet through the process several nice detailed “soundmarks” were revealed.

each map is a fragment but combing several together creates a more complete picture (Julia, Michaela, John)

the view of the area from outer space

…and a simple recording with 30 second takes from each corner of the bridge

4-perspectives-Berlin

]]> http://maaheli.ee/main/archives/1693/feed 3 http://maaheli.ee/main/archives/1588 http://maaheli.ee/main/archives/1588#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:48:51 +0000 john grzinich http://maaheli.ee/main/?p=1588

The time of the white nights is quickly passing. In this part of the year I try to make regular excursions out into the countryside to record during the late evening and early morning solitude. One of my favorite places to visit is an embankment on the western shore of Peipsi lake (bordering with Russia). If the air is still enough, the subtly changing colors of the sky reflect beautifully off the surface of the water. The photos above are just a humble tribute to this magical display of light. On this particular night, it was so quiet, there was almost nothing to record sound-wise except for the occasional fish leaping up to catch insects. Below are two excepts from longer recordings made in the past month.

This first recording was made by a small pond in the forest. There are frogs moving around directly in front of the mics, but you can hear many soft sounds in the distance from the forest and a remote farm.

This recording was made after the traditional mid-summer day (St. Johns day or Jaanipäev), when the evening soundscape shifts dramatically from bird life up in the trees to cricket and grasshopper life in the grassy open fields. Unfortunately there are mosquitoes present nearly all the time and they seem to like the furry wind covers on my microphones.

workshop: 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.

click on the radio aporee maps image below to hear recordings from the workshop

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/

In using sound as a departure point, we can easily drift into any number of fields, each with its own focus. Even though the medium is the same and concepts and techniques are shared, we end up with an array of different possibilities. With the simple formula of paying attention to sound, recording it, then editing it the result can end up being “art”(sound art, installation, experimental music), “science”(nature sound, acoustic ecology), “engineering”(acoustics, studio recording) or “entertainment”(film sound, sound design, radio) just to name a few. Apart from some random crossovers, it appears to me that each of these fields exists relatively independent from each other. Yet there is one defining link, the use and dependence on technology. There is one problem I’ve encountered during the process of giving sound workshop. Not everyone seems to understand the fundamental significance of sound, listening and our own cognitive process until you give them a microphone and a pair of headphones. How is it that it a technological interface helps so much to spark people’s imagination? I’ve often asked this for myself. If I’m so interested in acoustic perception, what’s the point to record anything at all? Yet I do and I’m quite deeply involved in using technology for recording and reproduction of sound.

Getting back to the various strands of audio cultures, I’ve come across some good “blogs”, particularly in the sound design field, of people who like to share what they record. It is possible that revealing some transparency in the process will help bridge some gaps between different fields. As people can see and hear more what goes on behind the scenes we can take note of some shared interests in the process, regardless of the outcome, particularly when it comes to thinking about awareness of our sound environments. It is also key that we maintain diversity and quality of our practices rather than quantity and authority to keep these respective fields open and dynamic. On a side note… I’ve noticed that the various fields here tend to be male dominated. This is a topic for another post, but when giving workshops I see no evidence that interest and attention and creative ability to to work with sound has anything to do with gender.

Sound Design / Film Sound / Field Recording

• Noise Jockey
• fieldsepulchra
• the music of sound
• sound + design
• chuck russom – audio guy
• ONPa ふろく.
• Surround2011.org
• Fieldcore

Nature Sound / Acoustic Ecology

• Nature Recordists email group
• Curt Olsen soundblog
• acoustic ecology news
• wildlife sound recording society
• listening earth blog

Misc. Projects and Resources

• Listen to Africa
• resources for studying sound recordings
• sound is art
• soundwalk.com blog
• positive soundscapes
• everyday listening

And to close, here’s a Newsweek article about audio ecologist Gordon Hempton’s work to raise awareness about silence and natural sound environments.

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.

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)

here are a few field recordings made during the week

highway bridge in Kiel near the university

Highway bridge knocks from traffic: bridge sound kiel mp3

—

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

project proposal for Eesti Rahva Muuseum

* * * * *
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.

During a recent revenant sound workshop in Tampere, Finland we took some time out to introduce a few basic recording techniques used in the field (it is good to remind ourselves that “field recording” is more a technique than a genre). This was to show what kind of things we do in practice to the participants who seemed more than curious to know. So we went out just to explore the territory and do some sound hunting for one hour. It didn’t take long to make some discoveries as well as understand the ambient noise levels due to traffic. I’m posting these recordings for the benefit of Michael and Jenni, the two participants who I went with on this excursion and to show what what kind of sounds can be found by randomly walking around.

short binaural recording in a nearby park: download link

contact microphones on a metal roof (melting snow): download link

metal sign picking up traffic sounds and radio interference: download link

magic metal railing on the side of the road: download link

…interviewed by Paulo Raposo

PR: How did you start working with field-recordings? And how did you first
start to integrate field-recordings in your music?

JG: Last month I had some childhood memories come to me that I would say are related to this question. I used to play with tape recorders as far back as I even knew how to operate one. These were playful exercises in recording made-up “songs” or secretly capturing parents conversations. The ability to record sound has always intrigued me in the way it seems to capture “something else”, more than just sound. When I was 12 or so I got a “boom box”, the kind with the built-in microphones. Sometimes strong storms would come through and I used to go out in the garage with the door open to record the heavy rain and thunder sounds. There was a certain thrill in capturing those moments of natural beauty.

Then, sometime around 1993 I began to work with Michael Northam and Seth Nehil, doing different sound experiments using what was available to us. I cant remember exactly what was our first use of “field recordings”. I don’t remember making a distinction between different types of recordings we made. For me it was simply recording sounds that interested me. There was a natural progression that came with our use of devices, objects, home-made instruments and tape recorders in improvised settings that grew from a “studio” setup into site-specific locations. We were interested not only in the sounds we were making but how they could be integrated into our surroundings. The early actions are not too well documented but Michael got a portable DAT recorder at some point, which was a significant boost in quality and we started recording everything. Recordings we made in different situations, settings or locations became integrated in our compositional works. Some of those could be defined as “field recordings”, yet they were often transformed through the composing process. For myself this slow evolutionary approach has been an integral aspect of my work. I see few defined borders in artistic techniques that approach the irony of the sound medium, in the way that you can “capture” sound while understanding the difficulty in “containing” it, while releasing it into space.

PR: Have you come to develop a grammar or vocabulary from the captured audio in your compositional techniques?

JG: I like the term “captured audio” (I think this came out of one of our discussions). It denotes a “living” quality of sound that you somehow capture this essence, process it, then set it free. The use of language with sound has always been a difficult one for me. Making experimental music and working with sound is essentially a non-linguistic form of communication. But rather than leave it at that I still try to develop an appropriate language to describe what I do in order to push the conceptual, philosophical and practical aspects of my work. Some people simply “understand” through listening, others don’t and like to have additional stories or descriptions related to the music.

PR: You studied architecture in Texas. How did it affect your compositional work and your awareness of space? I also know you are very interested in systems, behavioral systems that come from the realm biology. Could you tell me a little bit about this and how you integrate these in your music?

JG: I studied architecture in Kansas for about 3 1/2 years. That education showed me what I didn’t want to do with my life, but afterward there was still the question of what I was going to do. The actual study of architecture didn’t affect my personal approach to composition other than introducing elements of architectural vocabulary, how to shape, define space and so on. My understanding of sound and space came earlier, through intuitive listening exercises I did as a teenager. I used to do “deep listening” type exercises with certain music in order to visualize space. It was my way of “dreaming architecture” to get ideas. This type of active listening became a tool for creativity as it is inherently connected to visualization of the imaginary. I realized early on that when you limit the “input” of the visual sense (you close your eyes) the auditory sense becomes greatly enhanced. Therefor listening becomes a key for visualization. These kind of exercises I found out much later were practiced by Pauline Oliveros and others as forms of musical meditation. So “my” architecture, the personal notion of visualizing structures within space, was of course not the architecture they teach in Universities. So how then could I express this notion of space? It was eventually through my sound “research” in making experimental music that I was able to explore these understandings of how space is related to human perception. This then opens up a large discussion of what sound induced spatial relations mean. For me this is still a matter of curious speculation, but calls for continued work.

In the mid-90s while working on sound experiments with mnortham and Seth Nehil, we also often found ourselves in discussions about how to articulate verbally what we were doing sonicly. The aesthetic debates about whether the music was “post-industrial”, “electro-acoustic” or even genre related at all seemed pointless (and essentially is for reductive journalistic purposes). For this we looked to other sources for answers and and came to interesting topics in philosophy of science. At some point Michael came across the work of Maturana and Varela, the Chilean biologists, and their theory of Autopoietic systems. This at once had an appeal because it explains the role of “the observer” within the context of larger living systems. Here the observer is never a passive individual but always an active component of that which he/she is engaged with. As sound makers and composers our work has a function or purpose beyond the aesthetic judgments often perceived of as a linear progression of a defined historical lineage (that experimental activity being “ahead” or “advanced” leads to proven “results”). Sound is much more an aspect of something we can’t immediately understand, because it induces phenomenon such as visions (as I stated before) and physical matter (known as Cymatics). As the quantum physicist David Bohm has stated there is an inextricable relationship between thought and matter, that both are aspects of an unbroken process. So from these principles I began to consider my sound work more as a signification medium, a generator of meaning, and particular form of communication if you will. Like language, sound can also send messages, express structures and make statements but on a more abstract level. Systems theory helps describe this far more than than terms and concepts used in the disciplines of art and music. Again this has to do with language used to describe what I do, but this looks different in practice which is not very scientific at all.

PR: Someone, I think Barry Truax, said that in soundscape composition it is precisely the environmental context that is preserved, enhanced and exploited by the composer. What is your position regarding this subject? What is, if Lamy says so, the moral status of the captured audio inside your work?

JG: It depends how you define “soundscape composition”. These terms are relative. I don’t think you can preserve, enhance or exploit an environmental context any more than you can an FM signal from a synthesizer. There isn’t anything moral about this view other than I prefer to use self-induced or naturally occurring acoustic sounds in my work over electronically generated sounds. Acoustic sounds being what they are, are inextricable connected to a context, but of course once captured will be released somewhere else in another context (something like a zoo for sounds?). To put it more simply, for composing, I use the sounds I want to. I’m usually not trying to preserve or enhance the context as much as I am the experience of being in that context. Its much more ephemeral and subjective. In this way I enjoy transforming and obscuring my source material, to shift between an original context and an imaginary one. This is why environmental sounds are more interesting because of the richness and “complexity” of their original nature. Of course if you want to “preserve” a soundcape then it’s a scientific matter and not an artistic one. One needs to decide the “best” devices to record, store and reproduce those sounds and figure out how to get the resources to support your work.

this interview was originally conducted for the Binaural Media website.

website of Paulo Raposo.