22.10.11

Immersion into Noise=a great read available online ...

14.10.11

Beautiful sound machines

... work by renowned European sound sculpture artist, Peter Vogel. The Sound of Shadows, curated by Faculty of Arts academics Jean Martin and Conall Gleeson, features a significant number of Vogel's important works - interactive objects, which respond to the movements of gallery visitors.

At the exhibition’s core are two innovative and interactive large-scale works, the Sound Wall and the Shadow Orchestra, together with smaller sound and light kinetic sculptures.

Vogel’s work inhabits the boundaries between fine art practices and performance traditions. It questions established relationships between sculpture and sound, seeing and hearing, the static and the live. They refuse to align with any single artistic movement, yet resonate with the aims of many.

Composer and sound artist, Dr Nye Parry, describes Vogel's pieces as “beautiful sound machines” which “ask new questions about the relationship between the spectator and the aesthetic object that bring it right up to date with contemporary artistic and philosophical enquiry.”

3.8.11

the vegetable orchestra

fantastic Bob Milne's 4 track mind... seriously !!!

A 4 Track Mind - on RadioLab
It's a story about Bob Milne that you won't believe.
reposted from A Music Long before Listening Blog
Image: Tom Johnson: Syncopated Texture (in Imaginary Music; Paris: Editions 75, 1974)



1.8.11

A repost of a great talk by Disquiet in SanFrancisco-- lovely delicious notions

a repost because the notion of sound as a commentary is just so so interesting ...

Upcoming GAFFTA Talk: “Sound as Commentary”

If you're in San Francisco this week, please consider dropping by the digital-arts organization GAFFTA on Wednesday for a 6:00pm discussion session at which I'll be talking.
I'll be presenting on the subject “Sound as Commentary: Recent Experiments in the Netlabel Remix Community.” It's an overview of such Disquiet.com remix and free-culture projects as the Brian Eno / David Byrne open-source Our Lives in the Bush of Disquiet, and the group-effort sonic activism of Despite the Downturn and Lowlands: A Sigh Collective. I'll be talking about how how sound (both music and sound art) can serve as a central component of online conversation, procedural parallels between curating and editing, and related topics.
Also speaking are musician and sound artist Roddy Schrock (fundamentallysound.org), who has contributed to two Disquiet.com remix projects, and technologist Barry Threw (barrythrew.com). The moderator is Luc Meier, who is the Interdisciplinary Programs Manager at swissnex San Francisco, "a Swiss knowledge outpost for science, education, art and innovation" (swissnexsanfrancisco.org).
Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) is a tremendous institution in San Francisco, dedicated to fomenting digital culture. It's brought the work of artists such as Zimoun to town, and regularly hosts events on game development, audio synthesis, data visualization, and other such intersections of art and technology. This Wednesday's discussion is cosponsored by GAFFTA and Eyebeam, a New York "art + technology center" with which it shares many overlaps. Schrock is Eyebeam's Associate Director: Creative Residencies.
More on this Wednesday's talk at gaffta.org. It's scheduled to run from 6:00pm until 8:00pm. Cost is listed as follows: "$5 – $20 suggested donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)." posted by Marc Weidenbaum

17.7.11

Marshall McLuhan (on the radio) MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE!!!

...'This July 21 marks the 100th birthday of the late Marshall McLuhan, Canadian thinker and media visionary who defined the mass media age of television and predicted much of the information revolution that followed.
He coined the phrase 'the global village', declared that 'the medium is the message', and he described what we now realise is the internet, 30 years before it existed.
Yet, McLuhan also warned of an 'age of anxiety' and the loss of privacy in the age of electronic media.
Now, at a time when our work, social and family lives are governed by media and interconnectivity, what can we learn from examining McLuhan's message? And where are we heading in the digital era?
The McLuhan Project is a major series of broadcasts on ABC Radio National and on ABC Digital Radio during the week of this significant centenary.
Beginning on 16 July on ABC Radio National and on the weekend of July 23 and 24 on ABC Digital Radio.
ABC Radio National -
The McLuhan Project  link
On Hindsight- Marshall McLuhan What are you doin? link
On Night Air - Media Mess Age link
CBC links

11.7.11

GIRRLSOUND new sound org. for women in sound

..............................................
GIRLSOUND
...............................................
Though there is a burgeoning interest emerging in sounding artworks, … ‘there is little discourse about this genre that has come from an analysis of the artworks themselves.’ Bandt Sound Sculpture (13)

So Paula, I ask you this – where are the women in [sounding] digital media?*

The inattention to aural experience in the construction of human subjectivity is undoubtedly coincidental with a general emphasis in critical debates on visual representation, an emphasis which is attributed to the priority given to vision in a Western culture dominated by patriarchal principles ... A similar depreciation of the female voice and a usurpation of its creative potential is to be found in contemporary media representations.
Jean Fisher- Reflections On Echo—Sound By Women Artists In Britain


Hi, as a sound artist/researcher, I am hearing the need for an umbrella organization for women working in the sound arts that will address some of the ghettoizing, fracturing and silence around women working in sound.

Decided it was time to do something about it, I have put together this site Girrlsound http://girrlsound.blogspot.com/, with its online forum. But Girrlsound needs your  input .. how should it be shaped, what areas does it need to cover? What are the gaps you see in the genre ... industry?

(ROUGH FOR GIRRLSOUND)

What is Girrlsound ::
Girrlsound is an ‘about to be released’ organization promoting and representing contemporary women in sound and their work/thinking/research, with an online web interface/presence, containing a forum discussion group
Girrlsound is a resource space for women sound artists, of others artist’s works, sound theory, tools and opportunities for exhibitions and collaborations
Girrlsound is an organization for arranging and presenting projects and sound works
Girrlsound is a distribution site for innovative women’s sound works
Girrlsound presents local and web-based workshops in sound technology and creativity, and professional practice …


Vision
::
We believe that new things are being said in culture with digital media especially sound based media. This development through creative and critical engagement with contemporary art media and practices enables and inspires people to become active co-creators of their contemporarily culture and societies. This co-creativity must include women. Women are saying things with sound, creating new digital languages and technologies for articulation. Girrlsound makes that sound heard.


Mission ::
Girrlsound is a co-creative space that appreciates, acknowledges and promoters women’s unique contribution to the field of sound art
Girrlsound presents women’s sound work for discussion
Girrlsound facilitates dialogue and discussion through online forums
Girrlsound provides distribution and publication opportunities for women
Girrlsound offers and links new sound collaborative relationships


Our areas of activity can be categorized as ::
       All things Sound
       Gender & Sound Arts Practice
       Girrlsound Sound Theory
       Sound & Context
       Sound & Language/Image/Voice/Word/Text
       Sound at the margins
       Low tech and high tech
       Scoring/Improvisation/Composition/Performance
       Reviewing/Curating & Archiving
       Listening Practice – distribution
       Sound projects


Terms ::
Sound art :: creative use of non-musical sound, often by artists who are not ‘musicians’, installations, environmental sound, radio art, sound sculpture, etc.
Hybrid :: experimental use of concepts or instruments from other cultures; Text :: focus on spoken language, often emphasizing sound over meaning.
Sonic :: of or relating to audible sound.
Sonic art ::  sound/art of or relating to art/sound
Sound art ::  sound/art of or relating to art/sound
Cochlea’d sound :: audible sound
Non-cochlea’d sound :: non-audible sound
Sound art = Sonic art

This is what I have put together for discussion ...
Girrlsound has a web-based frame to offer a forum for reflection, discussion etc, upload space for promoting  and presenting women’s sound works, articles, publishing and reviews, resources, links etc. In the near future Girrlsound plans to offer podcasts. Key to the aims of Girrlsound is the offering of public and online workshops for the technical and creative development of women working in sound. Further extensions, as in stage 2,  will be a real space exhibition/performing program …  the inclusion of a ‘women in digital media arm’, and the setting up of a public outreach program hub using collaboration and participatory co-creation processes in digital technologies to articulate difference and inclusiveness in lives and cultures.

I am in conversation with British and American sound artists who wish to be involved. It is my intension to apply for funding and in kind support and partnerships from various sources. I’m distributing questionnaires re the needs of woman in sound on relevant list serves and presenting the project to as many woman  and sound orgs as possible, so I can to gage interest and feedback. I am speaking to leaders  in the field in Australia as well as international artists. I foresee that Girrlsound flourishes with collaborative partnerships.

Girrlsound plans to begin doing interviews and reviews of sound artists work during the coming six months. Girrlsound will launch herself officially at a Sound based symposium offered through the Block at Queensland University of Technology, (QUT) Brisbane, in June 2012. It is expected that these symposiums will be held bi-annually and engage with international sound artists/organizations providing, critical engagement, discussion, linkages, projects, shows etc

The 2012 Girrlsound Symposium will be a one or two day program, with a series of panels, and  two or three guest speakers. The Girrlsound Symposium will address important areas for woman in the sonic arts. It is planned that there would be launched with this event, a series of new sound projects for woman at that time, tied in with discussion of future  plans i.e. publications (text and sonic) and performance exhibition possibilities … possible themes could be …

Do girrls sound different?
Loop- fade- dissolve: common notions that strangle sound art.
What is sound art by women, sounding out?
What is so shocking about sound art anyway?
How can sound art effect political change(s)?
The ethical frame speaks up?
Underground, DIY, Circuit bending Girrlsound
Remix play … Performance – presentations
                                                         ….

I am looking for interest, and support for this idea, I would really appreciate your feedback, contribution and comments …

I would like two other authors, besides myself, to work on web reviews, articles etc. I am seeking people for these positions at present. I am also looking for speakers  and ideas for the symposium. So what do you think, would you like to be involved? Contribute? Write a review?
Cheers (in sound)

Majena Mafe
Girrlsound http://girrlsound.blogspot.com/
majenamafe@iprimus.com.au

10.7.11

Nonsequiter's Women in Sound Arts list

image by Majena Mafe
quote from blog...'These artists (359 and counting) are all in the classical/avant garde/experimental lineage, within which we try to be quite inclusive. Most of them don’t fit neatly into any one category, so multiples are often shown: 20c = “modern” composers in the classical tradition who are no longer alive; Contempo = living composers in the classical tradition (written scores for traditional instruments); PoMo (Post-Modern, Post-Classic, “Downtown”) = may have classical background but exhibits more eclectic influences and doesn’t necessarily use standard notation or instrumentation; Elec = electronic, electroacoustic, and computer music (not the dance/club variety); Improv = non-idiomatic free improvisation/spontaneous composition, and in some cases the outer fringes of jazz; Sound Art = creative use of non-musical sound, often by artists who are not ”musicians” (installations, environmental sound, radio art, sound sculpture, etc.); Hybrid = experimental use of concepts or instruments from other cultures; Text = focus on spoken language, often emphasizing sound over meaning.

Artist’s names link to their own web site. If they don’t have a site, other links are shown. If an artist is known also as a performer, their primary instruments are listed. Two countries shown = born/resides, three = born/raised/resides. '
click here for the wonderous list

5.7.11

What its like Being a Woman in Philosophy - great site

image by  majena mafe

click here
and what were doing about what its like  click here ...

women working linux

Links:
 Ubuntu Women forum on ubuntu forums.
There, women will find resources on how to get more active in the linux community as a women.
There’s also Linuxchix, a community of internation linux active women.
Their goals are here.

Peep Show by Donna Hewitt

Jasmina Maschina - Ausland (Slow Walker Variation)

25.6.11

woozy links comicsss at Coles comics manhaters ...

Cartoon by Jack Cole ... for more click here

3.6.11

Just started ... new 'Girrls Sound' networking hub on Linkedin

 ... if you would like to be part of discussions, network, raise issues, idea, projects, collaborations etc...
feel welcome to join ...

click here

1.6.11

Avital Ronell. On Stupidity. 2000 1 and 2 /10



The Art of the Accident

Collection of essays stating that the concept of “accident” contains not just the idea that each machine carries its particular form of disaster but also the suggestion that the old distinction between timeless form and time-dependent processes is becoming increasingly unclear. 

 click here

Failure and malfunction are inherent in all technological products. In The Art of the Accident, the concept of “accident” contains not just the idea that each machine brings with it its own form of disaster but also the suggestion that in a world of network technologies the old distinction between timeless form and time-dependent processes is becoming increasingly unclear.
Ars accidentalis recognizes the creative potential of the accident, the fall, and the instability of digital media. The book maps the transformation of space, time bodies, machines and architectures through the conceptual and noninstrumental use of the computer.
The Art of the Accident includes essays and interviews from composer Dick Raaymakers, biologist Humberto Maturana, urbanist Paul Virilio, literary scientist Katherine Hayles, endophysicist Otto Rössler and computer scientist Steve Mann. It also contains a series of artistic interventions by people such as Knowbotic Research, Perry Hoberman and Diller Scofidio. This fully illustrated book takes a synthesizing approach towards intersecting practices in art and science, outlining the basics of an ars accidentalis.

Essays and Interviews


Artist Projects

Gestalt sound


Gestalt (2003) is a short CG film by Thorsten Fleisch, made entirely from renderings of quaternion fractals.
for more click here

27.5.11

Ubu web's Sound by Visual Artists


Image by Chris Johansen

Audio By Visual Artists, TELLUS 21

1. Joseph Beuys - "Ja Ja Ja Ne Ne Ne", 1970, Mazzotta Editions, Milan, 33 rpm, 500 copies. (excerpt 2:00)  


2. Maurice Lemaître - "Lettre Rock", 1958. Interpreted by the author and Paul Thorel, accompanied by amateur jazz singers. "Maurice Lemaître Presents Le Lettrism", Columbia. (1:51)


3. Fillippo Tomasso Marinetti - "La Battaglia di Adrianopoli", 1926. Recorded by Marinetti in 1935, Voce del Padrone, Milano/EMI 1948-75, 33 rpm. (2:26)


4. Raoul Hausmann - "Poémes Phonetiques" (1919-1943) 45 rpm, Paris Ou Magazine, 25-26, 1966. (3:50)  


5. Antonio Russolo - "Corale", "Serenata", 1924, Musica Futurista, organized by Daniel Lombardi, Fonit Cetra. (2:31)  


6. Marcel Duchamp - Some texts from "A l'infinitif" (1912-20). Recorded by Aspen Magazine, November 1967, N.Y. (4:00)  


7. Kurt Schwitters - "Die Sonate in Urlauten" (1919-32). An Anna Blume - Die Sonate in Urlauten (1919-1932) 1958 Lords Gallery, London, 33 rpm, 100 copies. (excerpt 2:03)


8. Lawrence Weiner - "Having Been Done At / Having Been Done To, Essendo Stato Fatto A", 1973 Sperone-Fischer Edition, Roma 33 rpm. (excerpt 2:25)  


9. George Brecht - "Comb Music (Comb Event)" 1959-62. Performed by John Armleder August 23, 1988. Engineered by Brenda Hutchinson at Studio PASS, N.Y. (:05)  


10. Patrick Ireland - "Vowel Drawing", 1967. Recorded at Studio PASS, N.Y. Engineered by Connie Kieltyka, September, 1988. (1:07)  


11. Richard Huelsenbeck - "Four Poems from Phantastiche Gebete". 1916. Recorded by Aspen Magazine, November 1967, N.Y. (excerpt 2:00)  


12. Arrigo Lora-Totino and Fogliati - "Poesia Totale", 1968 Liquimoiono, Poesia Liquida, Scwettier, Milan (excerpt 1:34).  


13. Jean Dubuffet - "Musical Experiences", 1963, Atlantic Recording, NY 1973, 33 rpm. (excerpt 2:17)  


14. Mimmo Rotella - "Poemi Fonetici", 1949-75, Plura Edition, Milano, 1000 copies, 33 rpm. (excerpt :44)  


15. Joan Jonas - "The Anchor Stone", 1988. Engineered by Brenda Hutchinson at Studio PASS, N.Y. (2:30)  


16. Christian Boltanski - "Reconstruction de Chansons Qui Ont Et Chant" es Christian Boltanski (1944-46)", 1972 45 rpm. (excerpt 2:30)  


17. Ian Murray - "Keeping On Top of the Top Song", 1970, Performed by Arno Van Nieuwenhuise, 1984. A recording of the first ten seconds of the top 100 songs of the last ten years (1970). (excerpt 3:15)


18. Terry Fox - "The Labyrinth Scored for the Purrs of 11 Different Cats", 1976, on Airwaves 1977. (excerpt 3:00)  


19. Jonathan Borofsky - "The Standard Chant Pt. 2", 1983, recorded by J. Borofsky, Los Angeles, Ca. (1:33)  


20. Magdalena Abakanowicz - "Cough", 1986 Recorded by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Warsaw. Poland, (excerpt :35)  


21. Richard Prince with Bob Gober - "Tell Me Everything", 1988. Recorded May 18, 1988 at Studio PASS, N.Y. Engineered by Alex Gardner. (3:00)  


22. Martin Kippenberger - "Bang, Bang", 1987, POP IN. forum Stadtpark Graz. (3:11)


23. Jack Goldstein - "The Weep", 1978. (excerpt 2:21)


24. John Armleder - "16 Great Turn-Ons". 1988, performed and directed by Christian Marclay at Studio Pass, N. Y Engineered by B. Hutchinson. edited-by C. S Russell. (1:10)


25. Terry Allen - "Home On The Range", 1988, Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band, Greenshoes Publishers 1988. Vocal and piano: Terry Allen; acoustic guitar: Lloyd lvlaines; mandolin: Richard Bowden; percussion: Davis McLarty; harmony vocal: Joe Ely. Produced by Allen and Maines, recorded at Caldwell Studios, Lubbock, Texas. Engineered by Caldwell and Maines. (3:13)


26. Gretchen Bender - "Artificial Treatment" 1988, Recorded at Studio PASS, N.Y. by B. Hutchinson. (2:44)  

27. Y Pants - "Magnetic Attraction", 1980, Gail Vachon: ukulele; Barbara Ess: bass; Verge Piersol. drums, Vocals: all. (3:11)  


28. Ed Tomney - "Aquatic Chronicle", 1988, Spotless Music. (3:07)


29. Susan Hiller - "Magic Lantern", 1987, Edited by B. Hutchinson with Tim Guest at Studio PASS, N.Y. (Abridged version 5:03)  


30. Ian Murray - o.p. cit. (1: 12)



This issue of TELLUS explores audio work produced by visual artists from the Futurist Movement to the present. Luigi Russolo presented his theories on the use of noise in a musical context in 1913 with the "Art of Noise". Russolo destroyed the barrier which separated the works of precise harmonic sounds from that of indeterminate noise. With this manifesto, he proclaimed: "Ancient life was all silence. In the 19th century, with the invention of machines, Noise was born." His Futurist Orchestra of "families of noises" argued that the voice and sounds such as rumbles, explosions, whistles, snorts, screams, laughs and machines were to be regarded as musical instruments. With this in mind, I have touched on subsequent movements or events, defined by artists: Dada, Letterism, Art Brut, Fluxus, Conceptual Art and artists working with media appropriation that have been instrumental to audio and its history The two faces of this tape document different approaches to audio recording - sound and phonetic poetry, music concrete, storytelling, electronics, artists' bands and the sequential repetition of a sound, noise or word(s). With eighty-eight years of audio history passing through sixty minutes of time, TELLUS #21 accounts for less than one second of work produced by artists in this century.
-Claudia Gould
Engineered by Brenda Hutchinson at Studio PASS. NYC, 1988. Editors: Claudia Gould, Joseph Nechvatal, Carol Parkinson. Assistant Editor: Debbie McBride. Assistant: Charles S. Russell. Editor for this issue: Claudia Gould.

6.5.11

FIDGET by Kenneth Goldsmith

quote ...'Fidget is a transcription of writer Kenneth Goldsmith's every movement made during thirteen hours on June 16, 1997 (Bloomsday). This online edition includes the full text, a self-running Java applet version written by programmer Clem Paulsen, and a selection of RealAudio recordings from Theo Bleckmann's vocal-visual performance at the Whitney Museum of American Art on Bloomsday 1998.
Fidget attempts to reduce the body to a catalogue of mechanical movements by a strict act of observation. Goldsmith aims to be objective like the photographer Edward Muybridge. In Fidget, Goldsmith reduces language to its basic elements in order to record and understand movement in its basic form. Despite these aims, the dictates of the work like the self-observation and the duration of the act, create a condition of shifting referent points and multiple levels of observation that undermine the objective approach.
Goldsmith and Paulsen's collaboration has reconfigured the text of Fidget to substitute the human body with the computer. The Java applet contains the text reduced further into its constituent elements, a word or a phrase. The relationships between these elements is structured by a dynamic mapping system that is organized visually and spatially instead of grammatically. In addition, the Java applet invokes duration and presence. Each time the applet is downloaded it begins at the same time as set in the user's computer and every mouse click or drag that the user initiates is reflected in the visual mapping system. The different hours are represented in differing font sizes, background colors and degree of "fidgetness", however, these parameters may be altered by the user. The sense of time is reinforced by the diminishing contrast and eventual fading away of each phrase as each second passes.
Fidget was originally commissioned by The Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris as a collaboration with vocalist Theo Bleckmann. The live performance was at The Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris on June 16, 1998 at 8p.m. Bleckmann's vocal interpretations of Fidget are available here in RealAudio. A gallery installation of Fidget opened at Printed Matter in New York City. Printed Matter featured Goldsmith's collaboration with seamstress Sydney Maresca. The exhibition ran from June 11-September 4 1998.
Kenneth Goldsmith is the author of No. 111 2.7.93-10.20.96 (The Figures, 1997) and 73 Poems, a collaboration with vocalist Joan La Barbara (book 1994 by Permanent Press, compact disc 1994 by Lovely Music, Ltd.). His visual works have been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide. Goldsmith is the editor of UbuWeb Visual, Concrete + Sound Poetry, a DJ at 91.1 WFMU in New York City, and a music critic at New York Press.'

website here