sonic surrounds

I think this is an audaciously brilliant response to the present proliferation of sound artists working with field recordings (brought about largely by cheaper technology of a suitable quality)…

It’s probably not a particularly new idea, given the history of musique concrete, noise machines, the ideas of John Cage, etc (although i’m certainly not an expert on this history). Also, an idea like this is impressive just in the official support that would be required from the host city to approve and pull it off.  For instance, I don’t imagine seeing this in London without a really big name behind it.

I’m speaking of a live sound performance by Staalplaat Soundsystem and others, “playing” the trains, travellers, bicycles and other occupants of the Central Station in The Hague, Netherlands (see the description & video below).

Isn’t this exactly what many field recording artists are attempting to do in producing/performing sound montages?  - i.e. create some sort of musical composition comprised of the timbres, rhythms and frequencies of disparate sound elements in a way you would never hear them together in life? In this performance, a simple video documentary by one audience member records (a lower quality version) of the type of sound field recording composers attempt often - but in this performance, every member of the audience would have had a unique experience, mediated by their own existence and movements within the performance site…  it’s so much more than a composition playing back from a laptop, improvised or not.

Station to Station @ TodaysArt08 from mediateletipos on Vimeo.

TODAYS ART 2008
FRIDAY 26th Sep 2008, The Hague (NL)
[performance] @ CENTRAL STATION - 19:00

STAALPLAAT SOUNDSYSTEM, MIKE RIJNIERSE, ACHIM WOLLSCHEID, MARK BAIN AND ERIK HOBIJN : STATION TO STATION
Amsterdam / Berlin (NL / DE)

This opening performance is not just any performance. It uses instruments, but highly unusual ones; the Central Station-building itself, including all the people and other sources of sound, such as machines, are interpreted by the artists as instruments. This performance does not distinguish between ‘music’ and ’sound’. As a part of the act, in cooperation with NS (=the Dutch railroad company), a whole range of trains and trams will enter the station in a strict choreography called The Tsunami, with all the train and tram engineers working together. Sounds from travellers will also be amplified through microphones as part of the performance, and Achim Wollscheid will use computer-driven magnets that play the bicycles in front of the station like a toposonic typewriter. The performance is formed by a collaboration between Staalplaat Soundsystem, Mike Rijnierse, Achim Wollscheid, Mark Bain and Erik Hobijn.

[via ../mediateletipos)) blog]

from ../mediateletipos))) by blanca rego

At ISEA 2008, a new work by Nigel Helyer and Daniel Woo, of AudioNomad (also see audionomad.com), with whom I worked on Syren works, based on locative spatial audio technology.

The following is a re-blogged excerpt from We Make Money Not Art:

Images Priscilla Bracks

Run Silent; Run Deep by Nigel Helyer (UK/Australia) & Daniel Woo (Australia) collaborating with the Marine Mammal Research Laboratory, provides an ‘audio portrait’ of Singapore - in particular the area around the harbour. The interface of this work enables you to move through a stylized ‘map’ of the city, listening to sound recordings made using hydrophones in areas corresponding to coloured circles on the map. Surround sound in the installation space, gives the sense of a 3 dimensional map, and hand drawn images laid over the map gives it cartographic feel.

From 16th to 25th April at Point Éphémère was the Octopus Festival #5 Exhibition: Inventeurs d’Instruments.

The three works in the exhibition had a wonderful physicality and two employed found objects to add a deep texture/patina to the sonic content.

The works were:

“Bien des choses”, an array of sonic postcards by Cléa Coudsi & Eric Herbin. Voices spoke in French (presumably linked to the outward facing text of the postcard) from individual speakers behind beautifully hinged postcards, so the photos were revealed with the personal voices.

“stream Fiction”, by Nicolas Bralet is an old wooden roll-top desk that accessed global streaming live field recordings via the Locus Sonus SoundMap project. Toggle switches flicked streams on and off and I think a push-button allowed you to send the local sound down another tube into an online-accessible stream. 

“des oreilles pour voir”, a carpeted walkway that triggered an array of atmospheric sounds delivered to the listener via wireless headphones, by Stéphane Kozik.  

Coming up in Paris will be two intriguing performances of a sound and visual augmented reality organ. The events, part of the City of Paris Science on the Seine festival will take place at the Saint Elisabeth Church in the 3rd Arrondissement.

Colleagues of mine at the LIMSI Situated Perception group and the IRCAM Real-time group are augmenting a live organ recital with live reactive visuals and spatialised sound processed from multiple microphones near the organ pipes. The effect will be that notes from the organ will seem to develop (subtle) physically impossible lives of their own and take off around the church, while the pipes themselves will take on altered appearance in conjunction with the music.

Concerts are on 15th and 17th May at 9pm.

An adjoining exhibit of informative posters (and possibly recordings) will last from 15th May until 13th June.

The site is:
Eglise Sainte Elisabeth(map)
195 rue du Temple
75003 Paris
Métro Temple ou République

Much more information (in French, but with many images) is available at the LIMSI Wiki under Orgue Augmenté.

En Français:

Ce projet explore les relations entre science et art, sur le thème de l’acoustique dans l’espace. Lors d’un concert, grâce à un dispositif de spatialisation du son, le son interne de l’orgue est capturé, modifié et restitué dans l’espace en temps réel, la façade de l’instrument est animée par une projection vidéo dynamique du son.