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]

I have just had an article published in Issue 1 - 2008 of Media Space Journal along with some other fine articles.

About Media Space Journal

Through the establishment of the online Media-Space Journal, Media-Space continues its role in the dissemination of emerging art and critical interrogation of electronic and digital arts culture. The Media-Space Journal is a peer-reviewed international journal of both scholarly and artistic contributions that explore the issues and ideas which are of interest to the local, national and international network of electronic, digital, experimental and new media artists. The journal encourages critical and speculative interventions in the debate and discussions concerning the production and critique of new media art forms.

The Media-Space Journal encourages submissions that extend research into critical and investigative networked theories, knowledges and practices.

ISSN: 1449 - 1443
Published in Australia
The journal is peer reviewed as per section 4.3.4 of the HERDC Specifications.

And here is the abstract to my article:

From Backpack to Handheld: The Recent Trajectory of Personal Location Aware Spatial Audio
Nick Mariette

Personal location-sensitive spatial audio describes an electronic medium within the concept of locative (audio) media, inclusive of the physically realistic medium of audio augmented reality. These concepts describe both systems and the particular forms of resultant media in which a mobile user of the system receives audio content relative to their location in the world.  Since the early 1990s, various projects have been created based on such ideas, and since then, advancement of the technology has taken the inevitable route of miniaturisation, integration and convergence with other mobile audio communication technologies.  Early systems were implemented using backpacks or roll-around cases to hold components, while current systems tend to use hand-held computing devices. This progression has arrived at a point where the medium can come closer to fully realising its full potential, however, successful implementations now rely on perceptual optimisation and creative application of the technology.

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 http://transition.turbulence.org/networked_music_review/2008/06/06/echolocation-a-site-specific-installation/

Echolocation:: a site specific Installation 2008 by Arnaud Jacobs :: Commissioned by Singuhr Hörgallerie, Berlin :: Electronic devices, subwoofers, rotating speakers, laptop, mixer :: Großer Wasserspeicher, Berlin :: As part of Tuned City Festival, 23 may to 13 july 2008.

The installation is in a former water reservoir located in Prenzlauerberg. The reservoir is very large and the acoustic fingerprint is unique. The architectural properties are very simply laid out, it consists of five concentric passages in the form of rings. The space is very complex to grasp. This is mainly because of an utilitarian architecture, which is based on function (holding water in the early days) rather than anthropomorphic proportions. All these elements have an unusual impact on perception and is at first disorientating. Soundwise it has huge reverberation and echo. Sound travels in different and therefore unpredictable directions. Sounds become very diffused.
Our spatial awareness is dependant of only a fraction of a second of a sound reflected in our environment. This intuitive information is quite rudimentary when navigate our environment and we are mostly unaccustomed to use it consciously and or adequately. Some animals, however, use it as their main navigation system. They ’see’ with their ears. The skill has been first discovered in the mid-eighteenth century. The term echolocation was introduced much later in the mid-twentieth century.

The idea for this installation is based on the concept that sound can be used for investigating acoustic and architectural properties. Sound can be also be used as a cue for loctation. In general sound will be applied as a tool for perception. For this installation I developped a device that is a kind of sound space investigator; the Echolocator.

The Echolocator incorporates a sound device, a laser tool and a communicating tracking device. It can emit short sounds that are optimal for echolocation. These sounds are based on sounds that animals use for echolocation. There will be in total a dozen of those devices. Each device will sound slightly different and will interact with each other.

With the Echolocator you are able to explore the acoustic and architectural properties of a given space with sound. This tool triggers our sonic perception and helps in understanding how sound and space correlates.

On Arnaud Jacobs:

Generally Jacobs sets out from a fascination for sound, in any form. This explains how he takes his raw material from reality: with a microphone and recorder he makes field recordings. With these fragments Jacobs composes on his computer. His sound works are the result of a research to the different aspects of concrete or daily- sounds and how to assimilate and tune this material to the context of a musical work. The sound hovers as some kind of an interaction between micro and macro, inside and outside, fieldwork and studio, reality and fictionalization.

Born in Wilrijk, Belgium, in 1968. Arnaud Jacobs lives and works in Brussels since 1995. He has studied architecture. After his studies at the Sint-Lucasinstituut it did not take long, however, before he chose music. Today he has released music under several aliases: MarkMancha (electronic music), missfit (assigned music for film and other media), tmrx (autonomous collages constructed from everyday sounds). From 2004 he has been working under the name Aernoudt Jacobs and concentrates on installations, performances, sound design and commissioned work for film, dance and theater.

In his installation work he investigates mostly correlations between sound, matter, space/location, perception and psychoacoustics. Since 2005 he is with - Benoit Deuxant, Anton Aeki, Johan Vandermaelen and Frederik De Wilde - a member of zoning. He has been performing in Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Mexico, New York, Norway. He has released two albums on critically acclaimed labels as Staalplaat (NL) and Selektion (D) and contributed on different compilations.

Perception is an important aspect in his sound work. Perceiving music, sound, harmonies is a physical, emotional and intellectual activity that is always linked to personal memories. The properties of a particular sound/music/… will change the values of perception for each individual and thus hearing a tune on the radio can have an as deep impact on perception as listening to a car passing by. This association is an ongoing preocupation that is visible in most of his work. With the aid of psychoacoustic theories, he explores how perception can be influenced and how to express sound physically, spatially and emotionally.08 (from http://www.tmrx.org/bio00.html)