Group items tagged

"The radiofrequency spectrum is at the heart of telecommunications, used by police, emergency personnel and public transport services, as well as the armed forces. Every day, this spectrum ensures the proper functioning of mobile phones and wireless devices. Seen as an essential resource by some and as a health hazard by others, the electromagnetic fields generated by radiofrequency spectrum activity have multiplied exponentially since humans first learned to harness electricity. In his Electrosmog series, Jean-Pierre Aubé searches out ambient radio frequency activity in the urban landscape of Montréal, which for Aubé forms a singular territory, characterized by its density in the city and by the political and economic issues that accompany it. Equipped with a radio, an antenna, and home-made software, the artist sweeps the titular spectrum of radio frequencies. Every tenth of a second, the device takes a snapshot of its readings - a measure of electromagnetic activity on a specific frequency. This information is then paired with images of Montréal, digitally altered by these same measurements, to create a "documentary in sound" of the city's spaces. Montréal, well-known to the artist after years of radiofrequency experiments here, is the eighth city in which Aubé has measured and visually presented this urban Electrosmog. Electrosmog, Montréal, 01.1 MHz - 144 MHz, 2012 Text from the CCA and Elektra - video abstract original length : 11 minutes - built with Processing"

"THE WORLD LISTENING PROJECT (WLP) is a not-for-profit organization devoted to understanding the world and its natural environment, societies and cultures through the practices of listening and field recording. The WLP was founded in 2008 and is supported by the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology, a membership organization and regional chapter of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology, affiliated with the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology. The WLP maintains a website and online forum about its artistic and educational activities. These include the use of radio and web-based technologies, conducting public workshops, forums, and lectures, as well as participating in exhibitions, symposiums, and festivals. To learn more and become involved in the WLP's activities please subscribe to our discussion group."

"When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout. "

"Researchers from Nottingham Trent University, in the United Kingdom, have now developed and tested a new prototype device that can remotely monitor hive activity without disturbing the bees. The device picks up and analyzes vibrations from special types of bee vocalizations, such as the common one called a "begging signal." It has successfully tracked changes in bee activity from day to night, and seasonally, by monitoring the occurrences of this specific signal."

"Today a growing group of sonic artists engage with plants as collaborators in their processes and creations. The duo Feral Practice invites audience members to sound walks in forests to reflect on ecological and social issues in the vicinity of trees. Sound artist Mileece senses signals from plants to develop sound-generating algorithms that she combines with field recordings to design immersive sound installations, a technology akin to the one used by Tosca Terán to detect activity in mycorrhizal systems which she converts into musical notes. Cristina Ochoa and Eduardo Vindiola read signalling activity in beets and modulate their rhythmic patterns to perform with them. Leslie Garcia studies plant communication to design prosthetic devices that simulate an abstract voice for plants through a process of biofeedback."

"Fermentophone is a multi-sensory installation in which an algorithmically generated musical composition is performed by living cultures of bacteria and yeast. The installation comprises a series of different vessels containing actively fermenting foodstuffs and beverages, which are wired with electronic sensors. Each colorful, odorous, and edible ferment has its own musical vocabulary which is expressed according to microbial activity.( The installation was presented at the Hacking Arts festival at the MIT Media Lab."

"M.A.P // A.M.P Music Library aims to create a repository of activist music, which will serve as an archive to amplify the reach of music as an expression and a tool of social and political activism. This library is an effort to bring together such voices from the region that may have gone unheard. In the process, we hope to create a rich and diverse range of activist music that will span all genres and generations of music and poetry."

"KIMA: Noise by Analema Group explores how urban noises affect our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.  Following an activity at Tate Exchange with noise expert Prof. Stephen Stansfeld, community groups such as Better Bankside, residents, and researchers in the field of urban noise, we invite you to the premiere of the art film KIMA: Noise. Participants will explore the topic of noise pollution, the effects of noise on human health and wellbeing, through the film and in an online workshop with the artists and experts. KIMA: Noise raises awareness about noise and asks important questions on what we can do to mitigate its effects on health www.analemagroup.com ​"

"The act of listening and recording sound effects or capturing potential material for working on sound design is actually a process where the artist finds its activity as that one of the illusionist of sound, a harlequin of time, storyteller of the unknown. There are tons and tons of examples of that, and the creativity of a sound designer is actually found in that way of giving new contexts, meanings and aspects to any sound present in the world. But, as always, the best examples are those that you can identify, so all this comes to the point of inviting you to the process."

"Elizabeth Diller, founding partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, speaks on the importance of sound in architecture and the evolving role of the architect in an increasingly multidisciplinary world. She contemplates how to design buildings that transcend time and withstand the continuous evolution of the activities and art forms that will exist within them."

"Thousands of species of fireflies all blink in different patterns, not only blinking in rhythms but simultaneously performing specific flight choreographies. The timing and pattern of their flashes are unique to each species. In Bioluminescence, I translated firefly behavior data from Prof. James E. Lloyd's Studies on the Flash Communication Systems of Photinus Fireflies into an orchestral piece. Rhythmic patterns of light and insect movement provide the material for both melodic and rhythmic figures. In biology, bioluminescence is the ability of living things to produce light through biochemical processes. Most bioluminescent organisms are found in the sea. The group of marine bioluminescent organisms includes fish, bacteria, and jellyfish. Some bioluminescent organisms, including fireflies and fungi, are found on land. Bioluminescence is used by creatures to make prey, defend themselves against predators, find mates, as well as for other vital activities. Recent studies show that the number of fireflies is declining. Light pollution from human-generated light disrupts insect courtship behavior because it can only occur in the dark. The artificial extension of daylight into the night disrupts the fireflies' dark-light cycles and thus their biological behavior."

In what ways do we listen to the soundscape? How do our concurrent activities, moods, and abilities determine the listening mode? What is it that allows us to experience arbitrary sounds in an everyday environment as elements in a musical composition?

In this second interpretive video for "Living with Concepts," Norway-based artist Jana Winderen discusses the four-channel audio installation "Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone: From the Barents Sea to Lake Ontario": https://vimeo.com/613751409 Composed from field recordings in the Barents Sea along the marginal ice zone (an ecologically vulnerable, dynamic border between the open sea and the sea ice), Winderen's composition documents wildlife activities that all depend on the annual spring bloom: plankton, bearded seals, humpbacks and orcas, crustaceans and spawning cod. On UTM campus, these sounds connect the vulnerable ecologies of the Barents Sea with the seasonal rhythms of local forest ecologies, and the distressed waterways of Lake Ontario and the Credit River. "Spring Bloom" plays during daylight hours only. It is periodically shut off in response to seasonal ecological activity, determined in consultation with faculty in UTMBiology. See the Blackwood website for current playback conditions: https://www.blackwoodgallery.ca/program/living-with-concepts First presented in Mississauga by the Blackwood for "The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea," "Spring Bloom" is currently installed at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus, 2021-2024, as part of "Living with Concepts." Artwork storage and transport sponsored by Musket Transport Ltd. Video by Vuk Dragojevic.

"Watching people, talking with them, and actively engaging in social practices are the participatory techniques through which the ethnographer learns to see the world as his or her participants do, rich with socially constructed and historically situated meaning. Yet the focus on seeing the world as your participants do sometimes eclipses the other sensory modes that people employ to make sense of social and material interactions."

"I'm quite late hearing this for the first time, but I was thrilled to discover composer Pierre Sauvageot's Harmonic Fields project, a participatory landscape of wind-activated musical instruments temporarily installed on the beach near Birkrigg Common, Cumbria, England. The haphazard plinks, drum rolls, whistles and drones is often mesmerizingly beautiful, as the following video makes clear. It's a kind of weather plug-in, constructed as a sequence of very different movements in space."

Andra McCartney is a multimedia soundscape artist, composer, performer and poet. Currently she is working on 'Soundwalking Home', a series of soundwalks through neighborhoods in which she has lived, and a soundscape documenting the Lachine Canal region, near Montreal. McCartney's installations have been shown at Maid in Cyberspace Encore (Montreal), KAAI Modern Fuel Gallery (Kingston, Ontario), miXing Women In Sound Art Festival (Chicago), The Kitchen ... Her writings have been published in Leonardo Music Journal, MusicWorks ... She has collaborated with visual artist P.S. Moore, championed the work of soundscape composer Hildegard Westerkamp, and she is actively involved with the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology. She lives in Montreal and is teaches at Concordia University, Montreal.

Acoustic location is the art and science of using sound to determine the distance and direction of something. Location can be done actively or passively, and can take place in gases (such as the atmosphere), liquids (such as water), and in solids (such as in the earth). "

"The International Ambiances Network aims at structuring and developing the research field of architectural and urban ambiances. It wishes to promote the sensory domain in the questioning and design of lived space. This sensitive approach of the built environment involves all the senses (sound, light, odors, touch, heat,…). Such a network favors multisensoriality and pluridisciplinarity (human and social sciences ; architecture and urban planning ; engineering and applied physics). It is open to a wide variety of profiles and includes research activities as well as design, teaching or artistic ones."

"Untitled V is a sound sculpture that consists of miniature speakers acoustically activated by a motor driven mechanism. A nylon thread is fastened through a hole at the center of the membrane; the end of the nylon thread is loosely secured to a motor turned rosined wheel to produce friction. Sound is produced by the action of the rim of the rotating wheel rubbing the thread as the wheel is turned. The two surfaces alternating between sticking to each other and sliding over each other, with a corresponding change in the force of friction. The motor speed is reduced at the lowest speed. The slow turn of the wheel creates changes in the tension of the thread, resulting as sounds (crackling impulse) in the membrane of the speaker. Untitled V creates a very quiet listening experience. "