Group items tagged

"In these works, Sung Tieu looks into alleged sonic attacks targeting the U.S. and Canadian embassy staff in Havana in 2016. This installation includes video, sound, texts, and architectural interventions that attempt to understand the incident, highlighting the impossibility of ever fully knowing what happened. Along these series of works, Sung Tieu also refers to other subjects related to the psychological dimension of warfare and acoustic weaponry, such as her research for the film No Gods, No Masters (2017) which focuses on Operation Wandering Soul, the U.S. military operation during the war in Vietnam in the 1960s"

This call for works has a fantastic list of references for listening and aural poetics.

" Blurring the boundaries of perception, Nadine Robinson's installation alles grau presents an original soundtrack for modern civilization and an apocalyptic landscape of time. Translated from German, the title, alles grau in grau malen, means "to paint everything grey or pessimistically." The larger-than-life grey panels, speakers, smoke, light and throbbing acoustics are suggestive of Biblical depictions of the end of time. Robinson refers to these doomsday narratives as part of "the specter of Revelation," which "looms in the popular imagination today.""

"Voice Yard is an online space created to encourage people to listen and be heard. Used to perceiving our world mostly visually, we sometimes forget that sound is another important means of perception and communication. Every object reveals itself not only through its shapes and colors, but also through sounds, sometimes even more telling about its essence. We, humans, have always used our voices as an important means of self-expression and communication. There are familiar metaphors revealing its existential importance, such as "inner voice" and "voice of the heart," referring to an intimate "true nature" inherent in this human ability."

"It's a sonic phenomenon that occurs in only certain pockets of desert around the world. The sound of sand grains shuffling down hot slopes that can recall the angry buzz of bees or the deep, groaning thrums of a didgeridoo group. Scientists refer to these shifting dunes as "singing" or "booming" sands, which for centuries mystified explorers from Charles Darwin to Marco Polo. We know now that these strange sounds are caused by the vibrations of grains avalanching, at relatively slow speeds, down dunes, and that the grain size and speed influence the notes of these curious hums of nature."

"To read Susan Sontag's 2003 essay, Regarding the Pain of Others, with pencil scribbling references to current-day wars is to be expected. Hers is a profound rethinking of the intersection of news, art and contemporary depictions of violence and our memories of them. So, too, could the word "Ferguson" be readily jotted in the margins. Meandering the intersections helps us navigate memory well beyond any of the recent conflagrations between Black citizens and militarized police forces in U.S. cities. "

"Trump also tweeted about the "silent majority" - a phrase Nixon used to refer to when he asked for support."

"Echoic memory is a part of sensory memory and refers to auditory memories. The sensory memory that takes into account sounds that you've just encountered is a form of this memory type. Memories and sound are important aspects of your hearing and your ears, so we wanted to take an in-depth look at echoic memory, what it is and how it can affect us."

"We had a joke in the studio that they were the best band members we've ever had," laughs Kev Bales when describing the recording of Be's One album. Bales may have spent the last 30 years drumming with the likes of Spiritualized, Soulsavers and Julian Cope, but the musicians he's referring to here are a different kind of buzz band altogether: to be precise, they're 40,000 bees, and their activity forms the basis of One, a transcendental drone symphony between man and bee that is surely one of the year's most beguiling offerings."

Samson Young's compositions, drawings, installations, radio broadcasts, and performances touch upon topics such as military conflict, identity, migration, and political frontiers past and present. Sound and its cultural politics are at the heart of a practice that interlays multiple narratives and references. The relationship between violence and sound is a recurrent line of investigation in Young's work, which is often based on extensive research.

Artist reference In this interview artist Jem Finer discusses his recent body of work with David Rooney, Curator of Timekeeping at the National Maritime Museum. In his Longplayer project Finer set himself the challenge to develop a 1000 year long musical score, working within the confines of today's technology and considering how sustainable the possibilities may be over time.

"In theoretical physics, 'Bosonic' refers to the original version of 'string theory', developed in the 1960s. Although the initial hypotheses behind Bosonic String Theory have since been expanded and modified, the underlying principle remains intact; that the various properties of matter and force can be a reflection of the ways in which a string vibrates. The oscillating properties of these hypothetical strings determine the properties of particles and all forms of energy. As such, the theory proposes that the entire world may be composed of these infinitely small vibrating 'strings'. Bosonica is a sonic exploration of the concepts behind this theory. The sound material which underpins the work is predominantly sourced from stringed instruments, in particular piano, guitar (acoustic and electric) and cello. At times the original properties of these vibrating strings are very present and recognisable, however the work explores increasing blurring and abstraction, creating new constructions from the original material and presenting to the listener dense and abstract dimensions. Despite this, the untreated instrumental material consistently returns as a reminder that it serves as the building block from which all other material is derived. The use of 5.1 spatialisation magnifies the perceived kinetic energy of material. Small gestural fragments are scattered over the 5.1 array to form accumulative trajectories of sound, and the listener becomes immersed in the dark abstract landscapes generated by the sounds of strings. The work was composed in 2009 in the Electroacoustic Music Studios of the University of Manchester, UK. With thanks to Emilie Girard-Charest (cello) and Camilo Salazar (guitar)."

Here's an impressible batch of scanned articles about sound art available for download.

"The sounds of crickets courting and flies flying familiar to many of us, but have you heard a rice weevil larva eating inside a wheat kernel, a termite cutting a piece of wood, or a grub chewing on a root? Modern insect detection and control technology makes use of these subtle signals, sampled below. Most of the sound files on this page were selected from noise-free sections of recorded signal, but you can hear some typical background noises mixed with insect sounds at I below. The insect sounds have higher frequencies and shorter durations that make them relatively easy to separate from background."

"Sound art encompasses cross-border art practices in which the acoustic element governs the recepient's overall perception as well as the structure of a given work. The visual sphere and the spatial dimension represent the most important references to sound. The most decisive factor differentiating sound art from music is the breaking up of linearity and of limited temporal duration."

Click to start the Grand Tour or select an odd musical instrument below to view and hear. Know of an odd instrument that isn't here? Let us know and we'll put it online!

great collection of odd homemade musical instruments

"Conserve the sound« is an online museum for vanishing and endangered sounds. The sound of a dial telephone, a walkman, a analog typewriter, a pay phone, a 56k modem, a nuclear power plant or even a cell phone keypad are partially already gone or are about to disappear from our daily life. Accompanying the archive people are interviewed and give an insight in to the world of disappearing sounds."

"Roman Jakobson (1942)"