"The last two decades have seen a striking decline in the quality of sound and listening experience. Compressed music, MP3s and streaming, have diminished the quality and flattened the emotion. Marketing gimmicks and convenience now take the place of excellence. The Distortion of Sound is an eye-opening exposé of the current state of sound starring Linkin Park, Slash, Quincy Jones and more. This documentary will open your ears and inspire you to reach for richer, more soul-stirring musical experiences. "
Ge Wang makes computer music, but it isn't all about coded bleeps and blips. With the Stanford Laptop Orchestra, he creates new instruments out of unexpected materials-like an Ikea bowl-that allow musicians to play music that's both beautiful and expressive. "
"TIME TO X is a 96 channel sound installation that transforms the fourth dimension (time) into a geometrical dimension (x).
The listener can physically move in time and has the possibility to experience audio in a new way."
"This is a documentation of some of Len Lye´s kinetic sculptures shown at the Len Lye retrospective exhibition at the IKON Gallery in Birmingham, UK, from nov 2010 to feb 2011."
"Acoustic Geometry shows how sound works in rooms using Nerf Disc guns, 1130 feet of fluorescent green string, and Moiré patterns, and a before-and-after example."
"Philadelphia's Franklin Institute will soon unveil a new exhibit called Your Brain: www.newsworks.org/index.php/thepul…ur-of-your-brain. The Pulse's Zack Seward got a sneak peek from chief bioscientist Jayatri Das.
The exhibit features about 80 interactive installations exploring how your brain works. And this one ... will blow your mind."
"They uploaded 10 tracks of silence to Spotify under the name Sleepify. Then, they put out this video, urging fans to stream the album on repeat while they slept. The band pledged to use the royalty revenue they racked up to fund a tour, where all shows would have free admission. And it worked."
Bu Kim Cascone
"With the advent of cheap digital recording gear, many have taken to recording their environments and presenting it as sound art. Without considering how technology leaches the soul of an environment, much of today's field recording based sound art will ultimately fail to capture the holistic nuance and subtleties found in nature. What this essay calls for is a resurrection and development of the post-digital aesthetic in the form of "Transcendigitalism.""
"In the second of a series of articles on sound design in documentaries, Peter Albrechtsen - a sound designer himself - focuses on the visionary sound design of the documentary classic, Tarnation, 2003. The film's sound designer discusses the process behind the extraordinary subjective soundscapes in the acclaimed and extremely personal debut by Jonathan Caouette."
"A prehistoric necropolis yields clues to the ancient use of sound and its effect on human brain activity.
Researchers detected the presence of a strong double resonance frequency at 70Hz and 114Hz inside a 5,000-years-old mortuary temple on the Mediterranean island of Malta. The Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum is an underground complex created in the Neolithic (New Stone Age) period as a depository for bones and a shrine for ritual use. A chamber known as "The Oracle Room" has a fabled reputation for exceptional sound behavior."
"A new art expedition aims to record qualitative and quantitative data with a custom-built set of tools on a year of trips through some of the most fascinating places in America. "
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Up first, we see their very low-frequency antenna, which they built from a kit developed by Stephen McGreevy with Christopher Woebken's design. The antenna captures the sounds of spaceweather, the nice name for the environmental conditions created by the sun casting particles at the Earth. As Geoff told me, "You can walk right up to the tripod, put on green headphones, and zone out to the otherworldly whistles and pops of the Earth's magnetosphere."
