Wednesday 26 May 2010

Intonarumori


Here is a brief video showing an instument originally designed by Luigi Russolo called the Intonarumori which has been re-created by Nicolas Bernier creating some fantastic sounds.

nicolas bernier | boîte. | excerpt from Nicolas Bernier on Vimeo.


Martin Messier + Nicolas Bernier | La chambre des machines from Nicolas Bernier on Vimeo.

Here are some very professionaly made intonarumori by Wexel:


Sunday 2 May 2010

Weights, Motors & Chimes









Carving Log

I've been wanting to try my hand at carving for quite some time so I asked Russel where I might be able to find a nice log to carve and he mentioned that there were a few trees past the Botanic Gardens which had recently been felled. So that's where I found this wondeful log.

I thought it would just be a great chance to get used to using the tools and learning what kind of patterns could be made with them so that I would then be able to apply this to my practice if ever the situation arose.

Janet Cardiff & Georges Bures Miller

Pandemonium (2005)
Materials: robotic beaters hitting lights, pipes, cupboards, beds and steel drums controlled by midi.
Installation 2005-7 Eastern State Pennitentiary Museum, curated by Julie Courtney


Tip tap tip tap. Is that the sound of dripping or is it someone in a cell tapping a code on the wall? Now there are many more tapping sounds. Far and near. Loud and soft. Now someone is banging on a pipe, now a cupboard. Now the hall is filled with a cacophony of beats, working their way back and forth, a PANDEMONIUM of percussion.


Using the existing elements in the prison cells Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller have made the entire Cellblock Seven into a giant musical instrument, producing a percussive site work. This instrument, controlled by a computer and midi system, is made up of one hundred and twenty separate beaters hitting disparate xobjects such as toilet bowls, light fixtures and bedside tables found within the prison cells. The composition begins subtly as if two prisoners are trying to communicate and then moves through an abstract soundscape and lively dance beats until it reaches a riot-like crescendo.


The massive Eastern State Penitentiary was once the most famous and expensive prison in the world. Its gothic, castle-like towers stood as a grim warning to lawbreakers in the young United States. This was the world’s first true “penitentiary,” a prison intended to inspire profound regret – or penitence—in the hearts of criminals. The influential design featured cellblocks extending like the spokes of a wheel; each inmate lived in solitary confinement in a vaulted sky-lit cell. The prison itself had running water and central heat before the White House, and once held many of America’s most notorious criminals, including bank robber “Slick Willie” Sutton and Al Capone.


Eastern State closed in 1971. The prison stands today in ruin, a haunting world of crumbling cellblocks and a place of surprising beauty. Cardiff and Miller present Pandemonium in Cell Block Seven, a massive, cathedral-like, two-story wing completed in 1836. It has never been open to the public, and has been stabilized especially for this exhibition. The installation will open to the public on May 12, 2005 and will remain on view through November as well as in 2006.