Monday 22 December 2014

Tabu Ley Rochereau



The Congolese songwriter, singer and bandleader Tabu Ley Rochereau, who has died aged 76, was one of Africa's most popular entertainers – his work had an appeal that crossed ethnic, linguistic and national barriers. He composed thousands of songs and from the late 1950s his "internationalised" form of Congolese rumba, known as soukous, brought him great fame and fortune.
He came to prominence in the band African Jazz, formed in 1953 in what is now Kinshasa (then Léopoldville), capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, by Joseph Kabasele, known as Le Grand Kallé. He popularised the form of local rumba by blending the use of indigenous instruments, rhythms and vocal styles with imported elements, including Latin dance beats, electric guitars and westernised arrangements. The language was principally Lingala, used by soldiers, traders and bureaucrats in a country with more than 250 dialects, although Rochereau also sang in French and Spanish.
During the economic and cultural boom that followed the second world war, several European companies had established record labels and studios, each with their own resident house band turning out seven-inch 45 rpm discs, which sold in large numbers. Rochereau joined African Jazz as a part-time member in 1956. Notable among his colleagues were the guitarist Dr Nico Kasanda and the Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango.

Tuesday 11 November 2014

Radiophrenia

Open Call for Sound & Radio Works


Radiophrenia - a temporary FM art radio station broadcasting in Glasgow during April 2015, announces an open call for sound and transmission artworks.
We are seeking soundscapes, spoken word pieces, radio experiments, found sound, innovative approaches to drama and documentary and radical and challenging new programme ideas. The station will be housed in Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts with a broadcast schedule including live shows, pre-recorded features and a daily series of live to air performances. Radiophrenia aims to promote the medium of radio as an art form and encourage experimental approaches to making radio that are not catered for by mainstream stations.

Thursday 6 November 2014

Objekt - Flatland


Widely championed techno/electronica producer Objekt deposits his detailed and complex debut album on PAN. Since 2011 at least, the Berlin resident known as TJ Hertz has been a vital cog in the European techno machine, self-releasing some of this decade's most vaunted white labels, plus 12"s with Hessle Audio and Leisure System - including this year's great split with Dopplereffekt - beside his role as software engineer for Native Instruments. With 'Flatland' he takes the opportunity to scud farther between electro and techno conventions with some proper production acrobatics, modelling a vivid 3D framework viewable from multiple perspectives, imagining "…a world in which any scene can be seen from any angle at once". Entering via the ambient airlock chamber of 'Agnes Revenge', we're given access to a subtly evolving soundsphere of sheer, incremental gradients and whirring mechanisms interspersed with nods to radiophonic experimentation and the melodic charm of '90s Warp styles. The scuttling funk of 'One Fell Swoop' or 'Ratchet' and the keening harmonics of 'Agnes Apparatus' recall classic Plaid, whilst elsewhere the album ranges from knackered techno ('Dogma') to Powell-esque hardwave ('Strays') and Rrose-alike techno churn ('One Stitch Follows Another', 'First Witness') via augmented hip hop ('Second Witness'). It's all certain to spark the interests of the techiest bass heads and IDM fiends around.

Tuesday 4 November 2014

School of Scottish Studies Sound Archive


The School of Scottish Studies was established in 1951 at the University of Edinburgh to collect, archive, research and publish material relating to the cultural life, folklore and traditional arts of Scotland. Over the past sixty years, fieldworkers at the School have made thousands of recordings of songs, instrumental music, tales, verse, customs, beliefs, place-names biographical information and local history. Material in the Sound Archive comes from all over Scotland and its diaspora, and as well as being a rich repository of oral tradition it is invaluable for its range of dialects and accents in Gaelic, Scots and English.
The early collectors visited crofting, farming and fishing communities obtaining information on subjects such as the life of crofters and farm servants, the agricultural year, food gathering and preparation, house construction, the herring industry, traditional medicine, animal husbandry, emigration, whaling, religion, weather lore, lifecycle and seasonal customs. Urban life has also been documented and there are recollections of shipbuilding, factory work, transport, housing and street life, schooling, as well as contemporary fieldwork examining the re-invention of customs and use of ‘heritage’. Recordings from the Scottish Place Name Survey, and the Linguistic Survey of Scotland are also available along with ancillary materials such as maps and field notebooks. There is a substantial number of donated collections in the Sound Archive, including various local history projects, among them the notable Scottish Labour History Project which focused on work and occupations in the central belt during the 20th century.

Friday 31 October 2014

John Cage - The Musicircus happening (1967)


The Musicircus happening took place in the University of Illinois stock pavilion.  John Cage positioned the audience and performers in a way that reflected the facility's standard use as an arena for judging livestock. The performers were placed on raised platforms to mimic the judges, who typically sat in the stands above the central arena, while the audience took on the role of livestock roaming around the floor.  Cage worked with artist William Wegman to create some of the inflatables that were installed at the pavilion as well as other composers and performers from the University.

Monday 27 October 2014

Solfeggio tones

Solfeggio frequencies make up the ancient 6-tone scale thought to have been used in sacred music, including the beautiful and well known Gregorian Chants. The chants and their special tones were believed to impart spiritual blessings when sung in harmony. Each Solfeggio tone is comprised of a frequency required to balance your energy and keep your body, mind and spirit in perfect harmony.

 





Sunday 26 October 2014

Patepluma Radio


Welcome to Patepluma! The emphasis here is on Latin American culture and broadcasting. But, there is also material on broadcasting in other parts of the world plus general information on the DX radio listening hobby, particularly short wave. Please browse through the menus. Your comments and suggestions will be appreciated!





What They Won't Show You On Television


The documentaries below reveal the parts of reality that we are not supposed to talk about; the parts of reality that contradict common sense, but still go on unquestioned by the global media cartel and unanswered by our governments. Spread the Word.

The Forgotten Story of Royal Raymond Rife




Royal Raymond Rife (May 16, 1888 – August 5, 1971) was an American inventor and early exponent of high-magnification time-lapse cine-micrography.In the 1930s, he claimed that by using a specially designed optical microscope, he could observe microbes which were too small to visualize with previously existing technology. Rife also reported that a 'beam ray' device of his invention could weaken or destroy the pathogens by energetically exciting destructive resonances in their constituent chemicals.

Rife's claims could not be independently replicated,[5] and were ultimately discredited by the medical profession in the 1950s. Rife blamed the scientific rejection of his claims on a conspiracy involving the American Medical Association (AMA), the Department of Public Health, and other elements of "organized medicine", which had "brainwashed" potential supporters of his devices.

Wednesday 22 October 2014

Throwing Shade - NTS Radio


A DJ, producer and barrister from London, when Throwing Shade isn't in court she's making or playing music. Having studied ethnomusicology at university, her show is a place for her to share rare field recordings and other sounds from around the world.   

NAISA


New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) is a non-profit organization, based in Toronto, that presents performances and installations spanning the entire spectrum of electroacoustic and experimental sound art. NAISA’s annual events include: the Deep Wireless Festival of Radio & Transmission Art in May, the Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art in August, NAISA’s participation in the international Art’s Birthday celebration in January, as well as the NAISA Sound Bash Series in March and the SOUNDplay series in November. The objectives of NAISA are to foster awareness and understanding locally, as well as nationally and internationally, in the cultural vitality of experimental sound art in its myriad forms of expression. This objective will be achieved through the exploration of new sound technologies in conjunction with the creation of cultural events and artifacts.

Wireless Cultures Symposium


Video content for the 2003 Tate Modern conference, Wireless Cultures Symposium, with contributions from Micz Flor, Tetsuo Kogawa, Simon Worthington, Pete Gomes and Nancy Proctor.

Scattered Frequencies


Scattered Frequencies: Radio Networking in Nepal from Sourcefabric on Vimeo.

Only recently, the Nepalese government started issuing licenses for independent radio stations. Since then, a group of journalists have been pooling resources and efforts towards establishing a self-sustainable media network for the only widely accessible medium in Nepal: radio. Accompany the radio makers on their tour through parts of Nepal, visiting some of the partner stations. (2002)
Scattered Frequencies is an ongoing documentary project, following independent radios in different stages of their development. It attempts to illustrate possibilities and difficulties of establishing independent radio networks.
A project by: Micz Flor & Philip Scheffner
Assembled at: pong-berlin, 2002

Wireless Technologies

NETWORK THE PEOPLE

By Simon Worthington, James Stevens and Bruce M.Simpson, 10 March 2002


Have you noticed the strange sight of Parcelforce workers delivering bundles of copper wire, sheets of aluminum, plastic tubing and reels of cable to inauspicious looking buildings of late? Or have you noticed the empty Jolt cans and pizza boxes overflowing from bin bags all over the city? We can confirm that these seemingly unrelated phenomena are in fact connected: the wireless network community has been born! For several years now, enthusiasts – fuelled by pure idealism and junk food – have been building local area networks, operating over licensed 802.11 wireless technology, to provide communities with broadbandwidth connections for next to no money. Inspired to join in the fray, Mute has recently started building too. Here we present some of the results, as well as a few words from those that inspired us – on technical and other matters

Jump Cut


JUMP CUT: A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA is run on a nonprofit basis by its staff and is not affiliated with or supported by any institution. Begun in 1974 as a film publication, JUMP CUT now publishes material on film, television, video and related media and cultural analysis. As a print publication till 2001, JUMP CUT circulated 4000 copies per issue in North America and internationally to a wide range of readers including students, academics, media professionals, political activists, radicals interested in culture, film and video makers, and others interested in the radical analysis of mass culture and opposition media.

by Andrea Hammer


Thursday 16 October 2014

Voices from the Barras



'Voices from the Barras' is a documentary film directed and edited by Alan Knight and produced by Abigail Howkins through Diversity Films as part of 'The Barras Story' - a community heritage and learning project using archive photography, film and oral history to explore the social, cultural, historical and economic importance of the world famous Barras Market to the East End of Glasgow.
Set-up in 1921 by Maggie McIver, the traders and past customers today remember the market’s hey-day, when ‘spielers’ would turn selling into a stage show, shifting their wares as quickly as their razor-sharp patter would allow. People once came from all over Scotland to search for bargains at the Barras.
The project focused on collecting Barras community memories and stories, past and present from traders, stallholders, family members and customers. It brought together a group of community members interested in research, oral history and film production.
Led by filmmakers, Abigail Howkins and Alan Knight, the project culminated in a 25-minute documentary called ‘Voices from The Barras’ which screened around local venues in the East End of Glasgow, including The Barras itself and project partner The People’s Palace, alongside an exhibition featuring photographs by Alan Knight and Julia Bauer as well as archive photos and materials found during the process.

Chris Leslie - Paddy's Market



Paddy's Market, which lies in the heart of Glasgow has been a local institution for over 200 years. The flea market has served generations of the city's poor, unemployed and its immigrant population. Glasgow City Council is poised to take over the lease of the Paddy's Market site and could shut it down by the Autumn. Citing crime and drug dealing in the area, the council claim the market is a 'crime ridden midden.'

Media reports and the council have totally misrepresented the crime rate in the market. The drugs and crime have nothing to with the honest, hard working traders of the market. All the crime and drug use can be attributed to residents of a hostel for drug addicts which neighbours the market.

In reality the real issue is financial and real estate and the dehumanisation of the market is being used to push public opinion to accept the closure. Masked as a 'regeneration' project, this would be the loss of a unique local institution and lifeline to thousands of Glaswegians.

Wednesday 8 October 2014

Interview: Paul “Groucho” Smykle


Very much a behind the scenes figure, Paul ‘Groucho’ Smykle mixed some of the most intense dub works to be released during the ’80s and ’90s. As one of Island Records’ in-house engineers, dubmaster Groucho etched his mark on prime works by Black UhuruSly and Robbie and Ini Kamoze, and was probably the first mixer to subject African music to the extreme sonic textures of dub.

Saturday 4 October 2014

London's Pirate Pioneers - 25th September 2014


Listen back to an incredible documentary by AM/FM covering the story of London’s pirate radio stations from 1980 to 1989. The show traces the history of the broadcasters through clips, music and contemporary news reports and interviews.


Thursday 2 October 2014

FOOD (1972) – Gordon Matta-Clark's Restaurant


This film documents the legendary SoHo restaurant and artists' cooperative Food, which opened in 1971. Owned and operated by Caroline Goodden, Food was designed and built largely by Matta-Clark, who also organized art events and performances there. As a social space, meeting ground and ongoing art project for the emergent downtown artists' community, Food was a landmark that still resonates in the history and mythology of SoHo in the 1970s. 

FOOD (1972) on UBUWEB

Kite & Laslett


Kite & Laslett is an interdisciplinary art practice based in London. The duo; Sebastian Kite and Will Laslett, trained in architecture and music, create experiential environments to choreograph the sensory engagement of people with architectural spaces. Conceptually, Kite & Laslett’s work is rooted in investigations into paradigms of perception and phenomenology. Their practice lies at the intersection of art and architecture, with a particular focus on site-specificity. Kite & Laslett’s installations use structure, kinetics, light, projection and sound as strategies to illustrate new readings of spaces. Inherent to their work is a passion for precision, technical efficiency, inventive materials and elegance.

Since graduating as architects in 2010 (Glasgow School of Art, Westminster School of Architecture), Sebastian and Will established Kite & Laslett, a creative arts and design duo in London. Whilst constructing their own houses and studio inside the shell of a disused warehouse, the duo established their practice. Their studio provides the space and inspiration for rigorous experimentation and prototype making. From technical drawings via engineering solutions through construction to installation, and finally, photographic documentation, the duo possess the skills to realise their ambitious ideas self-sufficiently from concept to fruition. Inherent to their work is a passion for precision, technical efficiency, inventive materials and elegance.

Manual for the construction of a sound as a device to elaborate social connection

Edited by Brandon LaBelle Surface Tension Supplement No. 4 



Organized as a temporary working group, the Manual project set out to explore sound and auditory experience as platforms for social meeting, urban intervention and environmental investigation. Developed in collaboration with Atelier Nord and the Ultima festival and staged in Oslo in 2009, the project brought together six artists from around Europe engaged in experimental media practices. The project functioned as a series of process-oriented field studies of the city, involving locational research, performative actions and public discussion. Such an approach aimed to use sound as a process of temporal and social exchange. The works involved supplemented objective perspectives with face-to-face interactions, secret interventions, and transmissions so as to bring forward amplifications of city life.
Including artistic works and materials by Siri Austeen (Norway), Brandon LaBelle(US/Germany), Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec (Slovenia/Holland), Kristina Lindström & Åsa Ståhl (Sweden), and Jana Winderen (Norway).

http://www.errantbodies.org/main.html

http://errantbodiesspace.blogspot.co.uk/

Kink - Under Destruction

THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE – FREEDOM, ISSUE 6













‘I think: Protect me from people who want to protect me; but more, save me from people who know what upsets others.’ - Lynne Tillman
This new issue of The Happy Hypocrite challenges the restraining notions found in art and writing about who and what can and cannot speak. What can and cannot be said or thought. In part a response to Kafka - to that which we don’t know has damaged us – freedom is presented as an important and urgent concept, and a complicated word, in which and beside which hypocrisy also resides. (Hypocrisy can be construed as a freedom). The Happy Hypocrite offers its pages to ingenious fictional, nonfictional, and visual responses to the various meanings of ‘freedom’.

Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis and Other Stories

This collection brings together the stories that Kafka allowed to be published during his lifetime. To Max Brod, his literary executor, he wrote: “Of all my writings the only books that can stand are these.”
"Of all my writings the only books that can stand are these..." Kafka wrote to Max Bord, his literary executor. This volume brings together the stories that Kafka allowed to be published during his lifetime. These haunting tales established Franz Kafka as one of the seminal writers of the 20th century and endure because of their timeless depiction of the nightmare world of everyday life. Includes such classics as "The Metamorphosis," "In the Penal Colony," "A Hunger Artist," "A Country Doctor," and "The Judgment."

Bella Caledonia Newspaper & Website

"THE OPPOSITE OF OBEDIENCE ISN'T DISOBEDIENCE, IT'S INDEPENDENCE"



“Where is there a newspaper that champions independence as favoured, we are told by pollsters, by a majority of Scots? There is none. Never has been. It never ceases to amaze me that not one newspaper in Scotland supports the policy of independence supported by half of the six parties in Holyrood. That is not only anti-democratic, it is a disgrace to journalism and an affront to free speech.”

Wednesday 1 October 2014

The Upas Tree

The friends of humanity laying the axe to the upas tree of slavery, which is ever loaded with the sum of all villanies.
Applied to anything baneful or of evil influence. The tradition is that a putrid stream rises from the tree which grows in the island of Java, and that whatever the vapour touches dies. This fable is chiefly due to Foersch, a Dutch physician, who published his narrative in 1783. “Not a tree,” he says, “nor blade of grass is to be found in the valley or surrounding mountains. Not a beast or bird, reptile or living thing, lives in the vicinity.” He adds that on “one occasion 1,600 refugees encamped within fourteen miles of it, and all but 300 died within two months.” This fable Darwin has perpetuated in his Loves of the Plants. Bennett has shown that the Dutchman’s account is a mere traveller’s tale, for the tree while growing is quite innocuous, though the juice may be used for poison; the whole neighbourhood is most richly covered with vegetation; men can fearlessly walk under the tree, and birds roost on its branches. A upas tree grows in Kew Gardens, and flourishes amidst other hot-house plants.

Tuesday 30 September 2014

Skyapnea Night Broadcasts



For the first installment in this series of Night Broadcasts curated by SKYAPNEA for NTS, electroacoustic duo One For Ghost puts together a mix of almost pure reworks. Most of the material gets the same treatment as OFG own recordings and it's edited and assembled to fit into the duo's sound. As in their debut release "Archives Vol.01" Doreen Ooi and Giovanni Civitenga keep working in an area equally defined by Dilla, Fennesz and Arvo Part, using fragments of acoustic sources, contemporary classical music and electronics to create highly textured music both engaging and hypnotic. 

Every second friday of the month from 4 to 6 AM, NTS will air a special mix curated by SKYAPNEA, two hours of sounds specifically assembled for the dark limbo before sunrise. Featuring artists on the label and friends, the Night Broadcasts series aims at offering artists an intimate time frame to experiment with.


Ethereal Shadows - Communications and Power in Contemporary Italy

Franco ""Bifo"" Berardi, Marco Jacquemet, & Gianfranco Vitali Translated from Italian by Jessica Otey



Focusing on Italian “videocracy,” Ethereal Shadows documents the emergence of the first Italian media mogul, Silvio Berlusconi, and his rises and falls from political power. It also explores Italian media activism through three case studies: a discussion of the first autonomous free radio station, Radio Alice (broadcasting in Bologna between 1977 and 1979); a review of Italian Internet activism focusing on the site Rekombinant.org (launched in 2000); and a chronicle of the emergence of OrfeoTV in 2002, the first illegal micro-TV station in Italy. 

“Ethereal Shadows is a landmark achievement in contemporary media studies: a must read for anyone who wants to understand contemporary media power— the impasses of totalitarian spectacular power as well as the exodus routes of autonomous constituent communication powers.” — Jack Z. Bratich, author Conspiracy Panics 

John Cage in Conversation with Morton Feldman

Radio Happening 1 of 5



John Cage and Morton Feldman recorded four open-ended conversations at the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. These meetings spanned six months between July 1966 and January 1967, and were produced as five "Radio Happenings". Both men were at transitional points in their music. Cage had completed “Variations V” in 1965 and “Variations VI” and “Variations VII” in 1966, and would publish "A Year from Monday" in 1967. Most of Feldman's important work was yet to come. These conversations between two old friends, relaxed, smoking, and throwing out ideas, are full of laughter and long ponderous silences. They form an incredible historical record of their concerns and preoccupation with making music, art, society, and politics of the moment.


Listen here at: 



Sly & Robbie - A Dub Experience



Monday 29 September 2014

Filters
Although it is rather simple in design and construction a filter is one of the most important elements in broadcasting. No matter what, a proper filter must be used between the transmitter and antenna. Use of a filter will help deprive the FCC of one of its main arguments against micropower broadcasting - interference with other broadcast services.

A proper filter reduces or eliminates harmonics from your broadcast signal. Harmonics are produced by the transmitter and are multiples of the fundamental frequency you are tuned for. For example, if you broadcast at 104.1, you may produce a harmonic at 208.2, and (less likely) 312.6 and so on. Most filter designs are of the low pass type. They let frequencies below a certain frequency pass through unaffected. As the frequency increases and goes beyond that point the filter begins to attenuate any frequency that is higher than the set point. The degree of attenuation increases with the frequency. By the time the frequency of the first harmonic is reached it will be severely attenuated. This is very important since the first harmonic from an FM transmitter falls in the high VHF TV band. Failure to reduce this harmonic will cause interference to neighboring TV sets.

Instructions for making your own RF Low Pass Filter for 88-108MHz Transmitters

Pirate Radio Guide



A technical primer and guide with advice about micropower broadcasting and other aspects of running a pirate radio station.
Many people still assume that an FM broadcast station consists of rooms full of equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars. The Micropower Broadcasting, Free Radio Movement has shown this to be untrue.
Micropower broadcasting uses FM transmitters whose power output is in the range of 1/2 to 40 watts. Such transmitters have a physical size that is not greater than that of your average brick. These transmitters combined with other equipment including inexpensive audio mixers, consumer audio gear, a power supply, filter and antenna enable any community to put its own voice on the air at an average cost of $1000-$1500. This is far more affordable than the tens or hundreds of thousands required by the current FCC regulatory structure.

Tuesday 2 September 2014

Luted Crucible Bronze Casting

Institute of Making

'Luted' or sealed crucible casting is a low-cost and low-tech method of casting, relatively unknown outside India and West Africa. It involves sealing the raw ingredients for bronze - copper and tin - into one half of a peanut-shaped crucible made from mud. The other half contains the wax model to be cast. The whole thing is baked in a furnace, and when the metal is molten it is flipped over, and the liquid bronze fills the cavity left by the wax.

Monday 18 August 2014

Floppy Disk Reverb/ Echo


The basic idea is to use a floppy drive to record analog audio. To do this, I used an arduino to turn the drive off and on, and control whether or not we were reading from or writing to the disk.
It is fairly easy to write music to old floppy diskettes because they are made from the same material as audio cassette tape, and the same methods can be used. In addition, an arduino or other microcontroller is not necessary, the same thing can be accomplished using only switches and manual connections.

How to get decent sound out of a Contact Microphone

How do piezos work?
Piezo comes from the Greek word “to squeeze”, which is the basis of how they function. Inside of a piezo material, there are electric charges which are fixed relative to the shape of the material. So, when the material is squeezed, the charges move with the material and create a voltage. This can also work in reverse, such that applying a voltage can cause the material to shrink or expand. A representative drawing of this is shown below.

Figure 2 – Piezo material being compressed and realigning internal dipole charges.
Examples of good amplifier circuits are shown above. You will note the 10kohm resistors in series with the amplifier inputs. These limit the in-rush of current in case of large voltage spikes, and help protect the amplifiers. The diodes on the op-amp clamp the voltage to the supply rails. The JFET has an internal diode, as do some op-amps, so external diodes are not strictly necessary. Although the voltage produced by a piezo can be quite large, the current is extremely small, so the 10kohm resistor is usually enough to protect your circuit.


Figure 4 – Example piezo circuits with high-impedance input, and input protection.

Saturday 16 August 2014

Meet the Volunteers - Thomas Leyland-Collins


The last block of Introduction to Film workshops just ended, and we wanted to thank our wonderful volunteer Thomas Leyland-Collins for the work he did with the group. Here he tells us a bit more about his practice and his experience at Project Ability.





Monday 11 August 2014

David Dunn - Micro Listening

The Micro Listening Project is an interdisciplinary art and science strategy for increasing the monitoring of our environment through sound. It hopes to provide new inexpensive technologies that can facilitate an increase in our collective environmental sensitivity and discovery of unknown natural and human made phenomena, providing novel tools for sound artist, and contributing towards practical environmental problem solving

Click image above to view pdf. document with instructions on how to make the microphones.
The project focuses upon the design of inexpensive but highly effective audio transducer systems for bioacoustic and sound art monitoring of otherwise hidden aspects of our auditory environment that are not audible through the use of conventional microphones. In addition to these technological advancements for listening, the project seeks to document a wide diversity of sound worlds for both demonstration of the transducers and general aesthetic revelation of our environment. Precise instructions on how to use and construct these devices will be part of this workshop. The devices are designed to allow as wide a distribution of their use as possible by both amateurs and professionals

Sony PCM-D50 Linear Recorder


Tuesday 5 August 2014

ASounder


Has the sonic world you inhabit ever felt oppressive or invasive? (Bearing in mind that ears are open 24/7). Were the effects of this state physical or psychological, or both? In cases where such contexts are encountered on a daily basis, what strategies can help deflect or disrupt such a sound world?
How can you avoid hearing only what you want (or are programmed) to hear? What kind of training can break the conditioning which limits hearing? How do you break out of your own sonic past and invent a future?

How might you use sound in order to stimulate a sense of collectivity? (Where both the physical and mental are intertwined.) How might collective intelligence be mobilized through sound in a capitalist system which separates and individualizes?


Control / Modulation

Spatial Intervention




Drift Sound Art Festival - Glasgow 1999


For three days in November 1999 (12th / 13th / 14th), Glasgow will be the host for 'drift' - an imaginative, vital and accessible programme of sound art & acoustic ecology based performance, workshops, installations, soundwalks & talks

drift involves people who are concerned and committed to caring for the quality of the acoustic environment through the perspective of their field or individual situation. People who, if they are creators of sound, are sensitive to the relationship between their own sound production and the acoustic environment. drift actively encourages participation and attendance in all of its events from all age groups and walks of life.

United Kingdom & Ireland Soundscape Community



Background:
It was in November, 1999 at Drift, a weekend of Sound Art and Acoustic Ecology in Glasgow, Scotland, that the UKISC was formally constituted as one of the first of nine affiliated organisations now forming the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE). The organisation's first Annual General Meeting was held in December 2000 at which time it started to accept membership subscriptions and offered the opportunity for members to join "soundscapeuk" an online discussion list. Like any voluntary organisation whose members are widespread and also working full time in other capacities, the UKISC has inevitably taken time and patience to organise and maintain an active agenda over the years.

Saturday 2 August 2014

The Dalston Mill, EXYZT, 15 July 2009


Commission description 
EXYZT aim to challenge the view of architecture as an independent field of practice and ‘conceive and organize each project as a playground in which cultural behaviours and shared stories relate, mix and mingle.’

The Dalston Mill featured a restaging of pioneering environmental artist Agnes Dene's iconic work Wheatfield – A Confrontation, 1982, commissioned by the American Public Art Fund, where she planted and harvested two acres of wheat at the Battery Park landfill site in downtown New York. This act of transplanting rural nature into the heart of an otherwise extremely dense urban environment was EXYZT’s inspiration for The Dalston Mill.

EXYZT installed a functioning windmill capable of producing low-voltage electricity and supplying enough power for an LED lighting system and to grind wheat for some of the flour required by a resident baker to run a bread oven. The mill was located adjacent to a 20 metre-long wheatfield planted for the occasion.
During July and August, a programme of events presented by artists and local arts organisations such as Gahu Dramatic Arts, Arcola Theatre and Artburst transformed this previously neglected, overlooked, wasteland into a highly popular place with local people. The addition of a small bar encouraged people to spend time on this site. The project showed how a small, tranquil semi-rural oasis could be created in the midst of a highly urban space, which at the time was dominated by major construction work.

Read more on the Open City website...



The Dalston Mill was an off-site installation that occurred for three weeks in 2009 in the context of the Barbican Art Gallery exhibition Radical Nature – Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969-2009. A disused railway line and waste ground in the East London suburb of Dalston was transformed into a temporary 16 metre high fully functioning flour mill with a community kitchen and bread oven that was open to the public. The project also included a 20 metre long wheat field, a recreation of the artist Agnes Denes’ Wheatfield – A Confrontation planted in New York in 1982. A series of public programs and events were included in the presentation of The Dalston Mill, including theatrical performances by Arcola Academy, baking and cooking classes, urban sustainability talks, ‘green’ workshops, artist talks and a bike-powered cinema hosted by Magnificent Revolution.


 

___MANIFESTO


Be utopian !

We want to build new worlds where fiction is reality and games are new rules for democracy. If space is made by dynamics of exchange, then everybody can be the architects of our world and encourage creativity, reflexion and to renew social behaviours.

Experiment !

Architecture can expand into a multidisciplinary game where everyone brings his own tools and knowledge to contribute to a collective piece. We do refuse to enter the current architectural practice which serve the building industry. We do deal with the reality of construction. We design, build and live our constructions and host the freedom for visitors to appropriate our projects. We produce an open source architecture that offer an access to basic public amenities and a place for exchange : A physical framework for a direct and immediate emulation between people and space. We wish to incite anyone to re appropriate and get involved with his own social and physical environment.




Monday 28 July 2014

Sounding Cities Festival


Our proposal is to increase awareness of the importance of our local and global soundscapes and our role in their experience and design. As listeners, we are also responsible for the shape and beauty of our own soundscape. Therefore, we must open our ears.
Through workshops, performances, concerts, soundwalks and sound installations we intend to transform Viseu into an acoustically conscious city. For this time, it will be a special place of intersection between art, science and life.
Raquel Castro

Saturday 26 July 2014

Cobra Mist


Cobra Mist explores the relationship between the landscape of Orford Ness and the physical traces of its unusual military history.

Credits

A film by Emily Richardson
Camera John Adderley
Sound Recordist Chris Watson
Composer Benedict Drew

Synopses

Cobra Mist captures the enigmatic atmosphere of an abandoned military landscape.

Cobra Mist explores the relationship between the landscape of Orford Ness and the physical traces of its unusual military history.

Cobra Mist explores the relationship between the landscape of Orford Ness and the traces of its unusual military history, particularly the experiments in radar and the extraordinary architecture of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment. The place has a sinister atmosphere, which the architecture itself begins to reveal and the sense of foreboding is accentuated through the film’s soundtrack.
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