[Image: David Dunn] Navigating the Space of the Future - Seminar with presentations by: Yolande Harris, David Dunn and Atau Tanaka:: April 15, 2008; 8:30 pm :: Netherlands Media Art Institute, Keizersgracht 264, 1016 EV Amsterdam :: LIVE STREAM.

What does it mean to navigate? What is the importance of location specificity? What does it mean to get lost? The increasing accuracy of satellite navigation strives to eliminate the possibility of human error, but it also produces a sense of dislocation from one’s immediate environment by abstracting location as the coordinates of longitude and latitude. What place is there for one’s body, one’s senses, one’s conscious and unconscious awareness of space, if this knowledge is so apparently made redundant by GPS? Continue reading

Call for Performance Proposals: Tuned City - Between Sound and Space Speculation :: Garage, Kastanienallee 73, 10435 Berlin.

Tuned City is seeking proposals for short performances and artist presentations addressing issues of sound and architecture. These proposals should relate to one or more of the topics listed below, and should include links to online documentation of the proposed performance/presentation, or to similar work by the same artist / author. The deadline for proposals is April 30, 2008, but proposals will be considered as they are received. Please submit proposals in English. Continue reading

Bernhard Leitner: TonRaumSkulptur / Sound Space Sculpture (1968-1973) :: Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin :: February 1 - March 24, 2008 :: [info] :: [video] :: [bernhard leitner website]

Sound Spaces are not just spaces in which sound can be heard. Rather, it is sound itself that creates the space and its special qualities. Therefore the experience of hearing not only enables us to experience the space around us, they can also make it possible to experience physical space as an “inner” space. Bernhard Leitner’s work leads us to a quality of sound (as space) that remains concealed within stimulus streams. It shows the potentials of sensual experience that we are barely conscious of because they are either lost or have remained unknown as possibilities. - Cathrin Pichler Continue reading

Monique Buzzarté and Leopanar Witlarge discuss and perform their recent works in the Harvestworks presentation room, 596 Broadway #602, NYC :: February 4, 2008; 6:30 pm :: HARVESTWORKS Digital Media Arts Center, 596 Broadway, Suite 602 (at Houston St.), New York (Subway: F/V Broadway / Lafayette, 6 Bleecker, W/R Prince)

Monique Buzzarté will perform Subtle Winds (2007), an eight-channel surround sound composition that can be performed in three configurations: as an electro-acoustic piece with or without an optional performer, or by live performers only. Continue reading

Tuned City - Between Sound and Space Speculation is a comprehensive exhibition and conference project planned for July 2008. The project searches for a new evaluation of architectural spaces from the perspective of the acoustic through the facilitation of dialog between the discourses of sound art, architecture and urban planning as well as the commissioning and exhibition of several site-specific works in various locations around the city of Berlin.

Tuned City presents artistic work and theoretical approaches derived from a critical preoccupation with sound in the context of urban and architectonic situations and their socio-political implications. Continue reading

The musical Sea Organ (2005), by Nikola Bašić, is located on the shores of Zadar, Croatia, and is the world’s first second musical pipe organ played by the sea. Simple and elegant steps, carved in white stone, were built on the quayside. Underneath, there are 35 musically tuned tubes with whistle openings on the sidewalk. The movement of the sea pushes air through, and – depending on the size and velocity of the wave – musical chords are played. The waves create random harmonic sounds.

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White Sound Down - Jeff Talman is a sound and installation artist based in New York City. His work is a sensory meditation on the elementary sound of space. In his installations, he amplifies the background resonance of an environment by extracting and strategically redirecting ambient sound back into its place of origin. In so doing, he heightens the occupant’s aural perception of the surrounding area.

His most recent project, entitled White Sound Down, is a temporary multi-channel sound field installation in a remote section of the Bavarian Forest. White Sound Down is only accessible by cross country ski trails, and will be up until January 6, 2008. Continue reading

Bill Fontana has been creating musical networks and making “sound sculptures” since the early 1970s. His works are usually large in scale and often involve the transmission of sounds from one ‘listening’ location with a network of microphones and/or sensors to another location where the sounds are overlayed onto the local sonic environment. Fontana’s work focuses strongly on the idea of listening as a compositional act - that is, it is driven by the idea that music surrounds us constantly and that the patterns of music are audible if we just take the time to listen. Examples and excerpts of many of Fontana’s works can be heard and seen at his website, resoundings.org.

Bill Fontana will be answering reader’s questions in the comments section below until December 6, 2007. Continue reading

The Chandelier - developed by Mike Fabio, Steve Pliam, Brian Demers, and Lucas Hernandez-Mena - is a large-scale robotic musical instrument designed for the opera Death and the Powers. Using various electronically controlled actuators, The Chandelier is capable of creating sounds unlike traditional instruments, and even some sounds that defy the size of the instrument itself. In this installation participants are given control over an instrument that is clearly, visibly, much larger than themselves, yet inextricably linked to their movements on a traditional piano keyboard, exploring and breaking the limitations of human performers as well as the instruments that we think of as commonplace. Continue reading

A forerunner of Radar, acoustic mirrors or ‘listening ears’ were built on the south and northeast coasts of England (1916 - 1930s) to detect approaching enemy aircraft at a distance of 8 to 15 miles. With the development of faster aircraft the sound mirrors became less useful, as an aircraft would be within sight by the time it had been located; radar finally rendered the mirrors obsolete. [via]

Lise Autogena’s Sound Mirrors was inspired by the derelict acousic mirrors at Denge, England. It aims to create two new sound mirrors on the coasts of England and France to enable people on either side of the English Channel to speak to each other. Continue reading