In This Place Of Safety (ITPOS) uses a building as a projection screen to explore intersections between temporary video interventions, architecture and art. It combines images of empty playgrounds projected across NOVAS gallery building facade and sound of children’s voices on a playground. It aims to add an extraordinary element to the cityscape of LB Southwark, but also more quietly start a conversation about how safe do we feel and why.

As a logical progression from large-scale outdoor video installation 205A Morning Lane, ITPOS looks into new forms of displays on buildings with knowledge of recent technical developments addressing the chances and risks of this development. The project looks into relation between the content and the display structure on the one hand and the building structure and it tries to find its specific correspondence.

Artist talk, private view and lovely Japanese DJs on 17th July 2008, 7.00 - 10.30 pm

Novas Contemporary Urban Centre
73-81 Southwark Bridge Road
London, SE1 0NQ

Supported by the University of Westminster and Arts Council England.

Part of London Festival of Architecture 2008.

Editors notes:

Larisa Blazic’s work is focused on interactive site-specific installation exploring audience participation, real-time audio distribution and networked audio-video installation. It explores location as main carrier of meaning, aesthetics of everyday urban experience, creative use of surveillance technologies, real-time video stream and moving image in the context of temporary public art interventions and its communication to wider audience.

Novas CUC - London Bridge Bankside: Novas is at the cutting edge of tackling social disadvantage through creating inclusive employment in social enterprises, providing flexible community based support services to vulnerable people and offering quality art and cultural programmes, which involve the wider community in understanding complex social issues.

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.

The Coda

337

http://www.e-w-n-s.net
http://www.ex-centric.net

The second volume of the Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series asks the question: what lessons can architecture learn from software development, and more specifically, from the Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) movement? Written in the form of a quasi-license, Urban Versioning System 1.0 posits seven constraints that, if followed, will contribute to an open source urbanism that radically challenges the conventional ways in which cities are constructed.

About the Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series:

Series Editors: Omar Khan, Trebor Scholz, Mark Shepard — Published by the Architectural League of New York.

The Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series extends a discourse initiated in the summer of 2006 by a three-month-long discussion on the Institute for Distributed Creativity (iDC) mailing list that culminated in the Architecture and Situated Technologies symposium at the Urban Center and Eyebeam in New York, co-produced by the Center for Virtual Architecture (CVA), the Architectural League of New York and the iDC. The series explores the implications of ubiquitous computing for architecture and urbanism: how our experience of space and the choices we make within it are affected by a range of mobile, pervasive, embedded or otherwise “situated” technologies. Published three times a year over three years, the series is structured as a succession of nine “conversations” between researchers, writers and other practitioners from architecture, art, philosophy of technology, comparative media studies, performance studies, and engineering.

For more information about the series, visit
www.situatedtechnologies.net

About the Architectural League:

The mission of the Architectural League is to advance the art of architecture. The League carries out its mission by promoting excellence and innovation, and by fostering community and discussion in an independent forum for creative and intellectual work in architecture, urbanism, and related disciplines. We present the work and ideas of the world’s most interesting and influential architects and designers to New York, national and international audiences, through lectures, exhibitions, publications, and the worldwide web. We identify and encourage talented young architects, through competitions, grants, exhibitions, and publications. And we help shape the future of our built environment by stimulating debate and provoking design thinking about the critical issues of our time.

The Architectural League is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization supported by the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. League programs are also made possible by contributions from foundations, corporations, and League members and friends.

For more information about League programs, visit www.archleague.org.

For information on architecture and sound, see interview with Karen Van Lengen: http://transition.turbulence.org/networked_music_review/2008/05/29/interview-karen-van-lengen/

The landmark Battery Maritime Building will be the site of artist David Byrne’s massive undertaking, Playing the Building, produced by non-profit arts organization Creative Time. The 9,000 square foot building will be transformed into an interactive musical instrument through the use of a retrofitted antique organ, which will serve as the interface for the public’s interaction, triggering musical sounds produced by the building’s structure.

This is the third and final year the LMCC will award grants for their Grants for Art in Public Spaces (GAPS) and Production Grant programs. GAPS has supported public projects and cultural events that take place in public spaces below Canal Street and in Chinatown. The Production Grants supported the core artistic and cultural programming for organizations based in Lower Manhattan. Both grant programs were made possible with the support of the September 11th Fund.

Over five days, July 1-5, the symposium will approach the topic architecture and sound from five different theoretical and spatial perspectives. The chosen venues - spaces built for the production or reception of sound, acoustically flawed or impossible spaces, public and semi-public urban spaces, finished and planned spaces, wasteland or cultivated spaces, indoor and outdoor locations - each serve to illustrate the topics of that day, and offer a mixture of lectures, artistic presentation, performances and examples of working architectural practice.

Below you will find a rough overview of the themes, places and times. For information on the single slots of these blocks and to the participants please visit our website: http://www.tunedcity.de

TUNED CITY - BETWEEN SOUND AND SPACE SPECULATION :: 1 - 5 july 2008

1 july 2008 - aural architecture :: venue: Pfefferberg Haus 13 :: 8 pm opening / keynotes / performances

2 july 2008 - sound material :: venues: Technische Universität Berlin (block I) Brunnenstrasse 9 (block II) Pfefferberg Haus 13 (block III)
block I / 11 am: listening to soundscapes
block II / 3 pm: building with sound
block III / 8 pm: sound - space - architecture

3 july 2008 - sonic interventions :: venues: Alexanderplatz (block I+II+III)
block I / 11 am: urban space and sonic experience
block II / 1 pm: sound and social communication
block III / 4 pm: public and private soundscapes

4 july 2008 - sonic landscapes :: venues: Tafelgarten Hamburger Bahnhof (block I) :: Wriezener Freiraum Labor (block II+III)
block I / 11 am: installation Punktierter Garten
block II / 2 pm: design of acoustic environments
block III / 9 pm: das kleine field recordings festival

5 july 2008 - virtual soundspaces :: venue: Rundfunkhaus Nalepastrasse
block I / 11 am: radio space
block II / 3 pm: sonic derive
block III / 5 pm: talking sound and building space

Tuned City is produced by garage g e.V. (Carsten Stabenow and Gesine Pagels) in cooperation with Carsten Seiffarth (singuhr - hoergalerie), Derek Holzer, Anke Eckardt and Anne Kockelkorn. The project is funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.

TUNED CITY HIGHLIGHTS

There are a couple of events we would like to recommend:

1. keynote :: Tuned City day 1 / 8pm / Pfefferberg Haus 13 :: Dr. Barry Blesser Dr. Barry Blesser is considered one of the grandfathers of the digital audio revolution. He invented and developed the first commercial digital reverberation system, the EMT-250 in 1976, helped start Lexicon in 1971, published the landmark paper, “Digital Processing of Audio Signals” in 1978, co-chaired the 1st International Conference on Digital Audio in 1980, and was an adviser to the US Justice Department on the Watergate Tapes in 1974. Dr. Blesser was President of the Audio Engineering Society in 1980. The AES awarded him their
Silver, Bronze, and Governors Medals, both Publication Awards, and made him an AES Fellow. He has been on the AES editorial review board since 1975, and currently serves as its Consulting Technical Editor. Dr. Blesser has published numerous papers in professional journals and has been awarded many patents on audio and signal process.Most recently, MIT Press published his first book (together with Linda-Ruth Salter): “Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture”, which has provoked a latent interest in sound and acoustics worldwide.

workshop :: 1 july - 5 july 2008 :: Chris Watson / Hearing Berlin: 12 Approaches :: Christopher Richard Watson was a founding member of the influential Sheffield-based experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire in 1971.His sound recording career began in 1981 when he joined Tyne Tees Television. Chris Watson has a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world. As a freelance recordist for film, TV and radio Chris Watson specialises in natural history and documentary location sound together with track assembly and sound design in post production.

3. installation :: Tuned City day 2 / block 2 / 5pm / Brunnenstrasse 9 ::Mark Bain: BUG :: The project Brunnenstrasse is a complete new planning for two invest ruins of Berlin’s 90ies. Brandlhuber’s construction is using the already built basement and places a 5-floor, very light and transparent concrete building in-between two old typical Berlin fire division walls. This building is going to house a gallery and Brandlhuber’s own studio. Mark Bain is involved in the construction process from the beginning on in order to develop a work which will turn the whole building in a sound installation. He is going to implement a system of geodata and seismic sensors in the infrastructure of the building as well as in the concrete as the building is raised. These hyper-sensitive instruments will capture all mechanic and acoustic micro sensations happening in and around the building, like the wind passing by the fassade, foot steps on the stairs, raindrops on the roof, termic material expansion, etc. - all this raw material will be used for a permanent, generative composition, played back in the long tunnel, connecting the street with the backyard. This public tunnel - typical Berlin “Tordurchfahrt” - is itself an acousticly very interesting place, as it is cutting and filtering the street noise. Certain materials are going to be used to work on these effects in combination and interaction with the playback of the house composition. Additionally, in every room of the building will be next to the light switch a headphone jack - so that later inhabitants (or visitors of the gallery) can tune in and listen to the building.

TUNED CITY WORKSHOPS

Hearing Berlin: 12 Approaches / 01.-05.07.08 :: Chris Watson :: Fee: EUR 75 :: Workshop Language: English :: Hearing Berlin: 12 Approaches is a workshop for environmental sound recording conducted by Watson for Tuned City. This workshop takes a multidisciplinary approach towards field recording, inviting practitioners in different disciplines - from sound artists to architects, city planners to social researchers - a chance to
listen to the city of Berlin under Watson’s expert guidance. The results of this 5 day workshop will be presented in the final day of theTuned City event.

Scrying / 01.-02., 04.07.08 :: Martin Howse :: Fee: EUR 60 ::
Workshop Language: English :: Across three days, the scrying workshop will explore and construct city-wide electromagnetic
[EM] phenomena within the data space domain, examining techniques of digital forensics, of signal archaeology overlapping with contemporary artistic concerns. The scrying platform, an open hardware project concerned with the design and implementation of low power (enabling long-term, solar-powered urban installation) devices interfacing code and EM practice, will be used during the workshop.

Kinetic (Architectural) Modelbuilding :: 01.-04.07.08 :: Ralf Schreiber and Martin Kuentz :: Fee: EUR 10 :: Workshop Language: English & German :: This four day workshop aims to create architectural models of of urban structures which can be sonically activated using small motors taken from cassette tape players. Each workshop participant can (alone or in groups) develop and build these “sounding (architectural) models”.
The models can be tuned according to sound criteria and arranged and linked according to their function for a collective presentation on Saturday 5 July.

TICKET RESERVATION

From now on you have the chance to make reservations for tickets. Because some of the venues offer only a limited
capacity we advise to make reservationsas soon as possible. http://www.tunedcity.de/?page_id=244

Van Lengen’s current work focuses on the use of sound as a significant design component. Her designs mix environmental sounds into public and private space, often taking sounds from one space and playing or mixing them into another. Her most recent project is a collaboration with Joel Sanders Architects to create a sound installation within the newly renovated Campbell Hall, home to the UVA School of Architecture.

Peter Traub: Your 2003 paper co-authored with Ted Sheridan, “Hearing Architecture: Exploring and Designing the Aural Environment”, argues for a greater emphasis on sound and aurality as elements of modern architectural design. When and how did you become interested in sound and “designing the aural environment”?

Karen Van Lengen: I have always been sensitive to sound. I began to notice that my memories of certain spaces were not only visual but aural as well. For example Grand Central Station, or the National Gallery of Art in Washington. I was also influenced by Jean Gardener, who taught at Parsons and had a unique method for analyzing architecture. One of her criteria was sound and she helped bring my latent awareness into more focus. Ted Sheridan also taught at Parsons. He was both an architect and musician. He taught a special course using sound as a generating aspect of design. We began a dialogue that has continued for many years.

Diagram of Mix House by Karen Van Lengen, Joel Sanders, and Ben Rubin.

Peter: Are there particular structures or spaces, especially well-known ones, that you would consider great examples of aural architecture (even if hey weren’t designed with aurality in mind)? Could you tell us a bit bout them and what aural characteristics make them stand out to you?

Karen: There are many many spaces of the everyday that come to mind in my own experience however for this question I will offer only those known to the public. A few spaces that come to mind:

New York Public Library: Beaux Arts Library of 1910 by Carrere and Hastings on Fifth Ave. The reading room is one of New York’s heroic spaces both visually and aurally. Amidst the sea of desks occupied by the many New Yorkers who come to study read and work there is the oh so subtle sound of work – of books opening and closing of a few whispers – individuals in search of something personal and particular – united by the their collective desires to be there together sharing these personal pursuits collectively.

Grand Central Station: New York – the sounds of movement – of the beginnings and the ends of the days in the city – a city full of work, full of play, full of life – the sounds of direction and intention-purpose.

Palatine Hill in the Winter: few tourists visit the Palatine hill in the winter but because I lived in Rome I often went there to listen. To the special sound of the winter wind – as it moves through the ruins – it has a strange and eerie sound as if it were occupied – inhabited – it is a ruin that feels alive, particularly in the dead of winter.

National Gallery in Washington DC – 1941 – John Russell Pope: Here the interior fountains are located in strategic central spaces with domes to reflect their sounds. The art gallery corridors are arranged around these foci so that at the beginning and end of small sojourns through the building one has a complete understanding of one’s location based on the subtle sound of falling water.

Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright: of course the sound of falling water that is the major identity of the house, since it is built over a waterfall.

Villa Giulia in Rome: the movement through a series of highly articulated renaissance pleasure gardens that by a careful manipulation of the water and sectional play of spaces, offers the visitor an acoustical pleasure garden along the walk through the villa.

Sounds of footsteps in the dead of night in the winter in Venice: The fog can obscure ones vision and sometime it is only possible to hear the sharp definitive sounds of the unidentifiable echo from the nearby streets.

Hermann Goebbel’s Air Ministry Building located in the old eastern sector of Berlin: one of the few remaining Nazi buildings in Berlin. (1930′3) Here the sounds of heavy and directed footsteps along the endless and unforgiving corridors are highly accentuated by the reflective stone walls and floors. The sounds of people walking carry the overpowering sense of doom and fear.

Sounds of horses as they walk across a covered wooden bridge.

and so many more…..

Peter: How does increased consideration of aurality in the design process affect the design process itself and the structures that result? What are some of the technical challenges that you encounter in shifting the emphasis from purely vision toward a balance between vision and sound?

Karen: Designing with aurality is a challenge due to the process of measuring it in the design process. With visual studies we have developed many tools to study and delineate ideas including virtual and real models that include details such as shade and shadow or material and color studies in three dimensions. We don’t yet have easy tools to understand how sound will work in spaces. The idea of the model as a miniature replica of a room or a building does not work with sound. There are some very sophisticated software programs that acousticians use with virtual models to design concert halls, etc. however these tools are complex, expensive and not yet readily available in schools of architecture. I have found that teaching the awareness of sound, though not highly scientific, does promote awareness of the aural environment and helps students to begin to notice and record how other spaces and places work with sound. As technologies in this area continue to develop and become more accessible, I believe the interest in sound will become more important to architectural designers.

Peter: I ask this as much for my own work as for others: for composers, sound artists, and people interested in learning more about awareness of sound within an architectural context, what resources would you recommend?

Karen: There are many new books and articles that have emerged in the past few years as interest in sound grows. Without a whole bibliography I would give the advice of first learning how sound works – how it travels – how it reacts with space. There is an excellent short and uncomplicated book on the basic principles of acoustics by Robert Apfel, entitled Deaf Architects & Blind Acousticians. This is a compact guide to the principles of sound design. Then I would suggest that people simply listen – listen to spaces and try to record and remember those spaces that have significant aural qualities for them. Then to know why the aural qualities are transformative – what makes it so – space? Materials? Types of interacting sounds? I think this is the best way to learn about it.

Then one can read about the work of the small but influencial group of sound artists that opened up this territory seriously in the 1960s and 1970s like Bill Fontana, John Cage, Lietner, Alvin Lucier, etc.

Peter: How have other architects in the field responded the idea of the aural environment as a significant design consideration?

Karen: Until now there has been almost no interest in this theme. Lately however there is an increasing attention both in the disciplines of architecture and art. As recently as 30 years ago all architectural ideas and their documentation were made in paper form so any manipulation of sound could not be described in any experiential manner. In looking at published work one could see photos of the work but never hear the sounds of it. This made it difficult to describe any inventions related to aural qualities in a convincing way. Sound is now a regular feature of digital presentations and available on the web, so the field is ripe for discovery and development.

Peter: You collaborated with Joel Sanders and Ben Rubin on a project in 2006 called “Mix House”. We blogged about it last year and readers can learn more about it here. The house allows the inhabitants to mix outside sounds with inside sounds, process them, and play them back throughout the structure. What was the impetus for this project, and what has the response been like from the public, critics, and other architects?

animation of “Mix House” in action.

Karen: The Mix House was an opportunity to explore several themes:
1–The relation between sound and vision established by the large picture window. Modernism with its characteristic glass window walls exploited the large panoramic views of the exterior but isolated these views by negating their aural counterpart. This project effectively unified sound and vision again so that what was seen could also be heard.
2–The project also asks the inhabitants to begin to listen – to their environment – both the real exterior landscapes as well as mediated sounds of the interior.
3–The “mixing” of these sounds provided the opportunity for composition, play and for social interaction of the inhabitants. Learning to listen might suggest a different set of relationships within the family unit.

There has been widespread interest in this project especially with younger architects who are looking for dynamic means to explore the role of architecture in contemporary culture.

Peter: Although Mix House uses static physical design elements to influence the production, transmission, and reception of sound, it also makes extensive use of technology, such as computers, microphones, and speakers to control the aural environment of the house. How do you think about technology as it relates to designing the aural environment?

Karen: Actually the Mix House includes one moving picture window at the rear façade of the house that has the ability to track visual movement and sound simultaneously. The remainder of the house is static and uses new technologies to accomplish its goals. Technologies have, in a very short period of time, transformed how we relate to one another – email, cell phone, text messaging, etc. These will continue to evolve and shape our relationships. The Mix House uses technology to create a different set of relationships that demand the inhabitant to listen to a variety of experiential conditions that can be individual but can also be shared in an active way. This potential for listening and for dialogue is a very important aspect of this project and can be developed to accommodate public space as well.

Peter: What questions does a project like Mix House raise about the interaction of public and private sound? In Blesser and Salter’s “Spaces Speak, are you Listening: Experiencing Aural Architecture”, they discuss the concept of ‘acoustic arenas’, which are essentially the areas in which listeners can hear a sonic event because it has enough power to overcome background noise. Acoustic arenas can be created by structural boundaries, noise, social interactions, etc. It occurred to me that Mix House fundamentally plays with acoustic arenas, and through the sound/picture window and other means, mixes arenas that otherwise would stay separated, creating an interplay between public and private arenas. Is this interplay problematic in any way for you, or does it raise compelling questions? How have others responded to the mixing of arenas in Mix House?

Karen: The reaction at times is mixed. People ask, why do this? What I find compelling about the sound arenas is the “arena” quality – in which a space activated by sound allows the possibility for a new kind of social interaction – one that requires that the ears are free from headsets and cell phones – a space where friends or strangers can share a listening event – for me it carries the possibility of local and spontaneous interactive culture that I believe is important in today’s global-centric world in order to balance the displacement of the local and its habitat.

Peter: What have you learned from the process of designing Mix House in terms of the major aesthetic and design challenges that face architects who design for the aural environment?

Karen: When I started this work several years ago I thought that it might make sense to design the formal language of a space to reflect the way sound acts in space. I found this approach difficult and as I began to develop different ideas I came to the realization – working with Ben and Joel that instead of rejecting technology we might want to truly embrace its potential in shaping aural spaces. Formally, it is important to link conceptual ideas about space making with programs, sites and materials. Now I use the technology to reinforce these ideas in the shaping of environment – not to make a separate statement about it.

Peter: At the beginning of your answer above you describe this intriguing approach – of designing the formal language of a space to reflect the way sound acts in space – that ended up being difficult and not working out. While it is an avenue you ended up not pursuing, the concept sounds interesting to a non-architect like myself. Can you describe how this approach would ideally have worked, and also explain what the problems were that ended up making it unfeasible?

Karen: Basically with this approach one needs to collect and direct the sounds very carefully – something like an instrument. The structure can be too specific to one kind of soundscape or one location and can seem relentless – like living in an experiment with no visual or acoustical alternatives. I am more interested in the dynamic qualities of sound and associated shifting boundaries of space that work against this first model. Joel and I came to the realization that we could use technology to achieve significant results without turning the building into an instrument. However, I do believe there has to be a relation between the designed soundscapes and the architecture itself – these intersections can be subtle and fit within a larger spatial concept.

Peter: In terms of aesthetic preference, some artists who work with technology prefer the wires to both literally and figuratively hang out – that is, it is important to make the technology visible in a piece as it’s own sort of art object. Others prefer to hide the technology, making it as invisible and/or integrated into the environment as possible. It sounds from your answers above that you fall in with the latter group. How you think about the integration of technology with design – as within Mix House – in terms of it’s visibility and presence?

Karen: Correct, no need to show the wires, but there is a need to make the visual/aural connections clear and perceptible. So for example if we make a sound puddle installation in our Architecture School lounge and program it with the sounds of another space either inside or outside the building it is important to me to signify that relationship through orientation or visual connection so that the displaced sounds that compose the arena come from somewhere and are selected for a purpose. This I find interesting.

Diagram of the Naug Lounge Project by Karen Van Lengen and Joel Sanders Architects.

Peter: I know that you are very interested in Bill Fontana’s work (note to readers: Karen brought him to visit us at the University of Virginia this past March). How do you think your work and the notions of aural architecture relate to Fontana’s sound sculptures and vice versa? Do you consider his work influential to a project like Mix House? Are there other artists who you consider important or influential to your thinking about aurality and designing the aural environment?

Karen: I first came to know Bill’s work in the 1980’s. He had done projects in Berlin (Anhalter Bahnhof) Paris (Arc de Triomphe) and others that explored the power of sound to displace the immediate surroundings and also to connect places through sound associations. This displacement heightened the visitors awareness of place, and extended the limits of that place. I wanted to explore these ideas not so much for the purpose of displacement but rather as a unifying element that might bring landscape into spaces that had previously been cut off from it. This work taught me to think about my own projects in a different way. Also Alvin Lucier was important too. I have heard his piece, “I am Sitting in a Room” on several occasions and even performed it here at UVa with my students. It too is a ery powerful realization about how the voice interacts with spaces. Rooms have aural qualities that can be known by the interaction of the voice in the space to create a ‘tone’ for the room. Ted Sheridan, as I mentioned earlier, was a good colleague from Parsons during my early interest in this field. And finally David Hykes, founder of the Harmonic Choir was also a guest lecturer at Parsons. He taught the students how they could interpret the space of the room through harmonic chanting. So there have been many people who have been influential in my interest and development of sound and architecture.

Peter: Do you have other projects currently in the works that focus on the aural environment, and if so, could you tell us a little about them?

Karen: Joel Sanders and I have are working on the design of the central space of the architecture school at the University of Virginia. The project uses sound spaces that are integrated into the design of the room with a specific program. These spaces are defined more by sound than by traditional materials and have the capacity to listen to various places both inside and outside the school. This center will become the public space of our building and hopefully become the space of interaction and dialogue stimulated by these sound puddles.

E.X.S.O. (Emergent Proximity Sensing Object)
Team Members: Scott Barton, Jaime De La Ree, Steven Johnson, Steven Kemper, Kezia Ofiesh

E.X.S.O.

E.X.S.O. is designed for human participation in the production of rhythms. As people interact with the moving arms, the arms respond in an immediate one to one fashion, and additionally generate rhythms played on resonant tubes. The tempo of these rhythms is based on proximity to the device. As the arm moves in relation to the human participants, the pitch of the tube changes. At first, participants will notice a one to one relationship between their proximity and the rhythms produced, but as time goes on, the system will begin to react on its own to the humans in the room–working with them, working against them, or ignoring them completely.

The skin that connects one arm to the next is a sub-structural system intended to create lateral structural stability and also to serve as a generative spatial component.  As the arms move independently of one another, the skin takes on several dynamic shapes that conform to the three arm positions.  The structural skin can take on many spatial qualities that result from the proximity sensors input.  While the Infrared sensors serve the scale of a small scale presentation, the input could work of any type of sensor; this could make the space changing quality of the arm become a more functional component or larger scale design.

Arm movement is controlled by a DC motor attached to gears that interface with the part of the arm that enters the tube. This motor simultaneously changes the tube’s pitch and the arm’s position. A solenoid motor is connected to a beater that strikes the tube to produce sound. This sound is captured and amplified by electric microphones at the end of the tubes. LEDs attached to the arm inside the tube will illuminate when the arm moves, providing a visual trace of each arm’s movement and a visual notation of the sound being produced. The entire process is controlled by a computer running Max/MSP which interfaces with an Arduino microcontroller attached to the sensors, motors, and LEDs. Software parses the data received from the sensors and internal algorithmic processes produce emergent behavior as the arm reacts to its human observers.

Instrument Materials: 1/4″ Plexy, 1/8″ Plexy, 1/4″ threaded rod, 3/16″ nuts and bolts, zip ties, birch wood, wool fabric, ¾” Clear tube. Hardware: 3 24VDC reversible gearhead motors, 3 24VDC Ledex Solenoid motors, 6 ultrabrite aqua LEDs, 3 IR sensors (Sharp GP2Y0A21YK), 1 24V power supply, 2 Arduino Diecimila micro-controllers, 6 LED’s. Software: Arduino running Fermata 1.0, Max/MSP 4.6

Medusa
Team Members: Steven Brummond, Taylor Burgess, Yuri Spitsyn, Jonathan Zorn, Susanna Wong

Medusa

In Greek Mythology Medusa was once the most beautiful woman in the world until she angered the goddess Athena who turned into a hideous monster whose hair was made of snakes. She could transform any active man into stone with a single look. The hero Perseus eventually defeated her by cutting her head off; from which Pegasus the winged horse was born.

Medusa is an emergent instrumental environment which reacts to human force. Medusa depends on a field of modules that are individually activated by the touch of a person. When one module is activated it will change the states of its neighbors. State changes are registered by the humming of the module. The individual modules are comprised of a half spherical acrylic structure, a single solenoid in the center, a drum head, LED lights, a rotating motor on one side and a piezo disc connected to piano wire on the other side. The basic module is triggered when a person hits the piano wire. This in turn triggers the solenoid which hits the drum, effectively changing the state of the module. The state of the module refers to the humming. The humming is produced by a gear which rubs against a guitar string creating vibrations into the drum head generating sound. The speed of the motor is a function of the force a person applies to the piano wire. Once a module is triggered the delay time does not allow for the module to be triggered again for another ten seconds. The emergence of MEDUSA develops from the array of people hitting the piano wire with different forces. The different modules will continuously change state and react with different speeds of the motor. The myriad of reactions begin to develop a pattern of emergence through variation and consistency of reactions.

Instrument Materials: acrylic structure, polyester plastic drum head, guitar string, piano wire, threaded rods, bolts, LED lights, piezo disc. Hardware: 3 Arduino microcontrollers, advanced circuits. Software: MAX/MSP.

Panta Rhei
Team Members: Andrew Hamm, Lanier Sammons, Jen Siomacco, Wendy Stober. Peter Traub

Panta Rhei

The concept of Panta Rhei derives from the philosophy of Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic Ionian philosopher. Translated, Panta Rhei means “everything is in a state of flux.” Heraclitus is well noted for his belief that constant change is central to the state of the universe.

Panta Rhei is an audio/visual instrument capable of displaying an emergent system in light, allowing human interaction with that system, and translating the resulting information into both music and robotic choreography. Human interaction happens within the grid as observers insert their hands to block the flow of light between LEDs and corresponding photoresistors. The sonic elements of the piece are realized with Max/MSP. The brightness levels of individual LEDs (or groups of LEDs) may be made musical in several ways. In the current incarnation, LEDs are tied to a bank of oscillators whose envelope and pitch are determined by the level of light. A Mylar skin manipulated by solenoids provides the robotic choreography. The solenoids also respond to changes in the light level of the LED/photosensor grid. Data from the grid is monitored in Max/MSP and relayed to the solenoids through a microcontroller.

Instrument Materials: Acrylic, piano wire, plastic zip-ties, mylar, metal brad connectors. Hardware: 12 Solenoids, 4 Arduino Microcontrollers, 18 LEDs and 18 photosensors. Software: Max/MSP

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? What, if any, role can historical skills of navigation at sea, of observation, choice, intuition and improvisation play in navigating the spaces of the future? The symposium Navigating the Space of the Future will take these questions as its starting point to see if we can find our way within the dense environment of global positioning technologies. The field is open but the practice is just starting to form itself by looking at ways to counter locative media strategies where geographical walks are organised that use the city and the street as a playing field negating the relation between space, architecture, time, body and mind. The presentations will focus on new ways of interpreting data of location and navigation by relating these directly to the physical (space) through the use of sound.

Yolande Harris - Sun Run Sun (Artist in Residence NIMk): Sun Run Sun explores the individual experience of current location technologies through a personal experience of sound. It seeks to (re)establish a sense of personal connectedness to one’s environment, and to (re)negotiate this through an investigation into old, new, future and animal navigation using sound. Sun Run Sun investigates the split between the embodied experience of location and the calculated data of position. A series of portable personal instruments ?satellite sounders? developed for the residency, transform satellite data directly into a sonic composition. This composition constantly varies in response to the changing location of the player as they move through their physical environment. ‘The experience of sound is internal, as a process that influences the relationship between the self and the environment. True navigation consists of a continuously coherent relationship between the two.’

David Dunn takes his research into the bioacoustics of bark beetles and entomogenic climate change, and on ultrasonic audio phenomena in both human and non-human environment as starting points to talk about Acoustic Ecologies. He wants to bring forth the sonic presence of these worlds for human contemplation of their inherent aesthetic beauty and to show the amazing continuity of life, with its capacity for infinite variation in audible communication. “Given the superabundance of how music as a human activity has been used, I believe that music has simultaneously been a strategy to evolve our capacity to structurally-couple with our environment through our aural perception, and a significant force for defining the boundaries of group affiliation and for the affirmation of cultural status, giving voice to an evolutionary heritage of an abundance of other coupling modes that are greater than the rational mind alone.” [From Acoustic Ecology and the Experimental Music Tradition by By David Dunn]

Atau Tanaka bridges the fields of media art, experimental music, and research. He creates music for sensor instruments, wireless network infrastructures, and democratized digital forms. Tanaka is best known for his performances where he uses physical gestures to articulate music and sound synthesis and real-time image transformation. For the past years, inspired by the ever-changing social, geographic, ecological, emotional context of using mobile technology for creative ends Tanaka focusses his attention towards mobile media projects. He is exploring the creative, critical and commercial potential of mobile music. “My interest is to take interactive music practice off the stage and outside the concert hall into the urban sphere. Mobile communications devices are meant to connect groups of people. Musical concerts, similarly, are situations that bring people together for a common purpose. Can we elicit commonalities to make a community-based musical process, creating a! shared experience among users?” In his presentation he will pay attention to the description of the architecture of an audio-visual hard- and software framework that was developed for the realization of a series of locative media artworks, and eliciting from this, he brings afore fundamental issues and questions that can be generalized and applicable to the growing practice of locative media.

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.

Tuned City - Between Sound and Space Speculation is an exhibition and conference project planned for 1-6 July 2008 in Berlin which proposes a new evaluation of architectural spaces from the perspective of the acoustic. The project draws the traditions of critical discussion about urban space within the architecture and urban planning discourse–as well as its strategies and working methods–into the context of sound art. This expanded discussion reinforces the potential of the spatial and communicative properties of sound as a tool and means of urban practice.

At the foundations of this event are artists’ works and theoretical approaches which examine in a critical and sensitive way the given urban and architectural situations alongside their resulting socio-political implications, that re-use existing spaces or that conceive and open new spaces.

A dialog will be built at the intersection of both disciplines which traces out the complex relations and interactions of space-sound, both presenting and testing new strategies, methods, possibilities and potentials of sound work within the artistic and applied context.

TOPICS:

The Built Space:
- examples that illustrate phenomena, problems or possibilities in the relation of sound and architecture
- usage of architecture as a space for sound and as an instrument

The Public Space:
- relation of sound and city
- situated sonic practices, site-specific sound awareness
- sound as a system of social communication, division and defense
- mobile sound

The Imaginary / Speculative Space:
- hearing-space - virtual acoustic spaces
- sound space in relation to human anatomy, memory and psyche
- mechanics and principles of translating sound into architecture and vice versa

PRODUCTION TEAM:

Carsten Stabenow
Gesine Pagels
Carsten Seiffarth
Derek Holzer
Anke Eckardt
Anne Kockelkorn

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

This exhibition addresses the question of the artistic invention of so-called sound sculpture. During the late 1960s in New York, Austrian architect and artist Bernhard Leitner designed the first sound-space sculpture or architecture – a multi-channel architecture of sound – prior to the advent of the technical possibilities required for its realization. The idea stemmed from Leitner’s interest in space (architecture), classical and modern music, modern dance and the spectrum of technologies at the disposal of twentieth-century art.

Conceived in close collaboration with Bernhard Leitner for the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, the present exhibition assembles sketches, notations, models, photographs exclusively pertaining to this early field of experimentation whose scope was initially confined to the realm of theory. At the center of the exhibition in the White Cube is the revival of the first sound-space investigations realized between 1971 and 1973 with the aid of a manual crank-driven circular relay switch and a punchcard programming device. It is not a historical reconstruction, however, but rather a re-inception, on the basis of modern control systems, of the first sound-space-sculpture in the history of the visual arts.

Since 1968 Bernhard Leitner has been designing spaces with sound as material and carrying out theoretical and practical sound-space investigations. Since 1970 Leitner has been exhibiting his sound-space objects and sound-space sculptures in the international context. Leitner’s works have been shown a P.S.1 New York, Künstlerhaus Wien, ZKM Karlsruhe, Kunsthalle Bremen, at documenta 7 and the Donaueschingen Music Days among other key venues. In Berlin his works have been exhibited at the Akademie der Künste, the Klangkunstforum and at sonambiente 1996 and 2006. In 1984 he realized his first permanent public sound-space installation at the Technical University in Berlin. [posted on Mediateletipos]

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. Eight parts are chosen from twelve, and the sound files comprising each part are selected from each performance from a much larger palette. The title is inspired by certain aspects of Buddhist thought, in particular the notion of “The speech of awakening” and a belief that every mental state is supported by a specific energy or “wind”.

Leopanar Witlarge will give a talk, presentation and performance. A virtual exploration of acoustic, architectural, functioning living spaces using surround sound, live sound and computer graphics. These are proposals for alternative forms of architecture to help deal with and be in harmony with the changing environment and unpredictable weather, climate and geological conditions.

Monique Buzzarté, trombonist/composer has commissioned and premiered many new pieces in addition to composing her own solo, chamber, and electronic works for a variety of forces. She performs with Zanana, with soprano Kristin Norderval blending acoustic sounds, electronics and live processing and also as part of the New Circle Five with Pauline Oliveros. An author, activist, and educator as well as a performer/composer, she has published research on the brass music of women composers and coordinated advocacy campaigns for women in music, including efforts that led to the admission of women members into the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in 1997. Ms. Buzzarté is certified to teach the meditative improvisation practices of Deep Listening.

Leopanar Witlarge began as a painter and later expanded his interests to experimental methods in photography, video, music performance and composition, electronic music, computers, digital art, architecture and the design and construction of original musical instruments. Active in New York since the 1960s, he has had a diverse career that includes performances with such artists as Roswell Rudd, Bill Dixon, and Charlotte Morman; the founding of his own experimental orchestra; presenting multi media and multi channel works, and playing with New York Indonesian Consulate Gamelan. Recently he has been exploring new media through programming residencies and performances at Engine 27 and Harvestworks.