The Telephone Game: Oil/Water/Ether by the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) is an exploration of a real-time collaborative composition local network. All of the performers have identical performance/composition programs — a custom flexible step-sequencer — that invite play with rhythmic cycles of various lengths and timbres. The real fun starts, however, when the players begin spying on their neighbors, secretly, via the network, and stealing their ideas with the click of the mouse. Unplanned structures begin to emerge, like oil on water, as riffs propagate and evolve, sometimes returning unrecognizable to their creators. Continue reading

Joshua Light Show :: May 28-31, 2008; 8:00 pm :: Issue Project Room, (oa) can factory, 3rd Floor, 232 Third Street at 3rd Ave, Brooklyn, NY.

ISSUE Project Room is thrilled to host pioneering multimedia artist Joshua White and his legendary Joshua Light Show for a week of unique audiovisual collaborations. The residency will involve White’s iconic projections alongside an incredible roster of musicians, with a different musical genre represented on each night of the residency. The Joshua Light Show involves a team of video and light artists, led by White and his senior collaborator, Bec Stupak (Honeygun Labs) to improvise live synesthetic visuals behind a giant rear projection screen, involving the “liquid light” techniques he developed at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East during the late 1960s. Continue reading

[Image from Variations VII: FishNet commissioned by Turbulence.org] Variations VII by John Cage with Mobius Artists Group (MAG) members Margaret Bellafiore, Lewis Gesner, Larry Johnson, Tom Plsek, and Alisia Waller; and guest artists Joshua Jade, Forrest Larson, David Miller, and Landon Rose :: April 18-19, 2008; 8 - 9:30 pm :: Mobius, 725 Harrison Ave., Boston, MA.

Variations VII is the most recent installment in the Mobius Artists Group’s exploration of John Cage’s eight compositions, titled Variations. Beginning in 1996 with Variations I, in a version for two voices performed by David Miller and Larry Johnson, MAG members and guest artists have studied and performed this series in chronological order. Continue reading

Symposium On Sound :: April 26 - 27, 2008 :: Exhibition: On the Sensations of Sound :: April 27 - June 29, 2008 :: Scheltema, Leiden (Netherlands).

On Saturday 26 April and Sunday 27 April 2008, the Veenfabriek and the Art History Department of Leiden University organise the Symposium On Sound. This symposium is a gathering of scientists, performers and artists, who will focus on the issue of mutual influence between art and science, more specifically with regard to sound. The exhibition On the Sensations of Sound, which is organised in cooperation with Museum De Lakenhal in Scheltema, will be opened during the symposium. Continue reading

Ajay Kapur - Electronic Sitars, Robotic Tablas, and Sarawati’s ElectroMagic :: April 3, 2008; 5 - 7 pm :: Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, CA.

TABLACENTRIC is thrilled to present Ajay Kapur, whose work revolves around one queston: “How do you make a computer improvise with a human?” Using the rules set forth by the north Indian classical tradition, Ajay strives to build new interfaces for musical expression by modifying the tabla, dholak and sitar with added microchips and sensor systems, while building robotic musical instruments which can be programmed to perform along with the human performer. Continue reading

Harmony in the Age of Noise :: April 23 - August 10, 2008 :: Opening: April 23; 4:00-5:30 pm :: Tisch Library Rooftop, Tufts University, Medford, MA.

Close your eyes and listen. It is the Age of Noise: hums, buzzes, whines, traffic, ventilation systems, disc drives, cell phones, sirens, aircraft, muzak, televisions, radios, car alarms, leaf blowers, jack hammers, compressors — biproducts of an overheated visual culture bombard us endlessly. It’s no surprise that many people withdraw from our public hearing space and retreat into iPods or buildings with windows that don’t open. Harmony in the Age of Noise intends to empower the sense of hearing and deconstruct this sea of noise. In transforming this barrage of sounds into information about the way we live, the piece attempts to restore harmony and balance to the senses. Continue reading

Synapse: Collaboration between the arts and sciences has the potential to create new knowledge, ideas and processes beneficial to both fields. Artists and scientists approach creativity, exploration and research in different ways and from different perspectives; when working together they open up new ways of seeing, experiencing and interpreting the world around us. For the past decade, the Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) has provided opportunities for artists and scientists to work together. Through Synapse, and in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts, ANAT offers residencies, the Synapse Database and now ANAT is pleased to announce its latest initiative: a moderated elist discussion on contemporary art and science collaborations in fields including bioart, artificial intelligence, robotics, climate change and space, amongst others. You can subscribe here. Continue reading

Tiny Noise :: February 26, 2008; 8pm :: ZOOBIZARRE - 6388 St. Hubert, Montreal :: [metro Beaubien, orange line] :: with performances by:

Justice Yeldham (AUS) - What’s been described as “a trumpet player trapped in a two dimensional universe” is the unique work of Justice Yeldham who has an obsession with using sheets of broken glass as his musical instrument. Amplifying the sheets using a high end transducer designed for grand pianos, he presses his face against the surface whist employing various vocal techniques ranging from throat singing to raspberries. Continue reading

[Image: Upgrade! Montreal’s espaceSONO] The Comfort of Strangers at SoundNetwork’s Autonomous Village :: Part of Futuresonic :: Contact Theatre, Manchester, UK :: May 1-4, 2008 :: Open Call for Submissions of Audio Art Works :: Deadline: March 28, 2008.

SoundNetwork will be creating a brand new kind of social space close to the centre of the festival where artists and visitors alike can meet, relax and experience sonic art. Our cafe will be an exhibition and an exhibit. Continue reading

“If relational aesthetics and open source were always commercial, can the musical score provide a way of thinking through different relationships between creativity and code? The return to improvisation in ‘livecoding’ draws parallels with experimental practices developed by maverick musicians, programmers and educators from Sun Ra, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Scratch Orchestra to Seymour Papert. Simon Yuill argues that these ‘distributive practices’ are worth extending today.

In recent years the foregrounding of ‘collaboration’ in artistic practice has acquired an aura of inherent benevolence and emancipation, as though the very act of working with others in itself ensures some form of resistance or alternative to conventions of cultural production, and confers positive moral value. Continue reading