In 2007, Adam Hyde from r a d i o q u a l i a voyaged to Antarctica to help establish the first phase of Polar Radio - a research project which tests the feasibility of establishing community radio stations in the two Polar Regions - Antarctica and the Arctic Circle. He was part of the first Interpolar Transnational Art Science Consortium (I-TASC) reconnaissance expedition to Antarctica, and was a guest of the South African Antarctic Programme, based in the Dronning Maud Land sector of Antarctica, at the base, SANAE IV.

Adam and the I-TASC crew created a mid-range FM radio station. This involved installing and configuring FM transmitters and receivers, designing and erecting antennae in the Antarctic ice. The first prototype radio station began FM broadcasts on 29 December 2006. The broadcasts consisted of radio art developed by r a d i o q u a l i a and hundreds of hours of music, radio art, sound art, DJ-sets, documentaries and podcasts produced by musicians, documentary makers, podcasters and DJs from around the world, collected via a public call for content.

Researchers and scientists at SANAE IV were trained in the skills necessary to make radio shows for their station, and now run the station themselves, using audio provided by people from around the world. They call their Polar Radio station, Radio SANAE.

THE EVENT: This informal event will consist of a presentation about Polar Radio and a discussion about working in Antarctica, followed by a sound performance by r a d i o q u a l i a. The talk will give an overview of the establishment of Radio SANAE, the first node of Polar Radio, in Antarctica, and will cover such salient points as:

* the role of radio in Antarctica
* how to build your own antenna from found objects
* what the net looks like over a 1k connection shared between 70 scientists
* can artists really teach scientists anything?
* common symptoms of contextual hyper neurosis

The sound performance will be comprised of elemental field recordings made on the ice, and VLF radio recordings made of the Antarctic ionosphere. Drinks will be provided. The event and the research phase of Polar Radio is supported by Arts Council England.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS: r a d i o q u a l i a is an artist collective formed by Adam Hyde and Honor Harger, which creates radio and sound art. Their work has been exhibited at the ICC in Tokyo, New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; Gallery 9, Walker Art Center in USA; Sonar in Barcelona; Ars Electronica in Austria; Artspace in New Zealand, among other places. r a d i o q u a l i a projects include Radio Astronomy (2004 - now), The Frequency Clock (1998 - 2003) and Free Radio Linux (2002 - 2004).

In addition to r a d i o q u a l i a, Adam Hyde manages FLOSS Manuals. He has been involved in free technology and art for 10 years, mainly within the broadcast realm but lately Adam’s work is centered in community building and publishing. Recent artistic projects include the Geekosystem - recycling technojunk into art, Kumara - free media email blogging, and the Paper Cup Telephone Network. Recent non-art projects include managing the production of the OLPC and Sugar manuals.

Honor Harger also works as a curator and organiser. From November 2004 - July 2008, she was director of the AV Festival in Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough in the UK. In 2008, she curated the third edition of the festival on the topic of broadcasting. She is also a PhD researcher at Z-Node a facility ran by the Faculty of Technology, University of Plymouth, and the Zurich University of the Arts, (ZHDK) in Switzerland. Her research aims to combine traditional and practice based research methods to create a sonic understanding of astronomical space, placing emphasis on the way that radio can be used to make space audible.

CONTEXT: I-TASC (Interpolar Transnational Art Science: Constellation) is an official project of the International Polar Year 2007-2008. I-TASC is a decentralized network of individuals and organisations working collaboratively in the fields of art, engineering, science and technology on interdisciplinary development and tactical deployment of renewable energy, waste recycling systems, sustainable architecture and open-format, open-source media. I-TASC is a lichen-like structure sharing and integrating local knowledge, resources and skills across six continents in order to symbiotically engage with common issues concerning the air, ocean, earth and space.

Map showing Antarctic bases, including SANAE where the I-TASC crew visited in 2007.

FURTHER INFORMATION

The People Speak HQ - Directions: Cremer St is just under the bridge half way between Hackney Road and Kingsland Road, Public transport options: Shoreditch Tube station is sometimes open, and is close, alternatively, Old St, or Liverpool St are quite near. The TFL website should give you some useful directions. Map.

r a d i o q u a l i a would like to thank Arts Council England, SANAP, I-TASC, The People Speak and MediaShed.

Jessica Thompson will present Freestyle SoundHack, a collaborative performance in the form of a workshop. The performance / workshop involves building Freestyle SoundKits – wearable sound pieces prototyped by the artist – that generate and broadcast electronic beats as users move through the urban environment. During the performance, the artist will give her project to the public by teaching workshop participants how to make their own Freestyle SoundKits, which they can distribute as they wish, using whatever sounds they choose.

The workshop begins at Video Pool with a Freestyle SoundKits building session, followed by live sonic and movement-based interventions in the public spaces of the Exchange District. Thompson regards her transmission of open-source technological skill as the core component of the performance. She is interested in sharing technological knowledge so that the sonic transformation of public space becomes less of a specialized artistic activity and more of an ordinary occurrence.

The workshop/performance is open to anyone aged 14 years and older. No previous electronics, hacking, coding or performance experience is needed – just a desire to experiment and play.

Enrollment is limited to 10 participants and is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

The fee for the workshop is $40, which will cover the cost of workshop materials. Participants should bring their own snacks/ lunch to the workshop.

This workshop is presented by Video Pool Media Arts Centre as part of the performance festival, (in)visible Cities, which is a co-presentation of aceartinc., Urban Shman Gallery, and Plug In ICA. For more information, visit invisiblecitiesperformance.blogspot.com.

ADDITIONAL EVENT – Please join us on Friday, September 12 at 300-100 Arthur Street from 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. for an artist talk presented by Jessica Thompson during which time she’ll talk about her past work, current projects, and future ideas.

ARTIST BIO — Jessica Thompson is a new media artist whose practice encompasses sound, performance, and mobile technologies. Her projects enable audience members to create user-defined spaces and situations within urban environments. Her projects have been shown in exhibitions and festivals such as New Territories (ARCO 2005, Madrid), MACO (Mexico City), dp003 (Dundee, Scotland), ISEA 2006 (San Jose, CA), the 2006 Conflux Festival (New York), Kunsthallen Brænderigården (Denmark), and InterAccess Artist Run Centre (Toronto). Her project, SOUNDBIKE, was featured at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2005 and, more recently, she was one of five international artists invited to participate in Reinventing the Wheel, a residency held at *.artlabs in Sibiu, Romania. For more information, please visit: www.jessicathompson.ca.

These exhibition is presented thanks to generous financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, and the Winnipeg Arts Council.

VIDEO POOL MEDIA ARTS CENTRE is a non-profit artist run centre dedicated to advancing the discipline of media art by providing media artists, non-profit organizations and community groups with access to professional video and media equipment, training, distribution, and programming. Video Pool strives to be a national leader fostering innovation, experimentation, critical dialogue, and advocacy in media arts.

Contact:
Cam Woykin, Education Coordinator
300-100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg MB R3B 1H3
videopool.org // videopool.blogspot.com

From Peter Kirn at createdigitalmusic.com: “8-bit and robots and odd Max and Reaktor patches and custom visual software and visualizations of data packets and sound made from plants and mutant trumpets and gloves for DJing and laptop music – we’ve got quite a lineup here in New York this week.

Friday night, a live audiovisual lineup from the worlds of createdigitalmusic.com / createdigitalmotion.com invades the HOPE conference, aka Hackers on Planet Earth, the three day-long convergence of tech hacking. $10, open to all, 11-2a Friday July 18 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. It’s a live digital, technological variety show in a doomed NYC landmark hotel with an audience of famous and infamous hackers. (Think Kevin Mitnick and MythBusters’ Adam Savage and Steven Levy, all in one place.)

Facebook event page; also on Going.com”

More media and preview videos can be seen at Create Digital Music. 

Online submission: Web entries accepted from around the world for the Web showcase. Limited entries will be chosen to compete live — To compete for the prizes, those entries must be present at Yuri’s Night Bay Area, Saturday, April 12. Submit DIY music performance projects – using custom software and/or hardware – for a live performance battle at the Yuri’s Night Bay Area party on April 12, sponsored by Yuri’s Night and createdigitalmusic.com. Compete for awards including a Yamaha Tenori-On grand prize.

BACKGROUND: In science fiction and science fact, music has been central to finding a common language to speak to the universe. Music from Bach to gamelan has traveled into space on the Voyager spacecraft. In the digital age, musical interfaces are also often the best way to understand how to interface with technology and information.

Musicians have led many of the most innovative digital technological breakthroughs — the first digital synthesizer (at Bell Labs in the 50s), breakthroughs in modular electronic systems (modular synthesizers of the 60s), pioneering advances in digital storage and processing, unusual wireless interfaces and gestural controls decades ahead of the Nintendo Wii, and touch- and multi-touch tools years before the iPhone and Microsoft Surface. But that’s all in the past. This is a design challenge for the future. We want to hear the best, most forward-thinking, generally coolest, Second Space Age-worthy instruments and digital music interfaces. If aliens land — as they did when met by a classic ARP synthesizer in Close Encounters — we want to be able to give them a great show.

How to enter: We’re looking for designs of “instruments” — whether self-contained, electrically-powered devices or hardware interfaces for computers. That can include tangible interfaces, physical computing, hacked hardware, custom-built synths and electronics, and other gadgets. These must use at least some custom software and/or hardware.

You are limited to one computer and one input device — but the “input device” can be as complex as an interactive table. If that sounds vague, just remember — ultimately, the judges and audience decide. Wow them, and all will be well.

Artists must sign up in advance. We will have a limited number of slots. The best proposals will be chosen by the staff of createdigitalmusic.com to compete in San Francisco at Yuri’s Night.

Set up, plug in. You’ll have a limited set up time.

Play. You have three minutes to perform.

JUDGING: A panel of judges with expertise in music and interaction design will judge the entries — and are encouraged to be biased by crowd response. (If you’ve got friends, tell them to cheer really loudly.)

AWARDS: Winners will be announced at Yuri’s Night, with a grand prize winner and honorable mention awards for each category.

http://yuricdm.com
http://yuricdm.com/2008/03/19/futuristic-music-design-challenge/
http://yurisnightbayarea.net/

Performances and informal discussions with Kabir Carter (MoogerFooger and Moog pedals and synthesizers), David Galbraith (self-built electronics), James Fei (Arp 2600 synthesizer), Kato Hideki (Octave “Cat” synthesizer, bass), Michael J Schumacher (Steiner-Parker Synthacon synthesizer), Sergei Tcherepnin (Serge modular synthesizer), Stefan Tcherepnin (Serge modular synthesizer), Ed Tomney (EMS VCS 3 “Putney” synthesizer, various).

The workshop is focused on the construction of sustainable, customized and networked instruments. Participants are invited to build up to three different musical devices: 1) Powerful analog Special Noise Unit (SNU), a kind of chaos - musical - noise - generator - touch - oscillator-instrument. (It’s even produces FM radio); 2) Simple step-sequencer SEQ8 to give electricity certain patterns; and 3) Mini-FM-transmitter to conquer your proximity.

A radio & noise installation will be available to present the above mentioned electronics and to show how building-blocks can be arranged in unusual ways, that we get an alive instrument, which has many possibilities to create unpredictable moments of sound, requiring adjustments from the player, but at the same time having a life of its own.

Additionally (if there is time and interest): A simple production technique of electronic boards with laser printer will be shown and practiced ~ Some neu(ronal) surprises and electronic DIY tricks (incl. plans) for building most electronic circuits found on the Internet will be explored.

Expected outcome: Live sound arrangement with all workshop participants making use of newly-constructed electronic instruments.

Participants profile: Electronic artists and every one who is interested in pushing beyond the usual boundaries of controlling electronics.

Registration: On-line registration (Max 12 participants)

Language: German/English

Fees:
Electronic parts - 30 euro. (to be paid directly to Jo FRGMNT Grys)
Workshop fee - 20 euro/15 euro (students)

About Jo FRGMNT Grys: Studied chemistry, philosophy, mineralogy etc at the Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen then more and more turned towards arts using scientifically influenced thinking to investigate formation of structure from noise & order, from error & law and feedback as his main artistic themes. Grys is working with videos, electronics, computers, body & brain. Performs with noisiV (self-made electronics and video manipulations), TOB (transmitters and self-made electronics). Grys makes electronic installations & international workshops since 2004. Lives in Berlin. The band.

The creation, dubbed “Stribe” by Josh, could have been a one-off. But instead, he’s working on making it into a tool for others, with completely open source hardware and software. The whole system is built on the popular Arduino platform, making it uncommonly easy to modify. It’s a work in progress, as you can see lacking an enclosure. But ten have made it out into the wild, people are already programming custom software, and more are coming.

I got to hang out with Josh while he was in town this weekend. Luckily, he’s a fan of early music, meaning we met at a concert of a viol consort that was playing my music — an unusual collision of 15th and 21st Century music technology.

Josh gave a demo of the Stribe, for myself plus Phil Torrone of Make and Limor Fried (aka lady ada), creator of the x0xb0x open-source 303 clone. It’s still a project in process– there’s more to be done in firmware and support software and documentation — but it already shows some real promise. I snapped some shots, studied the Max patches, and mostly listened to Limor and Josh talk about the challenges of starting a DIY hardware business. (I hope that DIY builders start to share experiences, even informally, as they work to make the business end work so they can keep building.)…” continue reading Hands-on, Interview: Stribe Multi-Touch Controller by Peter Kirn.

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.

Christof Migone (MTL) - Christof Migone is a multidisciplinary artist and writer. His work and research delves into language, voice, bodies, performance, intimacy, complicity, endurance.

Just’au Crâne (MTL) - Alexandre St-Onge & Jonathan Parent

DJ Debbie Wayne - Playing the finest selections of funk/r’n'b/soul/jazz & french pop after each performance.

If you are interested in participating in this or any other tiny noise event, email kyd and toni at tinynoise[at]gmail.com

Tiny Noise is a project by frontierlab [Kyd] + acidfake recordings [Toni]

Tiny Noise is a collaborative and nomadic d.i.y. music project conceived by Toni [Skopje] and Kyd [Sofia / Montreal] in February 2005. it started spontaneously as a DIY experiment in trying to see what kind of global network could be created while using global communication tools as well as personal networks and experiences. The idea of the festival is to spread and connect new and adventurous music at irregular times, in divergent places and with various artists, as well as promoting interesting, new, provocative and like minded artists with their music, sound, experiments, videos, installations… and any art form that can fit into a sound/experiment/media/technology platform. Tiny Noise festival remains open to many sound/music form, especially those enriched by other medias and looks to collaborate with other open projects.

Basically, Toni + Kyd come to a city and bring together local and visiting artists by using as many communication tools as they can find.

You are welcome to invite them to your city… they are great a getting the sound artists out of their studios and from behind their computers and for making some noise!

Next week, the UB Art Gallery, in Buffalo, NY, will unveil two new installations by Repetto which “revel in madcap interactivity and DIY technologies.” The first, action at a distance (2008) picks up and runs with Repetto’s knack for making the ramshackle poetic. With materials that include “a bewitching tangle of motors and pulleys, zigzags of rope, an otter theater, jangling bells, fireflies, switches, breath activators, and rough steel,” the pieces ensnare visitors as actors — or perhaps reverse, wireless marionettes — their gestures triggering amplified sounds and the movements of the ropes and motors. everything, all at once (2008) is similarly immersive, with hundreds of mirrors, motors, bells, and lights pulsing in response to the enveloped visitor. Repetto’s work is a great example of how masters of the classical arts of music composition and sculpture are using new media to push their work into an interactive realm. - Marisa Olson, Rhizome.

David Ellis was inspired by the player piano when he made his Owl.

Thanks to Becky Stern and Make: technology on your time.