Displaced Sounds is a new series of performances and presentations, organised by STUK arts centre and (K-RAA-K)3 :: March 13, 2008; 8:30 pm :: STUK KUNSTENCENTRUM vzw, Naamsestraat 96, B-3000 Leuven.

Expect unexpected sounds, exciting evenings where listening and hearing are the keywords. Even before we are born, we are affected by noise invading our safe and quiet space. We are surrounded by sounds that define the rhythm of our world. Artists and researchers will guide you through the labyrinth of sounds that constitute our daily lives. Continue reading

Sound Walks explores some of the possibilities of Stanza’s Soundcities. It uses the Soundcities database through the openly distributed XML-file. Choose the city you want to visit: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bergen, Bilbao, Bristol, Cork, Dresden, Ljubljana, London, Los Angeles, Napoli, Paris, Rotterdam, Salzburg, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, or Tokyo.

Soundcities is an online open source database of city sounds from around the world, that can be listened to, used in performances on laptops, or played on mobiles via wireless networks. Initially all of the sounds were by Stanza, but you can now contribute your own found sounds. This is was the first online open source found sound database. First version 2003.

Air Detritus is derived from sounds that were collected from the air and water detritus of Central Park, New York. Sounds were collected via a 2-way radio submerged in a pond, and on land. The act of recycling materials into a new piece, and re-using objects and sound fragments seems a way to re-imagine the world, a symbolic treatment that enacts the idea of sustainability as an elusive but critical goal of consuming fewer materials. As a consumer working with digital tools, I have accumulated many old monitors, hard drives, cords, and interfaces that are quickly obsolete. The molded plastic and metal have a perverse dialectical relationship to the data of ones and zeros that are transported and stored. This piece is a moment of reflection upon these relationships, and our relationship to the world. - Miya Masaoka Continue reading

Metal Door Tones - contact microphones on a metal door - with Patrick McGinley, Hitoshi Kojo, Fantomas (08:44) Continue reading

Helena Gough is a Birmingham-based sound artist whose work involves the collection and manipulation of ‘real-world’ sound material and the exploration of its abstract properties. Each new sound piece is created by taking everything possible from the tiniest element - working to create something from nearly nothing. Initially trained in violin and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, Junior Academy, Helena went on to complete a BMus at Birmingham University. She is now a regular live (laptop) performer, working under her own name and also as part of Migrant, an electroacoustic trio with Nicholas Bullen (ex Napalm Death/Black Galaxy) and Simon Mabbott.

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Mr. Resistor is an innovative class in which students are taught how to create musical instruments from found electronics and other objects. Armed with two toy robots named Freddy and Teddy, a violin with a bow made out of cassette tape, and a synthesizer assembled from a 1960s electric guessing game, last weekend students at Parsons the New School for Design took to the stage to perform rock songs they created out of these and other found objects.

The performance took place at The Openhouse in SoHo and was born out of a burgeoning DIY music movement where artists take the debris of everyday life, for example an amp made from a Ritz cracker box and instruments made from Gameboys, irons and electronic toys, and turn them into musical instruments to play at events such as Handmade Music Night and Music for People and Thingamajigs. Continue reading

Mikro is a series of improvised performances using the immediate surroundings as raw material: A microscope captures everyday objects and surfaces like wallpaper, coins, clothing, furniture, newspapers and transforms it into an explosive universe of textures. Contact microphones and electromagnetic sniffers pick up unhearable sounds to create the live soundtrack. Mikro is a collaboration between HC Gilje (video) and Justin Bennett (sound). Performances so far: Paradiso (Amsterdam), IMAL (Brussels), TAG (den Haag), DNK (Amsterdam), Bergen Kunsthall Landmark (Bergen), Laznia (Gdansk) [posted on HC Gilje blog]

Based in London, Peter Cusack is a sound artist, musician and phonographer especially focused on environmental sound and acoustic ecology. His interests range from community arts, to how sounds affect our sense of place, and how they change as people migrate and technologies develop. Cusack’s current project Sounds from Dangerous Places examines the soundscapes of sites of major environmental damage, for example, Chernobyl and the Azerbaijan oil fields. He has also studied the sound properties of areas such as Lake Baikal, Siberia, and controversial dams on the Tigris and Euphrates river systems in south east Turkey. He writes: Continue reading

Upgrade! Scotland: Mark Vernon and Zoë Irvine :: November 27, 2007; 7.00 -9:00 pm :: CCA, Glasgow. Join us for a glass of wine from 6.30 pm. Admission is free, but to make sure of a seat please email: rsvp ‘at’ mediascot ‘dot’ org.

Mark Vernon and Zoë Irvine work between art, music, radio and sound. The artists have been working prolifically at the forefront of their field since shifting from predominantly visual practices. They will talk about their individual practices and touch on their numerous collaborations together. Including their recent project, Hairwaves: which produced an irreverent blend of music, interviews, haircuts, dog groomers and the paranormal. Continue reading

ItSpace, by Peter Traub, creates a network of pages within the social networking site MySpace. Instead of people, the pages feature everyday household objects from the artist’s house. Each page has a photo of the object, a description, and most importantly, a 1-minute piece composed of samples of the object being struck, resonated, and so forth. All the pages, or objects, are ‘friends’ with each other, so that visitors who discover one object may jump to the others to see their profiles and hear their sounds. Visitors to the site are invited to create new ItSpace pages with pieces made from their own household objects and link those in as ‘friends’ of the original set. Listen to an Interview >> Continue reading