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

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

Soundpocket 1 — created for Urban Interface, Oslo (2007) — was installed in a narrow passageway connecting two parts of the city. The soundbeam, which can be as narrow as 50 cm in diameter, was mounted on a pan/tilt head which made it possible to place the sounds very precisely in the passageway. By bouncing the sound off surfaces, it seemed as if the sound could be coming from a window, door, elevator, or a poster on the wall. Most of the sounds seemed to belong to the site; others were slightly out of place, like the sound of a chandelier blowing in the wind.

I wanted it to be slight distortions to the regular soundscape of the passageway, and was pleased to see that the people who used this passageway regularly were noticing these disturbances. This could be described using the first of Barthes´ three listening modes: hearing involves “evaluation of the spatio-temporal situation“ and thus, it is linked to a “notion of territory“. It places the listener on alert when new sounds which don’t “fit in” are heard. By adding an extra layer of sound if also made people focus on the sounds which were already there.

For Soundpocket 2, HC Gilje set up an Internet radio station (using Nicecast), and played sounds from his library of field recordings. He found three locations in Oslo to serve as local radio stations. They were connected to visible cues: a huge oak tree, a small sculpture, and a small pond in the roundabout. The range of the local stations more or less corresponded to these visual cues: if you saw them you would be able to pick up the signal. Gilje used AAREFF FM transmitters placed with the three hosts, who allowed him to pick up their Internet radio streams. The result was three very local radio stations sending out a continuous soundtrack from other places, so somehow these recorded locations came in dialogue with the physical locations of the radio stations. The listening involved active participation from the public as you would need to tune in on your own radio to pick up the broadcast.

HC Gilje works with realtime environments, installations, live performance, set design and singlechannel video. Gilje has presented his work through different channels throughout the world: in concert-venues,theatre and cinema venues, galleries, festivals and through several international dvd releases, including 242.pilots live in Bruxelles on New York label Carpark and Cityscapes on Paris-label Lowave. He was a member of the video-impro trio 242.pilots, and was also the visual motor of kreutzerkompani. In october 2006 Gilje started a 3 year position as a research fellow at Bergen National Academy of the Arts, Norway, exploring how audiovisual technology can be used to transform, create, expand, amplify and interpret physical spaces. He blogs at Conversations with Spaces.

Moving Forest of the PEOPLE’S FRONT is conspiring with KEIN.ORG and INURA (International Network for Urban Research and Action) in a call for an INSURGENCY act. The Russians took Moltke bridge. The prisoners took JVA Moabit. We take the prisoners. We are all 129a. The walls are blasted. The data are mined. The phones are tapped. The lives of others. We listen through walls. The cities of others. We walk through walls.

Moving Forest, conceived by Shu Lea Cheang (Plenum, nodeLondon06) and Martin Howse (xxxxx, nodeLondon06), is a 12 hour 5 act sonic performance operating with public wifi and mobile technology - an expandable citywide operatic manoeuvre / intervention. Derived from Kurosawa’s film version of Macbeth, Spider Web Castle, Moving Forest renders the film’s final sequences (12 minutes in length) into a 12-hour ’sonica’ of grand scale. Moving Forest reinvents a modern edition of a Castle Central (here: the House of World Cultures) and a city in revolt. Inside the castle, the downfall of the assumed power; outside in the city, the mobilised urbanites march with generated sounds of insurgence towards the imaginary Centre. Moving Forest collaborates with sound artists to compose acts and scores, at the same time, drafts a PD (pure data) conspiracy scheme, performing live with citywide performance transmitted by wifi.

[AKA the castle] is a temporal performance troop bringing together visual artists, writers, soundists, silk threaders, codedecoders,
macromikro, boombox mass, mobile agents, wifi fielders and urbanites to realize the 12 hour Moving Forest.

CALL for DS Revolt: go northwest 20 Allied Clearing House :: CALL for Radio Gun Revolt: Symphony of noise :: CALL for AIR: GAMEoverTAKEoverOVER :: CALL for transmission: autonomous transmitting units :: CALL for netstreams: Conspire and take remote control

CONSPIRE Transmediale08, Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.
KEIN.TV is a virtual, adhoc video production unit with a mobile internet connection via satellite
INURA a network of people in action and research in urban environments.

Valve / Membrance - Naoyuki Arashi (jp), Keisuke Oki (jp), Minoru Sato (jp) :: January 31, 2008; 9 pm :: House of World Cultures, Auditorium Nominee for the transmediale Award 2008 - Valve / Membrance is a series of electronic and non-electronic music pieces with traditional Japanese and Chinese valve instruments. The music bridges historical and regional differences of technological and musical forms. It focuses on cultural and technological elements from ancient Asia, the industrial revolution and the electronic age.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e30xL1yiqoI

hystere - Satoshi Shiraishi (jp), Alo Allik (ee), Yota Morimoto (jp), ibitsu (pp/ee) :: February 3, 2008; 8 pm :: House of World Cultures, Auditorium - hystere is an experiment in improvisation within premeditated boundaries in which the ‘e-Clambone’, a custom-made electronic wind instrument, provides the sole source for the ensuing multimodal environment. The visual aspect seeks moments of convergence and divergence with live video feed from the performance and is implemented as a library of OpenGL classes that listen to Open Sound Control messages over the ethernet.

10,000 Peacock Feathers in Foaming Acid - Evelina Domnitch (by), Dmitry Gelfand (us), Andrey Smirnov (ru) :: January 30, 2008; 10:00 pm :: Zeiss-Planetarium, Prenzlauer Allee 80 - The performance 10,000 Peacock Feathers in Foaming Acid visualises the fascinating surface structures of soap bubbles by using laser light. Dmitry Gelfand and his partner Evelina Domnitch create sensual immersive environments that bring together physics, chemistry and computer technology. The audio part of the performance is contributed by Andrey Smirnov, the director of the Theremin-Center in Moscow.

d.v.d. - Itoken (jp), Jimanica (jp), Takashi Yamaguchi (jp) :: January 29, 2008; 9:00 pm :: House of World Cultures, Cafe Global - The drums duo Itoken and Jimanica together with visual artist Yamaguchi Takashi are presenting their ‘interactive live installation’. With their drumsets the musicians are controlling game-like animations which are generating additional sounds. In turn their drum-play is dependent on the structure of the animation. The show at transmediale.08 is the kick-off event for d.v.d’s first europe tour.

DIGIT - Julien Maire (fr/de) :: January 31 and February 2, 2008; 1:00 pm :: House of World Cultures, Cafe Global - DIGIT is a living work of art – a writer sits at a table writing a text. The printed text appears through the mere gliding of his finger across a blank sheet of paper. Spectators can come very close to the writer and follow the emerging text. DIGIT is located between cinematographic process and the process of writing, while also making reference to the surrealist tradition of cutting and rearranging texts. His work DIGIT received an Honorary Mention in Ars Electronica 2007.

Ha’Pzura is an International event presented by the Israeli Center for Digital Art focused on the production and presentation of experimental music and sound projects. It includes an exhibition, concert series, sound intervention series and radio station being launched for sound art, experimental music, and art enthusiasts.

The exhibition Works in Translation deals with the space between source text and translation where language falters — in the silences and intervals, the facial expressions and paces of breathing and in the places where we are at a loss for words. Through this exhibition we ask whether and how language expresses that which is impossible to express and pass on. In these artworks language is stripped to its foundations, it is broken down into notes, syllables, words- into the raw form of sound where lies the form of language, which is in itself also an avenue to communication. The exhibition presents works by Romy Achituv, Marcus Coates, Adriana Garcia Galan, Eva Koch, Imogen Stidworthy, Artur Zmijewski, and a special project by Yossi Marhaim and Michal Naaman.

A program of sound interventions will be occurring in the city center of Holon. Interventions offer urban play, altered navigation, and the familiar made unfamiliar in the streets, passageways, shops and gymnasiums of the city. Artists include Cathy van Eck, Edwin van der Heide, Jetzke de Boer, Lior Weinstein, Michal Rothchild, Michal Rinott, Roee Ben Sira, Marcus Coates, Maya Dunietz, Ariel Efraim Ashbel, Public Movement, Tikva Morowati & David Hindman & Spencer Kiser, Uri Katzenstein, Yael Davids, Josef Sprintzak, Ori Drumer.

The experimental music concert series features International and Israeli musicians from the fields of free jazz, electronica, and improvisation. Performances are concentrated over two weekends at Tel Aviv’s Levontin 7, Hazira in Jerusalem and The Israeli Center for Digital Art in Holon and feature new collaborations between visiting and local musicians. Participants include Mouse on Mars, Faust, Bloodstereo, Peter Brotzmann Trio, Eddie Prevost & John Butcher, Eran Sachs, Musica Genera, Keir Nueringer, Machinefabreik, Malox, Philip Jeck, Quintet’s Quartets, Seventeen Migs of Spring & O.B.E.Y, Igor Krutogolov Trio, TV Buddhas, Taapet, Arik Shapira, Dora Doll & Alex Drool, Panda Porn, Ariel Shibolet, Gal & Maurin.

The Israeli Center for Digital Art is a dynamic platform for thinking, researching, producing, and presenting contemporary art, as well as providing a meeting point for exchange between contemporary artists, curators, critics and the public. The center is a non-profit organization established in 2001 which devotes a significant part of its work on art projects that foster questions about identity, ethnicity, nationalism and cultural exchange. It initiates partnerships and collaborations with individuals and other institutions in the Middle East and the Balkan region in an effort to explore how creative communities from different peripheries of the world can connect, learn from each other, and break down nationalistic or regional barriers. The activities of the center are concentrated in five main areas: The video archive & mobile archive, public presentations, residency program, education program and publications.

Curators: Eyal Danon, Galit Eilat | Artistic Director (Concert Series): Ilan Volkov | Musical Consultant (Dutch Musicians): Dani Meir | Assistant Curator: Maya Pasternak | Production: Haim Burshtein | Production for Mouse on Mars: Alina Feldman

http://www.digitalartlab.org.il/mobilearchive
http://www.liminalspaces.org/
http://www.maarav.co.il/

The blocks are distributed through an array of interventions that reference early models of instruction-based participatory works. As the blocks circulate, they transmit data which is collected by mesh networks and processed to create a constantly remixed sound environment in a shipping container.

IN[ ]EX explores the migration of capital, goods, and people through the ports and public spaces of Vancouver, Canada, and San José, California. By using thousands of small wooden blocks as placeholders of this activity, the project brings forward a consideration of not only the social conditions of movement in the two cities but also the ways in which the circulation of these things implicates us in the global economy and informs our diverse world-views.

Artists

Kate Armstrong is an artist and writer with interest in media, networks, distributed experience, and hybrid fields. Her artwork centres around text and experimental narrative, especially open forms that bring poetics and network function together. In the past this has taken a variety of forms including net art, psychogeographical work, audio, performance, and painting. She is a recipient of a 2004-2005 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts for Turbulence and is affiliated with The Upgrade! International, and bnode.

Bobbi Kozinuk uses radio, electronics, projections and performance to explore issues of gender, the environment and community involvement. He has taught over 150 people to build FM radio transmitters, empowering communities and individuals to access and work with electronic media and helped numerous artists create installations and outdoor performances.

M. Simon Levin has been creating site-based systems that explore the aesthetics of engagement using a variety of designed forms and tools for the past 18 years. These relational projects investigate the often-blurred boundaries between the private and the public resulting in poetic interventions into space and place.

Laurie Long creates time based work that combines digital and analogue technologies to explore representation of people, and place. As well, she has an extensive documentary practice. Her work has been broadcast, screened and exhibited nationally and internationally.

Leonard J. Paul has a ten-year history in making music and coding for video games working for companies such as Electronic Arts, Radical Entertainment and Rockstar Vancouver. He is the composer for the film The Corporation that has become the highest grossing Canadian documentary in history. He teaches game audio full-time at the Vancouver Film School.

Manuel Pina is interested in the relationships between power, utopias, history and the city as both site and embodiment of these relationships. His photographs and video pieces often depict urban spaces as a departure point for narratives concerning social issues. He currently lives and works in Vancouver and Havana.

Jean Routhier is an audio wrapper, his approach is similar to a store clerk, bagging everything into their sonic essence. Interested in the gaps and gasps in sounds conducive to the transmission of stories he sometimes hears in the ether, he finds inspiration in everyday situations.

Alice Ming Wai Jim is currently Curator of the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (Centre A) since 2003. She has curated media art exhibitions at Centre A, with Videotage (Hong Kong), and other independent projects. She is on the curatorial committees of NFF05 (Vancouver), LITMUS (New Zealand) and ISEA2006 (San Jose).

However, the article warns us: “Only one caller at a time can get through: [artist Katie] Paterson recommends the small hours of the morning.” So, if you’re extremely rich and cursed with insomnia, you can always lull yourself to sleep, sitting up at 3am near the kitchen window with your telephone pressed hard against your ear, listening to the groan of distant glaciers… I tried to get through a few hours ago, but dialed the wrong number – connecting instead to the subterranean roar of Mt. Hood. Perhaps there should be a telephone directory for natural phenomena.

(Thanks, Alex! Earlier on BLDGBLOG: To eavesdrop on breaking glaciers from within and When landscapes sing: or, London Instrument). [posted by Geoff Manaugh on BLDGBLOG]

The Micro Radio project started as a site-specific sound and radio project in 2005. It involved collecting site specific sounds, creating compositions, and broadcasting them back to the collection site. Roos stored the sounds on his laptop and broadcast using a low-power radio transmitter (capable of transmitting 150 feet).

In 2006, Roos began experimenting with a radio transmitter and antenna capable of broadcasting one kilometer. Audio can be downloaded from his broadcasts page.

The project has evolved into a mobile performance which mixes prerecorded field recordings stored on cassette, one off lacquer records, and Roos’s laptop. The performance is amplified through broadcasting to radios, and any existing sound system at the venue. He has also started live community radio station broadcasts, and is in the process of organizing a radio station tour in the fall. Download an essay on the micro radio project here.

Opera Calling is the first of three parts of a six-month-long exhibition at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich called «appropriate – manipulate – feed back!». It stands for the «appropriate»-part so to speak. It’s main aim is to explore the usefulness of as an artistic strategy of redirection and criticism.

Opera Calling is a project by Bitnik Media Collective and Sven König. Read a review at Furtherfield. Related [1] [2] [3] [4]