Julie Freeman’s work spans visual, audio and digital artforms and explores the relationship between science, nature and how humans interact with it. For the past 12 years her work has focused on using electronic technologies to ‘translate nature’ whether it’s the sound of torrential rain dripping on a giant rhubarb leaf; a pair of concrete speakers that lurk in galleries haranguing passersby with fractured sonic samples; or by providing an interactive platform to chat with dogs in numerous international languages. She is currently Artist in Residence at the Microsystems and Nanotechnology Centre at Cranfield University. For more about the artist see www.juliefreeman.co.uk or click through to see the micro-site for The Lake - which was awarded £96,000 for development by NESTA, where Freeman electronically tagged various freshwater fish species to create animation and soundtrack.

On June 13 2008, Open Ear will host a free one night only event of experimental work in the ATRiuM Theatre at the University of Glamorgan’s newly built ATRiuM, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries, Cardiff, Wales. Curated by Garrett Lynch the event will present a series of interdisciplinary performances and projections by various artists. Sound and visual artists / groups working across the areas of art, music, media and new technologies within live performance / projected contexts are invited to contribute to this event under an open theme.

What does this mean?

There is no imposed theme instead we want to present a selection of time-based work by artists based on their themes, their continuing research, as an event which will explore the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of audio-visual arts. Proposed performances / projected works can be new or pre-existing works, improvised, dynamically generated (such as software art) or pre-composed, abstract or figurative, individual or collaborative, experimental, site specific and much, much more. All proposals are required to be:

1. time-based (remember this is a audience based event in a theatre)
2. and either audio-visual, audio only or visual only work (selection preference will be given to works which are audio-visual)

Works should aim to be a maximum of 30 minutes each however this is flexible.

As the event is free we are unable to offer individual payment to artists however we will provide access to reasonable requests for equipment (please include a list of requirements in your proposal and we will attempt to cater for this) at the venue and of course the opportunity to present work in one of Cardiff’s newest cutting edge venues.

Proposals should take the form of a word / pdf / rtf / txt document (two pages maximum) with:

1. A description of the work (500 words maximum).
2. Images to give us an idea of the proposed work.
3. A full list of required equipment (please note that the event will host several performers so complex configurations involving lengthy set-up times will not be catered for).
4. Urls to previous examples of work online (videos or sound files online are particularly useful).
5. A short bio (200 words maximum).
6. Artist(s) / group / performer(s) name and full contact details.

Please email proposals as compressed attachments (.zip / .dmg / .sit / .sitx / tar.gz / .tgz) to Garrett Lynch (garrett [at] asquare dot org) no later than 12pm (GMT), Friday 16/05/08.

To get an idea of the type of events we organise please see our website (http://openear.wordpress.com/) for full details of all past events and our YouTube account for videos of pasts events.

:: The Venue ::

The University of Glamorgan’s newly built ATRiuM in Cardiff, Wales opened in 2007 and houses the Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries which comprises of Art & Design, Media & Communication and Drama & Music. Situated in central Cardiff, Wales, this specially-designed building contains cutting edge technology and facilities including industry-standard studios, a theatre and cinema.

Address: ATRiuM Theatre, Adam Street, Cardiff, Wales, CF24 2FN. Detailed information on how to get here can be found on the university website.

Open Ear, audio-visual events and performances are supported by The University of Glamorgan, ATRiuM, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries, Cardiff, Wales.

The Brown Music Department and MEME (Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments) presents… Atau Tanaka, a concert of interactive computer music and video featuring Japanese / American artist Atau Tanaka. Tanaka creates music for sensor instruments, wireless network infrastructures, and democratized digital forms; his work bridges the fields of media art, experimental music, and research. Also featuring new works by current and former MEME students.

European Sound Delta is a mobile project on the Danube & Rhine Rivers focusing on radio-art using sounds of European cities. Two teams will be travelling on both rivers this summer, recording sounds, producing live performances and radio broadcasts with local sound-artists. A final exhibition is scheduled in Strasbourg by the end of September 2008 as part of Ososphere. International sound artists are invited to apply with a project meant to be created on one of the trans-European floating labs.

Main Objectives:

–> To give young people the experience of a professional mobile project
–> A documentary artistic research on cultural identities of European cities
–> Built a new european network in the field of sound art
–> Experiment ICT via innovative artistic practices

Participating countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Romania, Serbia & Slovakia

Associated curators: Valerie Vivancos and Joachim Montessuis.

Participating artists & residents (list not closed): Aymeric De Tapol, Tonic Train, Dinahbird, Jopo Stereo, SIC: Hori Cosmin Samol, Ewen Chardronnet, Alejandra Perez Nunez, Julien Ottavi, Chris Watson, Vincent Epplay, Alejandra & Aeron, Robert Hampson, Kassel Jaeger, AGF, Jorg Piringer, Yannick Dauby, Christian Zanesi, Phil Niblock, Charlemagne Palestine, Jean-Philippe Roux, Gael Segalen, Philip Griffiths, Joachim Montessuis.

The goal of the Handbook is to be a signpost, a source of practical information and content that bridges the gap between new users and the platforms and resources that are available, but not always very accessible. The Handbook will be slowly filled with articles written by invited artists and specialists, talking about their tools and ways of working. Some articles are introductions to tools, others are descriptions of methodologies, concepts and technologies.

When discussing software, the focus of this Handbook is on Free / Libre Open Source Software. The Handbook aims to give artists information about the available tools but also about the practicalities related to Free Software and Open Content, such as collaborative development and licenses. All this to facilitate exchange between artists, to take away some of the fears when it comes to open content licenses, sharing code, and to give a perspective on various ways of working and collaborating.

The digital artist handbook is brought to you by folly and has developed out of ongoing consultation with artists working with technology, which has shown a need for removing the barriers for artists to use digital tools. The project is supported by Arts Council England.

From August 2007 until January 2008, the editors of the Handbook were Marloes de Valk and Aymeric Mansoux of GOTO10.