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[Image: Phonautograph] “An “ethereal” 10 second clip of a woman singing a French folk song has been played for the first time in 150 years. The recording of “Au Clair de la Lune”, recorded in 1860, is thought to be the oldest known recorded human voice. A phonograph of Thomas Edison singing a children’s song in 1877 was previously thought to be the oldest record.

The new “phonautograph”, created by etching soot-covered paper, has now been played by US scientists using a “virtual stylus” to read the lines. “When I first heard the recording as you hear it … it was magical, so ethereal,” audio historian David Giovannoni, who found the recording, told AP.” Continue reading Oldest recorded voices sing again, BBC News. You can also listen to the recording.

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

Objects Sing at ItSpace - Shower heads, down pillows and folding tables make music at ItSpace, an interactive sound project created by composer Peter Traub. Short pieces of music are composed from recordings of these everyday household objects being struck, again and again. Producer Jesse Dukes brings the story for HearingVoices.com. You can listen to the NPR storyhere.

From Technology Review, January 7, 2008 - In October 2007, the English rock band Radiohead enhanced its already enviable avant-garde credibility by releasing its seventh album, In Rainbows, online. Fans willing to offer up their names and e-mail addresses–or at least, fake names and fake e-mail address–could pay what they chose for the album, even downloading it for free. The band, and the “tip jar” business model it had adopted, were the talk of the music press and the blogosphere for weeks.

While no one is quite certain how many albums were actually sold or how much money was actually made - the business model may tell us something about the future of the music business. For more, read Larry Hardesty’s article in TR.

“A new smartpen could change the way people practice mobile computing by bringing processing power to traditional pen and paper. Made by Livescribe, of Oakland, CA, the smartpen is designed to digitize the words and drawings that a user puts down on paper and bring them to life.

So long as the user writes on paper printed with a special pattern, the smartpen transforms what is written into interactive text. For example, the pen has a recording function, called paper replay, that can record sound and connect it to what the user writes while the sounds are being recorded. Later, the user can tap the pen over what she wrote and replay the associated sounds. “We’re starting to make the whole world of printable surfaces accessible and functional,” says Livescribe CEO Jim Marggraff.” Continue reading Computing on Paper - Livescribe’s smartpen turns a sheet of paper into a computer by Erica Naone, Technology Review.

Toyota unveiled a robot that can play the violin as part of its efforts to develop futuristic machines capable of assisting humans in Japan’s greying society.

The 1.5-metre-tall (five-foot), all-white, two-legged robot wowed onlookers with what we are told was a faultless rendition of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance. With 17 joints in its hands and arms, the robot used its mechanical fingers to push the strings correctly and bowed with its other arm, coordinating the movements well. The new robot comes three years after Toyota unveiled a trumpet-playing robot. For more information, see Technology Review or AFP Google.

KCRW will air a story on Blue Morph by Victoria Vesna and James Gimzewski, on Studio 360 :: December 9, 2007; 6:00 pm (PST) / on WBUR Boston, 90.9 FM on Saturdays at 7:00 PM. Check Station Listings for your area.

Blue Morph is an interactive installation that uses nanoscale images and sounds derived from the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Nanotechnology is changing our perception of life and this is symbolic in the Blue Morpho butterfly with the optics involved - that beautiful blue color is not pigment at all but patterns and structure which is what nano-photonics is centered on studying. Continue reading

The VIDA 10.0 AWARDS were announced recently. Francisco López (Spain) won an award for Sonic Alter Ego in the Incentives for Ibero-American Production category that helps finance art projects exploring Artificial Life (and related disciplines) that still have not been produced. Applicants must be from South America, Spain or Portugal.

The hybrid forms of the artistic proposals submitted to VIDA and the transformation of the discipline of A-Life itself have prompted the jury to consider new issues, such as the rising importance of simulation in both social life (for example, in the concept of virtual personality) and organic life (evident in the concept of “neo-organisms”). Continue reading

“Listening Post: You have a classical background; what drew you to creating 8-bit music? What do you find alluring about the chiptune aesthetic?

Haeyoung Kim, BubblyFish: I started with classical music first, and moved on to electronic music. I have in electronic music and computer music, so experimental music. Classical is more my background. So I picked up a GameBoy, I guess 4 or 5 years ago already, and when I started using it, I just loved the sound of it, and part of the big deal is that there’s a huge limitation that does not require much music production at all. Since there’s such a limitation, I think I can push myself to be more creative, and think differently from the way that I usually create music, with more available tools…” From Interview: Chiptune Artist Haeyoung Kim, BubblyFish by Eliot Van Buskirk, Wired. Also see Interview with Paul Slocum, Tree Wave.