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Entries in festivals (8)

Thursday
May202010

Green Sound Soundwave Festival San Francisco

DateThursday, May 20, 2010 at 16:02 tagged , ,

Inflorescence 2010 sound and performance installation - June 17, Soundwave Festival

The Soundwave Festival, organized every two years by ME’DE.ATE will have the theme ‘Green Sound’ this year and will take place from June 6 till August 13, 2010 in San Francisco. The festival combines sound art and sound installations with innovative performances, experimental, classical and popular music. 

With the Greeen Sound theme the festival will explore the natural world and environmental issues, together with over 75 artists and musicians. Looking at the list of artists it is nice to see Alyce Santoro, who was one of the first to answer the Five Sound Questions, is one of them. 

Click to read more ...

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Thursday
Mar182010

ElectroSmog Festival

DateThursday, March 18, 2010 at 20:13 tagged ,

The ElectroSmog festival takes place this weekend in various places all over the globe with as main ‘hub’ the Balie in Amsterdam. It is a festival about sustainable immobility and it explores a way to a more sustainable lifestyle using local resources, while at the same time being more connected to the rest of the world, using new technologies and networks. 

An interesting subject, but it does not have anything to do with sound. I show you the leader because the last few days I have been busy creating the soundtrack for it, so this time you get a glimpse of some of my own work for a change. The visuals are made by Jeroen Joosse, and I tried to create sounds that fit them as tightly as possible. 

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Monday
Mar012010

The Poetics of Space

DateMonday, March 1, 2010 at 22:39 tagged , ,

The World Soundscape Project group in 1973 with Barry Truax, second from the right.

Last weekend I attended the thirteenth edition of the Sonic Acts festival. This year’s theme was “The Poetics of Space”. I heard some interesting pieces of music, lots of noise (literally), saw a lot of abstract moving images and a few interesting lectures.

Barry Truax

I found some of the Saturday sessions especially interesting. Barry Truax gave a lecture on acoustic space and composing with the environment. Barry is well known for his electroacoustic and computer music and was part of the World Soundscape Project group (pictured above), a group founded by R. Murray Schafer at the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver to research the changes in the sonic environment. He also created the first implementation of real-time granular synthesis in 1986.  

During his lecture he spoke about how spaces influence sounds, how sound have spaces inside them and how we can use this in compositions. When you record a sound, you automatically record the space around that sound as well, so in Barry’s words:

Each sound tells us where it has been.

 

We were treated to some beautiful sound examples on the eight-channel system (“Eight channel is the new stereo”), including a preview of his newest work Challice Well, which was played later that day in its full length at Paradiso. 

Click to read more ...

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Wednesday
Jun242009

Liquid Architecture: festival of sound arts

DateWednesday, June 24, 2009 at 10:16 tagged

Today the Liquid Architecture festival of sound arts opens in Sydney. It's the tenth edition of this festival with concerts, immersive sound presentations, audio-visual and recorded work, exhibitions and installations in what they call "a sense-specific feast for the ears".

The festival focuses on listening. In this world mainly focused on visual stimuli it's great to see events like Liquid Architecture emphasize the importance of sound culture in the world. There will be exhibitions and concerts in various cities in Australia. I would have loved to visit the festival, if it wouldn't be on the other side of the globe!

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Tuesday
Jun232009

Sound Walk: a human sequencer

DateTuesday, June 23, 2009 at 15:59 tagged ,

The Sonar festival is over, but there are some more projects from the exhibition which are worth looking at. Like Sound Walk, a 'human sequencer' created by Julio Lucio with music written by Nikka. 

Visitors walk through the space to interact with the installation, creating the music as they move along. A projector creates the images on the floor, and while moving though the space, visitors get visual feedback as well, as the video clearly shows. 

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Friday
Jun192009

WeAreWaves: move your body

DateFriday, June 19, 2009 at 22:27 tagged ,

While we're having a look at ways of using the human body to control music, this is a project that should not be missed: WeAreWaves, created by Sebastián Gonzalez and Javier Chávarri, involves the human body in creating sound. The performer isn't influencing existing music. Rather, he is creating waveforms, using his body to influence the timbre of the sound.

The silhouette of the body is registered by a camera and this shape becomes the actual wave form. By moving around you change the wave form and the timbre of the sound. An interesting experiment. In this interactive installation we are all waves. 

Are you curious what you sound like? You can find out at the Sonar festival in Barcelona this week, where the WeAreWaves installation can be experienced.

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Wednesday
Jun032009

Voxstrumental at Futur en Seine festival 

DateWednesday, June 3, 2009 at 0:35 tagged ,

The Futur en Seine festival takes place in Paris this week. The festival shows interesting new technological experiments and futuristic products. Voxstrumental is a sound installation shown by Voxler, a development team focused on vocal interaction, mainly for the gaming industry.

There are four pipes connected to the Voxstrumental sound installation. Singing into one of the pipes triggers a musical sequence. The pitch of the music changes with the pitch of your voice. The microphones are able to capture multiple parameters of expression. Four people can play the sound installation at the same time, you'll have to listen to each other to make it sound good together. And if you do, the robot in the middle starts dancing happily!

Watch a short movie about this sound installation on the Futur en Seine blog.

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Friday
May292009

Urban Explorers festival: Sponge Expanded

DateFriday, May 29, 2009 at 0:47 tagged ,

This weekend the Urban Explorers festival takes place in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. A festival of film, music, theater, dance, sound art, and crossover between those media. One of the pieces in the exhibition will be Sponge Expanded by Maurits Fennis (website doesn’t seem to be up-to-date).

Visitors of Sponge Expanded will be immersed in sound, as the installation consists of 18 speakers positioned in a spherical manner around them. There are no sound examples on the site yet.

After viewing the art projects and theater performances at Urban Explorers you can enjoy a concert of Mira Calix or the Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, to name just two of the 22 performing artists.

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