Witness 2000. Each speaker in the installation Witness 2000 transmits a voice telling a story. A wide variety of languages represent testimonies from all over the world. The witnesses describe the experience of an encounter with UFOs or creatures from other spheres. A range of similarities emerges in the descriptions and in the type of…Continue Reading Susan Hiller – Witness 2000
David Tudor – Rainforest IV
Here’s an example of tactile or surface transducers in action. David Tudor (1973) — Rainforest IV: collective performance The fourth version (1973) is the result of a collaborative work environment, mixing in space sounds live suspended sculptures and found objects, and transformed by an audio system reverberations. Here’s another version: From the Getty Research Institute:…Continue Reading David Tudor – Rainforest IV
Pierre Sauvageot’s Harmonic Fields
Sauvageot describes his creation as “a symphonic march for 1,000 aeolian instruments and moving audience”. It is not only a striking piece of land art, but a carefully constructed piece of music, with an integral balance of theme and structure. “It’s important that it is not just a circuit of weird noises,” Sauvageot says. “The…Continue Reading Pierre Sauvageot’s Harmonic Fields
Alvin Lucier – I am Sitting in a Room (1981)
The first recording of I am sitting in a room was made at the Electronic Music Studio at Brandeis University in 1969. This recording, from October 29 and 31, 1980, was created in the living room of Lucier’s home in Middletown, Connecticut. It consists of thirty-two generations of the composer’s speech and was made expressly for…Continue Reading Alvin Lucier – I am Sitting in a Room (1981)
In The Garden of Sonic Delights – videos
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You Are the Sweet Spot by Stephen Vitiello & Bob Bielecki Listening Is as Listening Does by Suzanne Thorpe We Fall Like Light by Laurie Anderson & Bob Bielecki Catenary by Eli Keszler Wild Energy by Annea Lockwood & Bob Bielecki Sunken Gardens by Betsey Biggs Diacousticon by Stephan Moore The [Music] Room by Francisco…Continue Reading In The Garden of Sonic Delights – videos
Sound and Cities
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The sounds of our lives suck! How to make cities better by ending the blight of noiseBad sound is “as detrimental to quality of life as bad streetlights or poor sidewalks,” according to one expert. http://www.salon.com/2014/11/02/the_sounds_of_our_lives_suck_how_to_make_cities_better_by_ending_the_blight_of_noise/…Continue Reading Sound and Cities
Max Neuhaus – Times Square
From Gothamist: Visit The Eerie Circa-1970s Sound Installation In Times Square The late Max Neuhaus, a percussionist known for creating site-specific sound sculptures, created one of his best known pieces in Times Square in 1977, a sound installation that filters up through the subway grates on Broadway. According to Dia Art Foundation, the installation originally…Continue Reading Max Neuhaus – Times Square
Pandemonium – Janet Cardiff and George Burres Miller
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A site specific sound installation at Pennsylvania’s Eastern State Penitentiary. The project draws from the locations complicated past and stories drawn from that history. from Janet Cardiff and George Burres Miller’s website: Tip tap tip tap. Is that the sound of dripping or is it someone in a cell tapping a code on the wall?…Continue Reading Pandemonium – Janet Cardiff and George Burres Miller
Digital Empathy
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Digital Empathy greets High Line visitors with a variety of messages. At some sites, computer-generated voices speak messages of concern, support, and love, intermingled with pragmatic information. In other sites, those same digitized voices recite poetry and sing love songs to park visitors. http://art.thehighline.org/project/julianneswartz/…Continue Reading Digital Empathy
Headphones – Sound without Space
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Headphones: Sound Without Space Curated by Charles Stankievech Architectural Association Independent Radio: aair.fm Headphones: Sound Without Space stems from the research consolidated in “From Stethoscopes to Headphones: An Acoustic Spatialization of Subjectivity” in Leonardo Music Journal (MIT Press). Vol. 17. 2007. Download article here. Click here to download an archive of the broadcast in mp3…Continue Reading Headphones – Sound without Space
John Cage – Searching for Silence (The New Yorker)
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John Cage’s art of noise. By Alex Ross The New Yorker, October 4, 2010 Issue…Continue Reading John Cage – Searching for Silence (The New Yorker)
Stephen Vitiello – A Bell for Every Minute
Stephen Vitiello’s site-specific sound work A Bell For Every Minute was installed in 2010 in the High Line’s 14th Street Passage, a semi-enclosed tunnel between West 13th and West 14th Streets. Vitiello’s subtle tribute to New York City is comprised of recordings of bells from throughout New York City, which range from the iconic ring…Continue Reading Stephen Vitiello – A Bell for Every Minute
Field Recording, Sound Art and Objecthood
This article, by Joanna Demers relates well to our focus on reduced listening. My short take on it is that the author compares some sound art to site-specific and minimalist art – in short art that claims to not be referring to anything but itself. “Minimalism emerges in retrospect as an intermediary step in which…Continue Reading Field Recording, Sound Art and Objecthood
Arup Sound Lab
About Arup Founded in 1946 with an initial focus on structural engineering, Arup first came to the world’s attention with the structural design of the Sydney Opera House, followed by its work on the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Arup has since grown into a truly multidisciplinary organisation. Most recently, its work for the 2008 Olympics…Continue Reading Arup Sound Lab
Hailuoto Sound Choir
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One of my favorite discoveries of the past couple of years, a project that brings people together to connect vocally to the sounds in the small and remote island of Hailuoto in northern Finland. “The Hailuoto Sound Choir recreates the sounds of the island with vocal tools and learns a program of pieces composed or…Continue Reading Hailuoto Sound Choir
Janette Sadik-Khan – Honk, Honk, Aaah
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Janette Sadik-Khan, the former Commissioner of Transportation under Mayor Bloomburg, was instrumental in creating pedestrian plazas throughout the city. Besides becoming places where one might stop and rest or eat lunch, they have an impact on the movement of traffic — and therefore, NOISE. here’s how an article from New York Magazine (available online) describes…Continue Reading Janette Sadik-Khan – Honk, Honk, Aaah
Nature, Sound Art and The Sacred
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http://davidddunn.com/~david/writings/terrnova.pdf Fascinating article on creating and recognizing relationships in soundscapes….Continue Reading Nature, Sound Art and The Sacred
Acoustic Mirrors
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“A forerunner of radar, acoustic mirrors were built on the south and northeast coasts of England between about 1916 and the 1930s. The ‘listening ears’ were intended to provide early warning of incoming enemy aeroplanes and airships about to attack coastal towns. With the development of faster aircraft the sound mirrors became less useful, as…Continue Reading Acoustic Mirrors
Helen Keller
Tremulously I stand in the subways, absorbed into the terrible reverberations of exploding energy. Fearful, I touch the forest of steel girders loud with the thunder of oncoming trains that shoot past me like projectiles. Inert I stand, riveted in my place. My limbs, paralyzed, refuse to obey the will insistent on haste to board…Continue Reading Helen Keller
Scientific approach to the soundscape with visual tools
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The soundscape, in depth: http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/28/6071399/scientists-are-recording-the-sound-of-the-whole-planet…Continue Reading Scientific approach to the soundscape with visual tools
Living Symphonies
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Living Symphonies is a musical composition that grows in the same way as a forest ecosystem. Portraying the thriving activity of the forest’s wildlife, plants and atmospheric conditions, it creates an ever-changing symphony heard amongst the forest itself. Composed and realised by James Bulley and Daniel Jones, Living Symphonies will be taking place across four…Continue Reading Living Symphonies
R. Murray Schafer – Listen
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Listen by ONFB, National Film Board of Canada “A soundscape is any collection of sounds, almost like a painting is a collection of visual attractions,” says composer R. Murray Schafer. “When you listen carefully to the soundscape it becomes quite miraculous.” David New’s portrait of the renowned composer becomes a lesson unto itself, gracing viewers…Continue Reading R. Murray Schafer – Listen
Stillspotting – Arvo Pärt and Snøhetta – To a Great City
http://stillspotting.guggenheim.org https://snohetta.com/project/31-stillspotting-guggenheim While the vitality and stimulation of the urban environment can be pleasant, those living in or visiting densely populated areas, such as New York, can have wildly different experiences. The ever-present cacophony of traffic, construction, and commerce; the struggle for mental and physical space; and the anxious need for constant communication in person…Continue Reading Stillspotting – Arvo Pärt and Snøhetta – To a Great City
Reverberation and Echo – Echo Bridge, Massachusetts
Built in the 1870s, this forty-metre wide arch spans the Charles River. There are steps down to a specially built platform so visitors can test out the sound effect. In September 1948 Arthur Taber Jones wrote to the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, detailing a small study. ‘A handlcapp [sic] is returned in…Continue Reading Reverberation and Echo – Echo Bridge, Massachusetts
Sound Tourism for Travellers
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We so often consider the places we visit by what there is to see. How about planning your next trip around what you’d like to HEAR?This site is a place to start. http://www.sonicwonders.org…Continue Reading Sound Tourism for Travellers
Cities and Memory – Mapping the real and imagined sounds of the world
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Cities and Memory is a sound project that attempts to record both the present reality of a place, but also its imagined, alternative counterpart – remixing the world, one sound at at time. Every faithful field recording document here is accompanied by a reworking, a processing or an interpretation that imagines that place and time…Continue Reading Cities and Memory – Mapping the real and imagined sounds of the world
Bird Language
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‘Bird Language’ or Kus Dili, is a centuries-old whistled dialect used to communicate across hillsides in the village of Kuskoy, Turkey. Will it survive the digital age? WSJ’s Joe Parkinson reports. Here’s a report from the Atlantic online: For centuries, residents of Kuşköy have communicated over rural Turkey’s vast distances with kuş dili, which literally…Continue Reading Bird Language
Liminal – The Organ of Corti
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Organ of Corti is an experimental instrument that recycles noise from the environment. It does not make any sound of its own, but rather it attempts to draw our attention to the sounds already present by framing them in a new way. Named after the organ of hearing in the inner ear, it uses the acoustic technology of sonic crystals to accentuate and attenuate frequencies within the broad range of sound present in road traffic or falling water. By recycling surplus sounds from our environment, we hope to challenge expectations of what might constitute a piece of music by adding nothing to the existing soundscape but rather offering new ways of listening to what is already there. This instrument is a device that, for us, rematerializes our experience of sound, inviting us to “listen to ourselves listen”….Continue Reading Liminal – The Organ of Corti
John Hastings – Hum 789
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Live performance of HUM 7 8 9 performed by the audience as part of Make Music New York, June 21, 2012. Performed at the Consolidated Edison Farragut Substation DUMBO Brooklyn, NY. About: For the third year, participants will gather near the ConEd Farragut Substation in DUMBO to join in a large group hum-a-long. We will…Continue Reading John Hastings – Hum 789
Times Square Free Tibet Rally – John roach
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A recording at Union Square – Free Tibet Rally. May 2011….Continue Reading Times Square Free Tibet Rally – John roach
Stephen Vitiello – Sounds Building In The Fading Light
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Recorded during a 5 month period on the 91st floor of The World Trade Center. Inexpensive contact microphones were fixed to the windows and routed into a mixing board, tweaked by equalization and a Sherman Filter Bank. Additional experiments were done at night with an amplified photocell placed into the eye of a telescope. http://www.stephenvitiello.com/…Continue Reading Stephen Vitiello – Sounds Building In The Fading Light
Forest (for a thousand years) – Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller
Forest (for a thousand years); 2012; Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller This is a 6 minute excerpt from a 28 minute audio installation created for dOCUMENTA (13). http://www.cardiffmiller.com “A remarkable thing about Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s utterly captivating sound installation is how it blurs distinctions between site and art. You enter a…Continue Reading Forest (for a thousand years) – Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller – Alter Bahnhof Video Walk
Alter Bahnhof Video Walk; 2012; Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller “Here is an attempt to document our 2nd piece made for dOCUMENTA (13). Viewers are given an ipod and headphones and asked to follow the prerecorded video through the old train station in Kassel. The overlapping realities lead to a strange, perceptive confusion in…Continue Reading Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller – Alter Bahnhof Video Walk
This American Life – episode110 – Mapping (mapping hearing)
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12min Jack Hitt visits Toby Lester, who has mapped all the ambient sounds in his world: the hum of the heater, the fan on the computer. (12 minutes) https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/110/mapping?act=2#act-2…Continue Reading This American Life – episode110 – Mapping (mapping hearing)
John Roach – Electrical Hum
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The sound emanating from a traffic signal box in Brooklyn. The sound has been processd to remove all but the hum…Continue Reading John Roach – Electrical Hum
13th Street and 5th Avenue – Recorded by John Roach
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13th Street and 5th Avenue – Recorded by John Roach…Continue Reading 13th Street and 5th Avenue – Recorded by John Roach
How architecture helped music evolve – David Byrne
As his career grew, David Byrne went from playing CBGB to Carnegie Hall. He asks: Does the venue make the music? From outdoor drumming to Wagnerian operas to arena rock, he explores how context has pushed musical innovation….Continue Reading How architecture helped music evolve – David Byrne