Tag: sound as story

Steel-Fonics – Ricardo Iammuri Robinson

The STEEL-FONICS attempts to shed light on a hidden contribution to Pittsburgh’s industrial past. In this culture, African Americans are typecast dancing, singing or marching against a backdrop of poverty, crime or packed arenas in order to be recognized.  This installation employs the power of stereotype and reimagines a creative collective of black industrial steel workers called The STEEL-FONICS.  The African American contribution to the enormous expansion of the American steel industry has been all but invisible.  This exhibition is a new kind of labor strike against historical omission….Continue Reading Steel-Fonics – Ricardo Iammuri Robinson

Ultra-Red Five – Five Protocols for Listening

In honor of May Day, Ultra-red release the PDF of our latest workbook for militant sound inquiry, “Five Protocols for Organized Listening” (5.8MB). The workbook compiles protocols for collective listening developed by multiple teams of investigators from 2009 to 2011 in cities across North America and Europe. “Five Protocols” is also accompanied by links to related sound objects on the School of Echoes Soundcloud page. Please feel free to download and distribute. We only ask that you send us feedback on your experiments with organized listening and militant sound investigation….Continue Reading Ultra-Red Five – Five Protocols for Listening

Annea Lockwood – Sound Map of the Hudson River

An aural journey from the source of the river, in the high peak area of the Adirondacks, downstream to the Lower Bay and the Atlantic Ocean; Lockwood traces the course of the Hudson through on-site recordings of its flow at 15 separate locations. Annea Lockwood has recorded rivers in many countries to explore the special state of mind and body which the sounds of moving water create when one listens intently to the complex mesh of rhythms and pitches. The listener will find that each stretch of the Hudson has its own sonic texture, formed by the terrain, varying according to the weather, the season and downstream, the human environment whose sounds are intimately woven into the river’s sounds. 71 minutes 33 seconds…Continue Reading Annea Lockwood – Sound Map of the Hudson River

Janet Cardiff – Her Long Black Hair

Her Long Black Hair is a 35-minute journey that begins at Central Park South and transforms an everyday stroll in the park into an absorbing psychological and physical experience. Cardiff takes each listener on a winding journey through Central Park’s 19th-century pathways, retracing the footsteps of an enigmatic dark-haired woman….Continue Reading Janet Cardiff – Her Long Black Hair

Joe Frank

from NPR Two pieces by legendary producer Joe Frank: Rent-a-Family and Fragments for Mixed Voices. These originally aired on his show Work In Progress, which aired on KCRW from 1986 to 1992. You can learn more about Joe Frank on his website, joefrank.com Two pieces by legendary producer Joe Frank: Rent-a-Family and Fragments for Mixed…Continue Reading Joe Frank

Tony Oursler: Imponderable

Tony Oursler’s Imponderable (2015–16) offers an alternative depiction of modernism that reveals the intersection of technological advancements and occult phenomena over the last two centuries. Presented in a “5-D” cinematic environment utilizing a contemporary form of Pepper’s ghost—a 19th-century phantasmagoric device—and a range of sensory effects (scents, vibrations, etc.), Imponderable is an immersive feature-length film…Continue Reading Tony Oursler: Imponderable

Chris Watson – El Tren Fantasma – El Divisadero

Using archive and field recordings, Chris Watson recreates a passenger ride across the country on a line that no longer exists. It’s been more than a decade since the last service operated by the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM). Watson spent a month on board one of the trains as a sound recordist working with a film crew documenting a BBC TV series on Great Railways Journeys. The atmospheres captured with sensitive microphones in the country reveal the environment at its most open, intimate and natural setting. An additional post-production of looping train samples, turns this mere field recording into a mesmerizing trip. This is more than just a sound portrait lifted off a television show. Watson composes a cinematic narrative bringing the listener (and the observer) into a setting unattainable alone. …Continue Reading Chris Watson – El Tren Fantasma – El Divisadero

Two Trains – Sonification of Income Inequality on the NYC Subway

“This song emulates a ride on the New York City Subway’s 2 Train through three boroughs: Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx. At any given time, the quantity and dynamics of the song’s instruments correspond to the median household income of that area. Read more about the composition and process of creating this song here: datadrivendj.com/tracks/subway…Continue Reading Two Trains – Sonification of Income Inequality on the NYC Subway

Susan Hiller – Witness 2000

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

Pandemonium – Janet Cardiff and George Burres Miller

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

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

Hrafn: Conversations with Odin – Chris Watson and Iain Pate

Hrafn: Conversations with Odin is a sound installation that presents the remarkable and seldom-heard phenomenon of ravens gathering to roost. Set in Kielder Water & Forest Park in Northumberland, the audience will be led at twilight on a short walk into the deepest part of the forest. Along the way their guides share ancient raven…Continue Reading Hrafn: Conversations with Odin – Chris Watson and Iain Pate

Happy Halloween – VOICES FROM THE DEAD – EVP

From BBC News magazine In 1969, a mysterious middle-aged Latvian doctor turned up in Gerrards Cross with a large collection of tape recordings. He had, he said, been conducting experiments in communication with the dead, and had established contact with Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and many other deceased 20th Century statesmen. The recordings – 72,000 of…Continue Reading Happy Halloween – VOICES FROM THE DEAD – EVP

Jem Finer – Long Player

http://longplayer.org Longplayer is a one thousand year long musical composition. It began playing at midnight on the 31st of December 1999, and will continue to play without repetition until the last moment of 2999, at which point it will complete its cycle and begin again. Conceived and composed by Jem Finer, it was originally produced…Continue Reading Jem Finer – Long Player

Justin Bennett – Drowned – from “The Well”

The Well is constructed from sounds recorded in Istanbul: voices, machines, footsteps, tunnels, but also bronze cymbals and electric guitars. But it is not purely phonographic, it’s a personal journey through layers of narrative, memory, sounds and music – an attempt to uncover the secret well that lies deep under the city….Continue Reading Justin Bennett – Drowned – from “The Well”

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

Pamela Z – Geek Speak

The origins of Geekspeak lie in a 1995 artist residency Pamela Z participated in at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center. She became fascinated by the language and voices of some of the researchers she met there. At times it seemed as if practically no English was being spoken. info here: http://www.yale.edu/yalemus/325a/content/exercises/listening/PamelaZ_GeekSpeak.htm…Continue Reading Pamela Z – Geek Speak

Helen Thorington — 9-11 scapes

9.11.01 Scapes was composed to accompany a series of collaged images created by Jo-Anne Green the day New York’s World Trade Center was attacked. Green’s palette consisted of NASA images of earth and photographs of diatoms and ground Zero. Each Scape consists of multiple layers. Thorington used the layers’ titles, and the texts that accompanied the NASA images to weave her multilayered narrative for the Notes; and much as Green used found ‘pigments’, Thorington used found sounds to create the soundscore for the series. 9:11:01 Scapes was the winner of an Honorable Recognition, Prix Bohemia Radio Festival, Czechoslovakia, 2003; and the Winner, Aether Festival, KUNM-FM, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2003….Continue Reading Helen Thorington — 9-11 scapes