. media culture . music
art . music . software . sound

Sonicity, live data space

Sonicity, Stanza, sonicity_stanza.jpg With the installation Sonicity, the English artist Stanza adds another significant chapter to his quest for new metaphors to translate the countless interactions produced by data passing through an environment into a sensory plane. Stanza's aim is to create a data space that is perceived as alive. To achieve this goal he has installed a great number of sensors that are  ... [ Continue ]


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book . music . sound . visual

edited by Cornelia Lund, Holger Lund - Audio.Visual: On Visual and Related Media

Cornelia Lund, Holger Lund, Audio.Visual On Visual and Related Media, audio_visual.jpg Arnoldsche Verlagsanstalt, ISBN 978-3897902930, Germany, 2009, English
Cornelia and Holger Lund established and run the Fluctuating Images gallery in Stuttgart since 2004, and in 2009 they relocated to Berlin. Their activity was centered on connecting the local audiovisual artist community (with a special care for the VJ scene) with the international one through works and  ... [ Continue ]


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book . hacktivism . music . science . sound

Steve Goodman - Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear

Steve Goodman - Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear, The MIT Press, ISBN-13: 978-0262013475, sonic_warfare.jpg The MIT Press, ISBN-13: 978-0262013475, U.S.A., 2010, English
Sound waves can't usually damage your ears unless you constantly keep headphone volume too high,or you insist on standing very close to tall speakers during a concert for too long. Used in the right way (or wrong way), however, they can be a scary armament, able to inflict various degrees of harassment,  ... [ Continue ]


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art . music . sound

IIE (Interactive Infrasonic Installation), infrasound for public consumption

IIE, Interactive Infrasonic Installation, Reinhard Gupfinger, interactive_infrasonic_environment.jpg IIE is an interactive acoustic installation through which Reinhard Gupfinger researches infrasounds, that is, those sounds that, having a frequency less than 20/16 Hertz (20/16 cycles per second), are below the audible threshold of the human ear. While the ear is insensitive to those sounds, the human body can nevertheless perceive  ... [ Continue ]


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art . book . music . preservation . sound

edited by Arjen Mulder, Joke Brouwer - Dick Raaymakers: A Monograph

dick_raaymakers_a_monograph.jpg NAi Publishers, ISBN 978-9056626006, The Netherlands, 2009, English
The slow and almost unavoidable disintegration of pieces of early electronic art is part of a broader problem that involves the preservation of both their materials and their historical documentation. This task can be accomplished only by trying to systematize the rescued documents, in order to ease the  ... [ Continue ]


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music . performance . robot . sound

SoleNoid ß, tap dance robotic concert

Peter William Holden, SoleNoid ß, solenoid_beta.jpg The tap-dance rhythmic lines are the protagonists in SoleNoid ß by Peter William Holden. Eight glossy tap-dance shoes, placed symmetrically in a circle, are animated by a computer connected with circuits controlling electromechanical valves (solenoid valves) and compressed air hydraulic pistons. The "living"  ... [ Continue ]


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art . music . performance . sound . visual

scoreLight, playing contours

Alvaro Cassinelli, Daito Manabe, Yusaku Kuribara, scoreLight, score_light.jpg Blind people have a different conventional way to "see." They use a walking stick to sense borders around them, and their task is made easier when they can use a special rubber guidance route on the street. This process is not too conceptually distant from pickup and vinyl mechanics, and it's also the  ... [ Continue ]


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music . performance . sound . videogame

Heavy Metal Moshpit, Metal Head Orgasmatron

Heavy Metal Moshpit Amp, //////////fur////, heavy_metal_moshpit.jpg Video games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band have certainly altered the way we interact with music by filling a quenchable void once solely occupied by air guitar and karaoke. Now //////////fur//// group is heralding the new 'metallenium' with their advanced musical interaction of user-simulated  ... [ Continue ]


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CD . book . music . sound . visual

Francesco Brunotti/Various Authors - Nocturne

Francesco Brunotti, Various Authors, Nocturne, Persistencebit Records, nocturne.jpg Persistencebit Records, Italy, 2009
This is a product in the Bitmedia series, developed by the eclectic label Persistencebit. It is devoted to the production of multimedia works related to the ambient and modern electronics scenes. It's a book of photographs by Francesco Brunotti properly entitled "Nocturne" that includes a cd album stuck to the  ... [ Continue ]


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art . dvd . music . sound . video

Phill Niblock - The Movement of People Working

Phill Niblock, The Movement of People Working, the_movement_of_people_working.jpg Extreme/Microcinema, USA, 2009, English
This is a new reprint (the first release was in 2003) of an important dvd which gathers a series of audio/visual artworks made by Phill Niblock from the early 70s to middle 80s. Niblock is a historical intermedia artist, who has been mixing film and music since the late 60s, and is an acknowledged  ... [ Continue ]


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12" . art . literature . music . sound

Evan Roth - Explicit Content Only

Evan Roth, Explicit Content Only, Inge Records, explicit_content_only.jpg Inge Records, USA, 2008, English
The "Parental Advisory Explicit Content" logo in black and white stripes, as with all mandatory logos, has been creatively used for ironising a feature which is still very typical of the U.S.: governmental support for parental paranoia. In fact the sticker was pushed by the Parents Music Resource Center  ... [ Continue ]


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copyright . music

Musopen, building a free classical music library

Musopen, musopen.jpg If there's one intended victim of the decaying copyrighted music game it is classical music. A great amount of classic music should be totally free, because its copyright expired a long time ago, but very few recordings of this kind of music are in the public domain. The founders of Musopen want to achieve the goal of recording and eventually also  ... [ Continue ]


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hacking . media . music . sound

Sound Chaser, running a vinyl rail track

Sound Chaser, Yuri Suzuki, sound_chaser.jpg Almost none of the dozens of interactive music tables have escaped the "abstraction" trap, sticking with similar, familiar "elements" made in perfect geometric shapes that assume the identity of "instruments", "samples", "drums", you name it. Yuri Suzuki's "Sound Chaser" instead tries to exploit a connective system that has already  ... [ Continue ]


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art . music . net . performance . sound

Bicycle Built for Two Thousand, online workers choral effort

Bicycle Built for Two Thousand, Aaron Koblin, bicycle_built_for_two_thousand.jpg With “Bicycle Built for Two Thousand” Aaron Koblin confirms himself as specialist of crowdsourcing based artworks. As Jeff Howe wrote, "crowdsourcing" is "the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people  ... [ Continue ]


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art . music . sound . visual

Strobovj, stroboscopic sequencer for vjing

Gijs Gieskes, Strobovj, strobovj.jpg Gijs Gieskes is an incredible machine inventor (as well as an esteemed VJ and performer). Among his latest creations Strobovj deserves particular attention: it's a sequencer for vjing that uses the working principle of the stroboscope: looking at a spinning wheel. The machine created by this eclectic artist is not just limited to real-time  ... [ Continue ]


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copyright . music . sound

Love Songs, mashup visualized

Love Songs, Chris Han, love_songs.jpg Mashup has been one of the innovative techniques to take over the massive pop productions, breaking the borders established by the industry around every song released. "Love Songs" by Chris Han is an online "compilation of songs with 'love' in the title" where the flow of sounds is accompanied by the flow of the sequencing interface. It may seem banal,  ... [ Continue ]


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art . book . music . sound

curated by Vicki Bennett - Smiling Through My Teeth

curated by Vicki Bennett, Smiling Through My Teeth, Sonic Arts Network, Various Artists, Rank Sinatra, Cristian Marclay, Ergo Phizmiz, Maria Callas, Viennese Seven Singing Sisters, John Oswald, plunderphonics, Nihilist Spasm Band, Nurse With Wound, audio art, experimental, Xper.Xr. Aurelio Cianciotta, VickiBennett_SmilingThroughMyTeeth.jpg CD - Sonic Arts Network
Vaudeville musicality and extreme cut-up, precise techniques for assembling and overlapping audio, intentional intertwining and multiple collages. These are just some of the gimmicks used by Vicki Bennett, in her spiky re-contextualizations, which are not alien to pop culture, experimental art, cabaret  ... [ Continue ]


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art . music . net . sound

Bufferrrbreakkkdownnn Arkestra, aural network test

Marcos Destructos, Bufferrrbreakkkdownnn Arkestra, bufferrrbreakkkdownnn_arkestra.jpg Marcos Destructos (aka Marc Chia, aka One Man Nation) has completed a compelling investigation of data transmission over computer networks with his recent "Bufferrrbreakkkdownnn Arkestra". The  ... [ Continue ]


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hacking . music . software . sound

Autechre Reverse Engineering

Robbie Martin, Autechre, reverse_engeneering_autechre.jpg Robbie Martin (as known as Fluorescent Grey) is a musician and provocateur who has become famous as a producer of fake material. He was responsible for the video of an American soldier’s beheading in Iraq (actually the "victim" was his friend Ben Vanderford aka The Great White Hype), which was  ... [ Continue ]


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art . book . music . sound

Edited by Paul D. Miller aka Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid - Sound Unbound, Sampling Digital Music and Culture

Edited by Paul D. Miller aka Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid, Sound Unbound, Sampling Digital Music and Culture, sound_unbound.jpg The MIT Press, ISBN 9780262633635, U.S.A, 2008
Music beyond composing. Dj Spooky edits an anthology about "music as one of the most immaterial of artforms" that is worth a careful reading to open one's mind with real food for thought. "Dj is writing" he stated in his previous book "Rhythm Science" (2004), and the selection of texts in this new one  ... [ Continue ]


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art . music . performance . software

Physical Sequencer, sequencing and performing on stage

Physical Sequencer, Enrico Costanza, physical_sequencer.jpg Enrico Costanza, PhD student at the Media and Design Laboratory of Lausanne's Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale, has focused his research on designing objects that can bring digital and physical worlds closer. His "Audio d-touch" project, developed with Simon Shelley, is a clear example of this  ... [ Continue ]


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art . media . music . sound . visual

Graphite Sequencer rocks the analog world

Graphite Sequencer, Caleb Coppock, graphite_sequencer.jpg Caleb Coppock's "Graphite Sequencer" is an analog drum machine of sorts that works through simple electrical conductance. Two wires scrape along the surface of a spinning paper disk with graphite shapes scrawled across them (graphite is a conductive material) so that when they pass over  ... [ Continue ]


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hacktivism . music . science

Eco-clubbing: Sustainable Dance Club

Sustainable Dance Club, Döll, sustainable_dance_club.jpg The Dutch agency Enviu, working in collaboration with architects from Dutch company Döll, has been working on a design for an Sustainable Dance Club. This technology, now in use, will enable dance clubs to run at a very low environmental impact and with reduced carbon  ... [ Continue ]


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art . music . software . visual

Listen to the sounds of your heartstrings

heart chamber orchestra, heart_chamber_orchestra.jpg The "Heart Chamber Orchestra", performed by 12 classical musicians and the artist team of TERMINALBEACH, consists of a computer-based composition and real-time data visualization show controlled by the performer's heartbeats. While playing, each of the 12 musicians are hooked up to an ECG (Electro Cardiogram)  ... [ Continue ]


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dvd . music . video . visual

Rechenzentrum - Silence Dvd

Rechenzentrum, Silence Dvd, Weiser Music, Marc Weiser, Zeitkratzer Ensemble, Lillevan, dvd, music, video, visual, abstract, acoustic/digital, electronica, glitch'n'cut, Andrej Rublev, John Wetton, King Crimson, Andrei Tarkowsky, Aurelio Cianciotta, Rechenzentrum_SilenceDvd.jpg DVD - Weiser Music
For Rechenzentrum electronic images and rhythm have always been equally important. The use of video as an instrument, and the care for music’s visual quality - even though inspired by lettrist and dada avant gardes, or by the William S. Burroughs' cut-up technique - are modulated in often synthetic and  ... [ Continue ]


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art . hacking . music . software . sound

Plink Jet, plucking inkjet printers

Lesley Flanigan, Andrew Doro, Plink Jet, plink_jet.jpg One of the most common practices in the media art field has always been the hacking of everyday tools, like the countless devices that expand our own computer potential. In recent years, within this trend, we can single out a specific one that uses different kinds of printers with a pure performative  ... [ Continue ]


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art . biotech . music . science . sound

Akousmaflore, music reactive plants

Akousmaflore, Scenocosme, Gregory Lasserre, Anais met den Ancxt, akousmaflore.jpg The image of a fairy-tale landscape where plants welcome visitors with sounds and songs is a recurring element in literature, particularly in poetry. It's a fascination that has seduced the art world, too, where, melting with technologies, has encouraged the birth of a new genre: nature-themed interactive  ... [ Continue ]


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art . music . software . sound . visual

Torcito Project, sonic portraits

Marcin Ramocki, Torcito Project, sonic portraits, torcito_project.jpg Marcin Ramocki, a Polish artist who's also a director of documentaries and independent curator, since his first experiments has focused his research on the construction of metaphors by using the most diverse software programs. Non-linear narration, be it  ... [ Continue ]


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art . media . music . science . sound . visual

Life as a non-linear installation

Life, fluid, invisible, inaudible, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Shiro Takatani, life_fluid_invisible_inaudible.jpg Despite the popular feelings, life in itself is a non-linear path. We are used to think about life as a permanent sequence of hours, days and years following each other. While, if we look closer to the infinite subjectivities, there is only a remote chance to get the cause and effect linear process within the whole  ... [ Continue ]


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art . book . music . sound . visual

Various Artists - Elffriede / Soundrawing

Various Artists, Elffriede, Soundrawing, CD + Book, Transacustic Research, experimental, field recordings, electroacoustica, art, visual, music, sound, Martin Siewert, Aurelio Cianciotta, va_elffriedesoundrawing.jpg CD + Book - Transacustic Research
This project began as a very simple idea. Elffriede, a visual artists collective from Vienna, invited 34 musicians, from all over the world, to compose 34 two minutes long pieces as soundtracks for pictures that were specifically drawn for this event and were then collected in a colorful but minimal book, built  ... [ Continue ]


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art . book . music . sound

curated by Stewart Lee - The Topografy Of Chance

Stewart Graham Lee, The Topografy Of Chance, CD & Booklet, Sonic Arts Network, experimental,  
field recording, free form, impro, soundscapes, Evan Parker, Mark E Smith, The Fall, Von Südenfed, randomness, country-rock, Aurelio Cianciotta, stewartlee_thetopografyofch.jpg CD & Booklet - Sonic Arts Network
Eclectic and really unusual, these selections by the actor Steward Lee stray (very) far from the current trends of experimental electronica, creating delicate and intense improvisational tensions, eccentric emotions, jumps induced by the restless sounds of Evan Parker's trumpet on a background of field  ... [ Continue ]


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dvd . music . video . visual

David Kristian / Ryosuke Aoike - Gost Storeys

David Kristian, Ryosuke Aoike, Gost Storeys, Cocosolidcity, CD + DVD, electronica, experimental, audio-video, animation, flash, drone, Aurelio Cianciotta, kristianaoike_goststoreys.jpg CD + DVD - Cocosolidcity
Shadows and thin figures, timeless architectures composed in abstract sequences, Flash animations and rendered videos, with a soundtrack by David Kristian, equally overwhelming and coherent, built on drones and dream-like audio-electronic scores, elegantly synchronized with equally classy anime  ... [ Continue ]


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media . music . sound . theatre

OSCulator, human synth interfaces

OSCulator, osculator.jpg OSCulator is a new powerful interface engine (unfortunately not open) which allows you to connect and control different multimedia devices, remaining at the same time flexible and easy. This software uses, as the name already says,  ... [ Continue ]


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art . music . sound . visual

Gang Gang Dance - Retina Riddim

Gang Gang Dance, Retina Riddim, The Social Registry, CD/DVD, Lizzie Bougatsos, art rock, experimental, electronica, live, Pop Group, ganggangdance_retinariddim.jpg CD+DVD - The Social Registry
This 'Retina Riddim' is fundamentally a film-project cut from old footage of Gang Gang Dance, a group that would have once been defined 'art group' for the many influences, articulated in pre-electronic ways, with cuts and atypical montages and counter-cultural performing attitudes. It's an old-style  ... [ Continue ]


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art . biotech . media . music . science . sound

EarthSpeaker, nocturnal audio sculptures

Jeff Feddersen, EarthSpeaker, earth_speaker.jpg Jeff Feddersen, author of EarthSpeaker, is an artist with a well rounded background, mainly specialised on the dynamics (nowadays pretty blended) between music and informatics. His favourite subjects of research are nature and the technologies  ... [ Continue ]


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