Oscillations & Resonances

Singing bridges is a sonic sculpture, playing the cables of stay-cabled and suspension bridges as musical instruments.

An urban sound-scape that reflects the physical and metaphoric structure of the telecommunications network, with its fibre-optic cables circling the globe.

The project offers a re-interpretation of the familiar architecture of concrete and steel into an experience of metaphysical connection. Allowing for the possibility of a transformative experience of the bridge, other than the everyday pragmatic, economic and visual encounters with architecture.

(Thanks to our colleague Hanna Buhl for this link!)

Oliver Sacks im Interview:

In einer Woche kann man mehr Musik hören als jemand im 15. Jahrhundert in seinem ganzen Leben.

Edit Holger Schulze: Oliver Sacks wird aus Anlass seines neuen Buches durch die deutschen Feuilletons gereicht:

Gibt es eine universelle Musik? Einige Aspekte sind wohl universell: ein Sinn für Rhythmik, einige Intervalle - Oktave und Quint beispielsweise entsprechen pythagoräischen Proportionen. Aber darüber hinaus? Ich wüsste nicht, ob es, abgesehen von Unterteilungen von Zeit und Ton, noch irgendetwas Besonderes gibt. […] Ich glaube, einiges ist universell angelegt, aber darüber hinaus ist es in erster Linie kulturell erworben.

The german TV-station VOX reported (in a show called Wissenshunger (>Hungry for Knowledge<) on sound design and Sound Studies - including the wise words of my highly appreciated colleague Carl-Frank Westermann.

Building on what we know

23 June 2008 at ICAD08
organized by Christopher Frauenberger, Stephen Barrass
workshop-website: http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/~frauenberger/rad/

A workshop on re-using design knowledge

Despite the many achievements in the field of auditory display, designing the auditory feedback channel in human-technology interaction only plays a minor role. Designing functional sound is widely perceived as a craft, guidance and methods are scattered in the design space and often highly specialised on specific application contexts. This workshop aims to pull together what we know about auditory display, conceptualise the design space and work towards making this design knowledge re-usable to allow the community and others to effectively build on our research.

Call for participation

The workshop will be held at IRCAM on 23 June 2008 (details about the venue to be announced). Participants are asked to bring a paper/publication they consider marking a cornerstone in the field of auditory display research, one sound recording of a designed sound they particularly like, and one they particularly dislike. The workshop is free, but places are limited to 25 and are given on a first-come first-serve basis. Please email [ frauenberger AT dcs.qmul.ac.uk ] to book.

Hands-on workshop on 23 June 2008 at IRCAM (Paris, France).

Part of the 14th International Conference on Auditory Display, 24-27 June 2008
Organizers: Karmen Franinovic, Lalya Gaye, Frauke Behrendt
Workshop website: http://sonicinteraction.wordpress.com/

Deadline for call for expressions of interest: 6 June 2008

This workshop introduces participants to the use of creative interaction design methods when exploring the design of sonic interactions with computational artefacts. Specifically, focus will be on physical interactions that rely on continuous sonic feedback. Participants will generate future scenarios and concepts for such interactions, and everyday sounding objects in context will be taken as a starting point. By taking part in the workshop activities, participants will get an embodied understanding of the challenges of designing for meaningful and engaging physical interaction with computational sonic artefacts. Methods employed in the workshop will thus be good complements to the cognition or technology-based approaches to designing sounding objects that are mainstream within the ICAD community.

This one day, hands-on workshop will be divided in fours parts: warm-up exercises, creative idea generation, concept exploration through bodystorming and final presentation and discussion. The workshop is aimed at an ICAD audience, but welcomes a wide range of participants with various backgrounds such as artists, designers, musicians, programmers, cultural and media studies scholars, etc. No previous technical knowledge or design experience is required.

The workshop will give participants the opportunity to explore key aspects of tangible interaction and continuous sonic feedback, all in an activity-based way: the fact that the workshop consists of low-tech small group exercises and interaction-focused creative activities instead of paper presentations or technology tutorials, invites participants to have an active role and to engage all senses in the exploration of this type of situated sonic interaction. The focus is taken away from technology itself and turned instead towards the situated activities of using technology.

If you would like to participate in this workshop, please e-mail an expression of interest to sonicinteraction at googlemail dot com by 6 June 2008, as places are limited. Your expression of interest should explain in a few sentences why you are interested in participating in the workshop and include a short biography. The submission should not excess one A4 page. Please state if you are a member of SID or are applying for a Short Term Scientific Mission (http://www.cost-sid.org/wiki/STSMCall3).

DATES
Deadline for expression of interest: 6 June 2008
Notification of acceptance: 10 June 2008
Workshop: 23 June 2008

CONTACT AND INFORMATION
sonicinteraction at googlemail dot com
http://sonicinteraction.wordpress.com/
http://icad08.ircam.fr/site/

http://jakemandell.com/amvi/

How can we design public space acoustically and architecturally at the same time? Can public space be used as a sound instrument? With these questions, the artistic research project Composed City starts this week. As a kickoff, lecturers such as John Heymans, Mark Bain and Achim Wollscheid have been invited to talk about sound art in public. In the following month, students from Sound Studies / UdK and TU Berlin are going to design and realize an installation on this theme. The lectures are open to everybody who is interested.

Wednesday, 4th of June 2008 at Sound Studies Berlin, 2pm-8pm

Tuesday:

In our weekly lecture series on the History and Presence of Sound Studies Vol. III, Sebastian Purfürsts Movie The Fine Art of Designing: Silence. led us on the one hand to discussions on the questions of visual silence; on the other hand it showed the institutional borders of creating an aesthetically grounded silence, that can be perceived as a anarchist destruction of capitalist values, burning capital via non-production.

As – for instance – in an interpretation of John Cage’s famous 4′33” by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2006, conducted by Lawrence Foster:

Wednesday:

Visiting the 5th Berlin Biennial for contemporary art with our students I was impressed by Manon de Boer’s Two Times 4′33” from 2007. In this inspiring staging of Cage’s piece you can experience two kinds of silence: Firstly you observe the analogue noise and silence around the pianist, Jean-Luc Fafchamps; secondly you experience the digital silence and also noise of the audience to which you as a visitor belong too.

Thursday:

Jenny Holzer (or at least someone writing under her name) did tweet: RETICENCE AND SECRECY ARE EXCELLENT PASTTIMES.

Friday:

Visited the vernissage at Singuhr Hörgalerie at the Wasserspeicher Prenzlauer Berg. I heard the Talking Drums of Ulrich Eller, the Echolocations of Aernoudt Jacobs and the oto-date NA GI SA of Akio Suzuki.

Tuesday:

When I open the window in my office, a soft and sunny flow of fresh air streams into my space; and I can hear the continuing playing and rehearsing of a student playing the violin. High-fidelity.

Later on, I browse through the documentation of David Byrne’s Playing the Building (2008).

Wednesday:

Listening to Fourt Tet in the morning. I got charmed by a text message from a viennese friend and researcher on technocultural studies, especially the history of prosthetics. It included the lines of a new song (first on heir current album) from german band The Notwist:

Let’s just
Imitate the real

Until we find
A better one.

Thursday:

Meditating on the question: Will there ever be a an urban lifestyle that will not resemble the production cycles in a 19th century-factory?

Repeatedly listening to Jan Jelinek’s Tierbeobachtung from 2006.

Friday:

Together with Katrin Werner, member of our editorial staff, we began with the final proof-reading of the 17 essays in our first volume of the Sound Studies Series at transcript Verlag Bielefeld. We assume it will be released in july this year.

Sunday:

Had a brunch with artists Susanne Kriemann and Aleksander Komarov and her energetic son Vito. Later on having barbecue with the family of my wife to celebrate her sister’s 34th birthday with lots of strawberries. We were experiencing one of those long days completely out in fresh air, that let you feel different resonances and streams of communication than would ever be possible in closed rooms.