Bio Circuit

Bio Circuit - a wearable soundscape from dana ramler on Vimeo.

From Makezine:

Using a heart rate monitor, a hacked MP3 player and a LilyPad Arduino, Dana Ramler and Holly Schmidt developed a wearable bio circuit:

With each beat of the heart, Bio Circuit connects the wearer with the inner workings of their body. In this sense the garment functions like other biofeedback devices that use sensors to provide a person with information about their physiological state. With Bio Circuit, we are proposing that these kinds of devices could extend a person's awareness to include the environment.

[via Fashioning Tech]

Sonic Warfare

There's an interesting post at Rhizome on Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear [MIT Press], by Steve Goodman.

"In the intriguing new book Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear [MIT Press], Steve Goodman explores the power of sound as a tactic of irritation, intimidation, or even permanent harm. Goodman analyzes "environments, or ecologies, in which sound contributes to an immersive atmosphere or ambience of fear and dread--where sound helps produce a bad vibe."

In Krystof Wodiczko's striking installation Out of Here: The Veterans Project, currently on view at the ICA in Boston, choppers roar overhead. People scream in the distance. Glass breaks and shatters on the floor. The viewer can see almost nothing; the large room is dark, except for a few windows high above, created by a row of video projections. The view from these windows is obscured; the piece is as much about what you can't see than what you do see. But even more importantly, the piece is about what you hear--and what you can't hear. The chants of an imam become the sounds of women wailing. Gunshots begin to fire sporadically. Military officers yell harsh commands. The rumble of bass—a swarm of Humvees in the distance, drawing closer—gets louder and more threatening. The longer you stay in the room, immersed in the increasing racket, the more palpable the sense of dread becomes. The harrowing sounds of war are not simply about the sounds themselves, but the spaces in between.

via: Rhizome

From the Queen's Lab

There is a new exhibition going on in Omaha by artist, and friend-of-ANALOG, David Helm.
It's going on through January 29th at the Fred Simon Gallery.



I was lucky enough to have a short email conversation with the artist as his show was getting underway.

Me: "I'm struck by the allure of your work as "collections" ... "objects 'd art" ... a piece that has a "found" quality, but also beautiful and display-able. I personally have a lot of interest in mechanical clocks. So, to me there is a connection here, with your work. Mechanical clocks (machines with a specific and knowable function) are only one step away from your collections/artifacts/machines with mysterious purpose. The clocks, in today's world, are pretty much beyond obsolete - they don't provide any useful purpose other than an as a living object that is somewhat mysterious to the modern way of life.

Also, craftsmanship and noble materials are important. You have a lot of brass and glass. Your proportions emphasize the handmade era rather than the mass produced."

DH: "Thanks for the thoughtful comments. You're right on. The work is part nostalgia, part love for the craft and materials of yore, part technology and part a fascination with victorian experimentation. There are 2 video elements, one inside the lead head and the other in the mattress of Napoleon's Campaign bed.

When I get farther along with this work I'll send you more info.

I'll be doing a public audio/sculpture in May. it's titled "echoes from the landfill". It'll be a one night event at the Lux Center in Lincoln."

There are more pictures here:
http://queenslab.carbonmade.com/projects/2518813

Cthulhu

From the Makezine blog:

During the summer of 1997, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) repeatedly detected an extremely powerful underwater sound on an array of Cold War era hydrophones originally installed to listen for soviet submarines. "While it bears the varying frequency hallmark of marine animals, it is far more powerful than the calls made by any creature known on Earth." Phil Lobel, a marine biologist at Boston University, purportedly "agrees that the sound is most likely to be biological in origin," although his opinion appears to be in the minority. (Both quotes from this article at CNN.com.) The approximate origin of the sound has been identified as 50 S x 100 W, which is almost exactly the same latitude as Lovecraft's fictitious sunken city of R'lyeh, at 48 S x 123 W, although it is 1000 miles distant in terms of longitude.

You can listen to a sped-up version of "The Bloop" on the NOAA website here.

Russolo's Intonarumori

From Makezine blog:

In 1913, Italian painter and composer Luigi Russolo created a new type of musical instruments he dubbed the "Intonarumori", or "noise intoners". The sounds produced by these devices were definitely unusual for his era and you'd be hard pressed to find anything similar to it today.



Sadly, none of Russolo's intoners survived WWII, but new versions have been built using the original schematics. In fact, NYC's Performa festival featured an evening of intonarumori music.

Click Opera

Via Click Opera

James Desano!

From a live concert in March, 2009 at The First Church in Oberlin, U.C.C.

Jean Langlais (1907 - 1991)

• Neuf Pieces (1987) - Adagio (Salve Regina)


• Prelude au Kyrie (from Hommage a Frescobaldi, 1951)

Ondes Martenot

For some reason Theremins have become di Rigueur in the world of experimental music, circuit benders, and emo bands. There are Theremins, Laser Harps, Thingamajigs... all amounts to Theremania.

All of this attention leaves the poor Ondes Martenot left all alone - even when some of the best pieces of the era had the French cousin of the Theremin instead. Don't get me wrong. I love the Theremin (I built Paia's Theremax, which I think is the best one out there) but I'd love to have an Ondes Martenot. You get that great sound and can find your pitches much more easily.

Here's a nice chamber piece by Martinu. It could be for either instrument, but you'd have to work much harder to play it on the Theremin. It's played here on the Ondes by Thomas Bloch.

Congrats to our NEW Iron Composer Sunny Knable!!

If you didn't listen to the live webcast last night, you certainly missed something special. History was made in the Third Annual Iron Composer Composition Competition, held at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio.

Orchestrion Hall, Baltimore

Check out the blog over at North Coast Imports for a post on mechanical musical instruments, among other fascinating stuff.




The place isn't called Orchestrion Hall for nothing. The collector is a worldwide authority on mechanical organ restoration, particularly the very rare and very excellent Welte orchestrions.

His shop is in the basement below, and he uses all turn-of-the-century, belt-driven machines. When I jokingly asked where the steam engine was he pointed to an original early electric motor, and around the corner (in the basement) there was a HUGE single-cylinder Diesel engine.

Longplayer Live update

Some more updates over at The Long Now Blog on the Longplayer Live project.



Jem Finer’s 1000 year composition Longplayer moved from virtual instruments to real ones on Saturday, September 12th at the Roundhouse in London. He amassed a collection of musicians to perform an excerpt from the piece over the course of the day, filling the main performance space of the venue with the pulsing, metallic voices of Tibetan singing bowls for 1000 minutes.


Dressed in blue-gray army surplus style uniforms, the musicians gave the place the look of a Bond villain’s lair, some kind of mysterious, devious activity going on. Even so, the result was child-friendly, plenty of young ‘uns running around, or falling asleep in their parents’ arms, Zenned-out by the chiming bowls.

Downstairs something less abstract was happening – a series of conversations (each 36 minutes long) between a host of scientists, journalists, historians, mathematicians and more. These had their own ebb and flow, some pairings warming up right before they were gonged out, others getting straight into it, clearly having researched their partner/opponent and wanting to have some fun.

The talks provided a great accompaniment to the music above, the participants clearly aware that this event was somewhat to do with long-term thinking, but not hammering the point. Upstairs again, and the music played into the night, sonically and visually elegant, and one of the most unusual things to be found in London on a Saturday night.

Some funny things

I came across two really funny things recently. One is Not Damien Hirst's blog (http://hirstdamien.blogspot.com/)


Thoughts on Eternal Life by Someone Living a Mundane Life in a Tiny Flat
Description: "A physical presence of a not too typically looking ladybug which I found dead in my room a few days back and remembered that I probably saw it perfectly alive a few days before that when I even wondered what was a ladybug doing in my room and how did she got inside it since I mostly keep my windows closed and I don't have any flowers on a white plastic windowsill" on a photograph
Dimensions: 10 x 15 cm
Price: 1€

...And the other is...

How Are We Going To Pay For It?

It's a question that is on everybody's mind. One that we hear over and over in a variety of contexts: health care, the two wars, our defense budget... I heard the other day that California is the wealthiest state, (in fact, if it were considered a separate country, it would have the seventh largest economy in the world) yet it can't pay its own government workers.

Naturally it doesn't stop at the door of the music world. Our orchestras are making panic grabs at keeping above water. St. Paul is taking a 12% cut, Phoenix staff/musicians/director is taking a 17% cut. In Minnesota, they are cutting back on their renovation plan and the staff is taking cuts and layoffs.

Detroit's music director says the musicians don't need to paid in the summer.

Regardless of what the Baltimore Sun says I happen to know that the Baltimore Symphony musicians started to bail out first with a million-dollar concession package, followed by 2 furlough weeks this year, and another million-dollar-plus package of concessions next year (which is at least a 17% drop from what they were planning on with the contract in place). Administration jobs at the BSO have been cut, and the remaining administrative employees are taking a similar cut to the musicians.

The Cleveland Orchestra is doing things the opposite way. The CEO and music director led the bailout with an 15% and 20% cut respectively. It still remains to be seen what the musicians will have to take, but in the meantime the fundraisers in Cleveland are suggesting that all of their regular contributors give 100% more than usual. If that isn't possible, they can give 50% more.

Cleveland's fundraising letter is accompanied by a laundry list of items where they are cutting expenses to get through the hard economic times.

Similarly, Baltimore is cutting its overall budget by 13%. I'm guessing this will include cutting some recordings (One has to wonder what the plan is with their choices in recordings anyway... How well can another Dvorak or another Rite of Spring CD sell these days?) and flashy bits from pops shows... maybe negotiating lower visiting-artists' performance fees (like Cleveland), and lower rent at their Bethesda home.

The traditionally wealthy Philadelphia Orchestra has already cut 20% of its administrative staff. Even though they recently celebrated surpassing the goal of its $125 million endowment drive, remaining staff members are taking at least a 10% cut in salary. Amazingly, the musicians will get a paltry raise.

So, to answer my question: Sometimes the administration is paying for it, sometimes the musicians are paying for it - in rare cases (like Cleveland) even the management will pay for it... but in all cases the smart orchestras are stepping down their expenditures and stepping up their fundraising campaigns.

related articles:
Houston
indystar.com
charlotteobserver.com
Minnesota Orchestra
Milwaukee Symphony
Dayton Philharmonic

The end of the current production-manufacturing economic model

Interesting article over at Fast Company, The Desktop Manufacturing Revolution by Jamais Cascio - The end of the current production-manufacturing economic model may be on the horizon. But what if nothing's ready to replace it?

Clay Shirky recently described revolutions as situations in which "...the old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place." He was talking about newspapers, but the insight can apply much more broadly. Advertising, for example, seems to be going through its own revolution, with existing models falling to tatters without a clear successor waiting in the wings. Education is another example, and some would argue that a similar process is underway in the realm of international power and politics.

Shirky's observation came to mind while watching a recording of Bruce Sterling's closing keynote for the ReBoot conference last month. Late in the talk, Bruce tosses out this line: "Objects are print-outs." He goes on to discuss how to rethink one's relationship with material possessions in an increasingly precarious world, but the "objects are print-outs" line stuck with me. It encapsulates not just an attitude towards material possessions, but--in one pithy phrase--one possible shape of the next economy.

via MAKEzine

Monument Trio and ANALOG

Fans of ANALOG know The Monument Piano Trio from several joint concerts, as well as their featured performances at last year's ARTSaha and Iron Composer composition competition.

There was a great article covering our joint concert last month in the Baltimore Sun:

"The Monument Piano Trio closed its season Sunday night at An die Musik with a bold 20th-century program.

Of particular interest was George Crumb's Vox Baelenae (Voice of the Whale), a 1971 work for amplified flute, cello and piano that blends a certain theatricality - the players are asked to wear masks - with subtle, mostly slow-moving, exotic washes of sound.

The challenging score was delivered with remarkable skill and sensitivity by cellist Dariusz Skoraczewski, pianist Michael Sheppard and the concert's guest artist, flutist Marcia Kamper.

Morton Feldman's Durations I from 1960 presents plenty of challenges, too. It's like a conversation between four people addressing four different topics in four different languages, yet somehow achieving coherence.

Kamper, Skoraczewski, Sheppard and violinist Igor Yuzefovich articulated the time-stopping music in telling fashion. Atmospheric duos by Arvo Part and Kajia Sarriaho filled out the fascinating evening.

The Monument Trio will be back in residence at An die Musik next season with a series of five concerts between September and May."

Feldman and ANALOG

ANALOG arts ensemble is pleased to be presenting a concert in Baltimore featuring "Our Man in Japan" guitarist and composer Jason Taylor.

We'll be playing some Feldman graph scores, among other things... stay tuned.

Durations I - 1962 recording

Durations I 1960-1
Don Hammond - Alto Flute
Don Butterfield - Tuba
David Tudor - Piano
Philip Kraus - Vibraphone
Matthw Raimondi - Violin
David Soyer - Cello

"My earliest recollection of music - I couldn't have been more than five - is my mother holding one of my fingers and picking out "Eli Eli" with it on the piano. Like almost everyone else, my early teachers were very bad. At the age of twelve, however, I was fortunate enough to come under the tutelage of Madam Maurina-Press, a Russian aristocrat who earned her living after the revolution by teaching piano and by playing in a trio with her husband and brother-in-law. In fact, they were quite well known in those days. It was because of her - only, I think, because she was not a disciplinarian - that I was instilled with a sort of vibrant msuicality rather than musicianship...

...Durations - a series of five instrumental pieces, for of which are recorded here. In "Piece for Four Pianos" and others like it, the instruments all read from teh same part - and so what you have is like a series of reverberations from an identical sound source. In "Durations" I arrive at a more complex style where each instrument is living out is own individual sound world.

In each piece the instruments being simultaneously, and are then free to choose their own durations within a given general tempo. The sounds themselves are designated.

The pieces, while looking identical on paper, were actually conceived quite differently. In "Durations I" the quality of the particular instruments together suggested a closely written kaleidescope of sound. To achieve this I wrote each voice individually, choosing intervals that seemed to erase or cancel out each sound as soon as we hear the next..."

He Was A Visitor

He Was A Visitor began as a joint project between Baltimore performing musicians and visual artists from the Maryland Institute College of Art. ANALOG arts ensemble will present a program of selections from Stockhausen's From the Seven Days, Rudolf Kämper's Pulsating Stars Enable New Precise Determination of the Rotation of the Milky Way, as well as an audience participation version of Robert Ashley's She Was A Visitor. Visual artist Cody Griffith is our visitor in the ensemble. He will be working from the same descriptive score as the musicians to create an intuitive realization, not as an accompaniment but as another member of the ensemble.

Below is a short interview with the visual artist...

Cody: As someone who does not play an instrument, I will perform with visual media, keeping in my that my pen will be my instrument. It is difficult to translate Stockhausen's concepts into a language of imagery. Many questions have to be asked concerning the stability of this idea. I have practiced intuitive drawing before and will try to remain true to Stockhausen's ideas.

Dolf: Normally, when visual artists and musicians collaborate, an animator is given a tape and asked to interpret what they hear - or, a composer is given an existing film and asked to find music the compliment what they see. This time, you and the musicians are working from the same score. What are some of the ways you would interpret the score that are different than the musicians?

Cody: As a visual artist, upon hearing music, I create imagery in my mind. These images often begin in an abstract form and then move into the figurative.

Dolf: Have you been involved in improvised or intuitive drawing before? How about drawing/painting in public performance?

Cody: Warren Linn, a professor at Maryland Institute College of Art, worked with me on improvised drawing for years, whether it be from sound or a visual journalism. I have also done portrait work at community art festivals and painted public murals.

Dolf: You are also presenting some film for one of the pieces. What was your thought process in coming up with the material for that piece?

Cody: I look at Stan Brakhage a lot. I tried to focus on the silence and chaos of nature.

He Was A Visitor will be presented at Normal's Books as part of the RedRoom series, March 14, 8:30pm. See www.redroom.org for more info.

old TV episodes

Netflix and YouTube is great... I especially like to go back and rewatch the TV I used to watch as a kid - and the theme songs are a nice surprise to listen to again.

Dig the funky bass and guitar on this one...

Baltimore's RedRoom

I finally had a chance to check out the very cool local hangout: RedRoom at Normal's Books and Music. I picked a good night too. Tim Kaiser of Make Magazine fame was there with his handmade electronic instruments.



Imagine a LIVE electronic music concert... one where there something to watch other than speakers. Tim's performance is part musical, part sculptural, and part conceptual. He will swirl tubes, twiddle knobs, wave his hands, and move his light wand to control the electronic noises.

Like any good Maker, Tim is proud and excited to explain each of his creations in detail after the performance. When I took a closer look at his toys, I was able to admire the incredible detail. I noticed that he even made a yellowed-with-age instruction manual for one of his stranger creations, encased in an oak box.

The trip was a lot of fun. Definitely a cool hangout for anyone in the Baltimore area!

Dolf Kamper

New Wave and Futurism

I've been ribbed a lot (by certain members within the nerve center of the ANALOG collective) for seeing Dada and Futurist connections in almost every art movement since. Usually, the more I try to justify my findings, the more it looks like I'm reaching. Still, the "people in the know" will agree that the works of Tzara, Duchamp, etc. had a vast and undeniable influence on countless experimental thinkers since.

Here's David Bowie with a costume by Tristan Tzara:


That was Klaus Nomi singing backup:



...and here's something else entirely:


Dolf Kamper

new works

I updated my website at www.dolfkamper.org (click on "aural")

Some new works:

Transmissions from Deep Space (2008)

Pulsating Stars Enable New Precise Determination of the Rotation of the Milky Way (2008)

"This next song doesn't go something like this, it goes EXACTLY like this..."

gelanstrifibramacon (2007)

(Steven Wright's joke)

"Rarely heard flutist..."

"Ninety-tine percent of flutists have never performed unaccompanied."

diy synthesizers

The world of DIY and opensource electronic music is truly astounding. Not only can the intrepid find performance-quality classic instruments in kit form in an affordable price (from the likes of http://paia.com/) but there is also a wealth of information on sound experiments of every kind.

Here is an interesting site I just came accross that indexes open-source or DIY synthesizers.

http://www.synthdiy.com/



www.dolfkamper.org

Blaster!!

mellotron anyone?

ANALOGers and ANAblog'ers are busy doing some research for a Circuit Bending event. This is a vast culture of tinkerers and musicians that take ready-made objects and wire them to make new and interesting sounds.

Somewhat related are items such as the melotron which gives you real-time sample playing in the era of room-sized computers.

Here are some words: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200706/?read=article_collins

and here are some moving pictures:

Who's Fred Peters?

I'm not sure who he is, but this is some very odd, very interesting stuff. Parental Guidance suggested:

http://www.podcastfm.co.uk/116224282445466b0817856.mp3

http://www.podcastfm.co.uk/11620645954543b2d3debf2.mp3

Reminds me of Lou Reed or Genesis P-Orridge

get in the mood for the future

ARTSaha! 2007

a new instrument

H Lyman Sayen

Scientist and artist 1875 - 1918




True to the hyper-inventive atmosphere of his time, H. Lyman Sayen was interested in scientific experiments which led him to a new design of a large induction coil by the time he was eighteen. Later he designed and patented a self-regulating X-ray tube. Sayen fought in the Spanish-American War and was sent to Fort McPherson, Georgia, where he was commissioned to construct and operate the country's first military X-ray laboratory.

In 1899 he enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts to pursue his interests in art. In 1902 he applied for a patent for an electric recording perimetert for the extraction of foreign bodies form the human eye by means of roentgenography. The patent was granted in 1905. Soon after, Sayen won a national competition for the design of four lunettes to be placed in the room assigned to the Committee on Insular Affairs at the United Sates Capitol in Washington.

In 1906 Sayen had been living in Paris with his new wife and met Leo and Gertrude Stein. He then was thrust upon the world of Fauvism and Cubism. Eventually Sayen was able to take a class with Matisse and in 1912 was invited to become a member of the Salon d'Automne - the same time a young Fernand Leger was invited.

During 1911 and 1912 he worked to patent his design of a more easily manufactured steel billiard ball.

By the fall of 1912, the Sayens apartment proved to have too many steps to incorporate the birth of their new baby. Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas were the first to visit their only child Ann. By the outbreak of WWI the Sayens moved back to Philadelphia for safety. In his first exhibition in the US generated the following review:

When the work of the futurists first burst on our ken via the international show given in the N.Y. Armory, we were told that the painters were not representing objects, but depicting sensations produced by viewing their chosen subjects. The result was somewhat incomprehnsible to many of us, but the idea at least seemed logical. Mr. Sayen, on the contrary, is very evidently depicting objects, which are usually quite recognizable, but he introduces strange color combinations and obscure forms which do not explain themselves and are disquieting to the understanding.

Clearly these early American reviewers were struggling to categorize the new art from Europe. While we would have a better time today describing Mr. Sayen's work as Fauvist because of his use of color and theories of emotions paired with color, the ideas going through the minds of artists often run very closely together. Sometimes it is difficult to label a Futurist from a Cubist for example. Cataloging can become even more difficult when you consider many artists considered themselves in different camps from one painting to the next.

Consider Sayen's painting The Thundershower, 1917-1918. There are elements of Bruitism, Simulteneity, Dynamism - all which would suggest the force of Futurism - but then then he also evokes the collage (Dada or Merz) and even the overall two-dimensional rpesentation that might have come from Cezanne or even Mondrian.



Don't forget that Sayen was also a scientist and inventor - a proponant of the triumph of technology and science. He also had views for the progress of art and its meaning. Look what he had to say at the Sketch Club in Philadelphia in 1914:

Modern art... is all spontaneity and requires an equally spontaneous apprehension. To feel it requires a quickening of the spirit. It has revealed to us men of great power. Picasso and Matisse will I believe exrt a powerful influence for a long time on painting and sculpture....

To paint today is to make a beautiful object. just as this chair is an object. It is the making of reality, not the representation of it. Popular sense has supposed the new type of art as representing peculiar emotions. It is more than that, it IS the emotions themselves. In fact emotion is no longer the name for the act, neither of its creation nor its apprehension. Perception touches nearer the mark. Its rhythm is that of the pulse, its beauty the law of God. This is the art that today confronts that atrophied half of the mentality of the United States.... It is the modern spirit, the spirit of an emancipated democracy and it has not only come at a time when the external man is saturated with the infiltration of the new sprit, but at a period when the mind of the individual presents a scene of moral confusion and the need today is for a new and more liberal brand of order for the old one has grown stale.

it might seem a waste of time...

...to reblog something from BoingBoing, but Athanasius Kircher is someone who is generaly not talked about enough.



Above, a detail from a page in Athanasius Kircher's "Musurgia Universalis," printed in 1650. Snip from a post on Bibliodyssey:
A large part of the book is devoted to the history of instrumentation, including the anatomy of voice and hearing, and an extensive theory on acoustics entitled 'Magia Phonocamptica, sive de Echo', in which he described sound as 'the ape of light.'
Kircher professes the Boethian concept of musical harmonies' mathematical correspondences within the body, the heavens, and the natural world, and concludes with a discussion of the unheard music of the nine angelic choirs and the Holy Trinity. Kircher's research in music and acoustics led to many innovations and inventions, particularly in the area of amplification and sound design, which he would expand upon in his Phonurgia nova (Kempten 1673).
Other devices created the illusion of talking statuary, hydraulically powered mechanical music-playing automata, the aeolian harp (which was revived and venerated by the English romantic poets as a model of divine inspiration), the hearing aid, and the arca musarithmica: a primitive mechanical computer that would compose simple random compositions, as well as write messages in cipher, calculate the date of Easter in any year, and design fortifications.

Link to scanned pages and links to online copies of this work.
Previously on BoingBoing:
The Athanasius Kircher Society: " all things wondrous, curious, and esoteric"
Video from Kircher Society extravaganza

Greg Pattillo

http://www.whatisproject.org/

Art and Science

Two articles for your enjoyment from Science Daily.

First, we all knew this was coming - I'm surprised it's taking so long actually:
ScienceDaily: Computer Scientist Plans Bach Over Broadband

And, the following...

Source:
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Date:
July 20, 2007

Art And Music For The Birds
Science Daily — Nature is a valued source of inspiration for artists. But what have artists offered the natural world? Would a bird even like rock and roll?

Conceptual sculptor Elizabeth Demaray, an assistant professor of fine arts at Rutgers University—Camden, is testing the musical tastes of our fine feathered friends with an exhibition featuring four 10-foot red perches offering what are considered to be the best in classical, rock, country, and jazz for local birds.

Demaray’s concept of art for the birds hatched from a conversation with co-creator John Walsh, a video artist, who sent Demaray sounds made by the catbird, an avid appreciator of human noise. The Rutgers-Camden scholar makes art that interacts with natural surroundings –- imagine spotting a tree donning a sweater or finding a rock upholstered as a baseball. She decided to find out if rockin’ robins do exist.

“Humans have an impact on other animals around us. Catbirds and mockingbirds listen to noise we make, but we don’t know if they might respond to human sound,” says Demaray. While there have been no scientific studies on birds’ response to human music, anecdotal evidence suggests that certain species of bird listen to and replicate human song.

“My interest with the piece was to get us to think about the impact we have on the other species around us,” she adds.

The bird listening stations are part of the exhibition “Inside/Outside: Habitat” on view at the Abington Arts Center’s Sculpture Park in Jenkintown, Pa., through Wednesday, Nov. 21. Visitors of the interactive exhibit receive a schedule of songs emitting from each station, which will repeat approximately five songs each.

Birds can tune in to classics like Vivaldi’s “Concert in D Major,” Miles Davis’s “Blue and Green,” and Led Zepplin’s “Kasmir.” They may also hear songs about the winged life like “Marching Jaybird” by Etta Baker, “Birds” by Neil Young, and “I’m a Cuckoo” by Belle and Sebastian.
“If we’re going to give birds music, we might as well give them what we consider to be our masterpieces. But the only gauge humans have on what’s good music is our own interest,” says the Rutgers-Camden artist. “Of course, we may find that birds have their own criteria for assessing our music. So, to see it they might prefer Miles Davis to the Dixie Chicks, you should come see for yourself.”

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

Lenin a futurist?

Of course, given the nature of of the times and the agressive speach of contemporary artists, Early Twentieth-Century Futurists (and Dadaists, and Surrealists) can often easily get lumped with major (often currently unpopular) political movements of the time. These artists were active in being important figures in their society. They weren't artists purely for personal gain but also they often thought they were bettering mankind's existential health. They were radical thinkers in art, and since art is a natural part of life, they were radical thinkers in the social realm as well.

The Futurists might have been afraid of Europe sinking into another dark-ages. At the turn of the century there was such a huge surge in science and new ideas, the Futurists saw themselves as a catylist for encouraging an even faster pregression.

It's not fair, really, to sit back today and call Lenin a Futurist. Just as it is misleading to call Tatlin a Communist. Many of the major ideals line up on both sides because these ideas for change in the new Century were so important to so many thinking people. Still, there is a large gap between the action of men of power and the written words of men of thought.

Marcu, a young Roumanian was living in Zurich at the same time as Tzara, Janco, Jung, Ball, and Lenin (who was in exile there). Marcu gives us this from his memoirs:

When we left the restaurant, it was late in the afternoon. I walked home with Lenin.
"You see," he said, "why I take my meals here. You get to know what people are really talking about. Nadezhda Konstantinovna is sure that only the Zurich underworld frequents this pleace, but I think she is mistaken. To be sure, Maria is a prostitute, but she does not like her trade. She has a large family to support - and that is no easy matter. As to Frau Prellog, she is prefectly right. Did you hear what she said? Shoot all the officers!..."

"Do you know the real meaning of this war?"
"What is it?" I asked.
"It is obvious," he replied. "One slaveholder, Germany, who owns one hundred slaves, is fighting another slaveholder, England, who owns two hundred slaves, for a 'fairer' distribution of the slaves."
"How can you expect to foster hatred of this war," I asked at this point, "if you are not, in principle, against all wars? I thought that as a Bolshevik you were really a radical thinker and refused to make any compromise with the idea of war. But by recognizing the validity of some wars, you open the doors for every opportunity. Every group can find some justifications of the particular war of which it approves. I see that we young people can only count on ourselves..."
"Lenin listened attentively, his head bent toward me. He moved his chair closer to mine... Lenin must have wondered whether he should continue to talk with this boy or not. I, somewhat awkwardly, remained silent."
"Your determination to rely upon yourselves," Lenin finally replied, "is very important. Every man must rely upon himself. Yet he should also listen to what informed people have to say. I don't know how radical you are, or how radical I am. I am certainly not radical enough. One can never be radical enough; that is, one must always try to be as radical as reality itself..."

............

Another interesting interchange between radical artists of the Early Twentieth Century and political power mongers happened in 1948. Marinetti personally invited Moholy-Nagy and Kurt Schwitters to accompany him to a banquet with the German Press Association. Goebbels was there, as was Goring, August Wilhelm of Hohenzollern, Hess, Roehm, and Nazi underlings. Moholy, Schitters and Moholy's wife were sandwiched between the head of the National Socialist Organization for Folk Culture, and the leader of the "Strength Through Joy" movement. Moholy-Nagy's wife Sibyl writes:

The disharmony between the guests was accentuated by the absence of speeches and an unlimited consumption of excellent German Rhine wine. Moholy was silent. His face was shuttered, and when our eyes met I saw that he was full of resentment. The more Schwitters drank, the more fondly he regarded his neighbor.
"I love you, you Cultural Folk and Joy," he said. "honestly, I love you. You think I'm not worthy of sharing your chamber, your art chamber for strength and folk, ha? I'm an idiot too, and I can prove it."
Moholy put his hand firmly on Schwitters' arm and for a few minutes he was silent, drinking rapidly and searching the blank face of his neighbor with wild blue eyes.
"You think I'm a Dadaist, don't you," he suddenly started again. "that's where you're wrong, brother. I'm MERZ!" He thumped his wrinkled dress shirt near his heart. "I'm Aryan - the great Aryan MERZ. I can think Aryan, paint Aryan, spit Aryan."
He held an unsteady fist before the man's nose. "With this Aryan fist I shall destroy the mistakes of my youth - if you want me to," he added in a whisper after a long sip."
There was no reaction at all from the Strength Through Joy man while the official from the Folk Culture Organization nodded droolingly, his round cheeks puffed up with wine and amazement. Schwitters took a sudden liking to him.
"Oh joyful babyface," he muttered, tears running down his cheeks. "You will not prohibit me from MERZing my MERZ art?"
The word 'prohibit' had finally penetrated the foggy brain of the Strength Through Joy man.
"Verboten ist verboten," he said with great firmness and a heavy tongue, "Heil Hitler!"
Schwitters looked wildly at Moholy, at me, at Marinetti, but before he could incite anyone to action, Marinetti had risen from his chair. he swayed considerably and his face was purple.
"My friends," he said in French, "after the many excellent speeches tonight, I feel the urge to thank the great, courageous, high-spirited people of Berlin. I shall recite my poem "The Raid on Adrionople."
There was polite applause. Some nice poetry would break the embarrassing dullness of the dinner.

Adrianople est cerne de toutes parts SSSSrrrr zigzigzigzigz PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAghrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

roared Marinetti

Ouah ouah ouah, depart des trains suicides, ouah ouah ouah

the audience gasped; a few hushed giggles were audible

Tchip tchip tchip -fEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEElez

he grabbed a wineglass and smashed it to the floor

Tchip tchip tichip - des messages tlegraphiques couturieres Americaines Piiiiiiiiiiiiiing, sssssssssrrrrrr, zitzitzitzit toum toum Patrouille tapie -

Marinetti threw himself over the table.

Vanite, viande congeleeeeeeeee - veilleuse de La Madone

expiring almost as a whisper from his lips.
Slowly he slid to the floor, his clenched fingers pulling the tablecloth downward, wine, food, plates, and silverware puring into the laps of the notables.
Schwitters had jumped up at the first sound of the poem. Like a horse at a familiar sound the Dadaist in him responded to the signal. His face flushed, his mouth open, he followed each of Marinetti's moves with his own body. In the momentary silence that followed the climax his eyes met Moholy's.
"Oh, Anna Blume," he whispered, and suddenly breaking out into a roar that drowned the din of protesting voices and scraping chair legs, he thundered:

Oh, Anna Blume
Du bist von hinten wie von vorn
A-N-N-A

Cuckoo Clock ringtone

In case you don't get enough cuckoo in your life, North Coast Imports offers the following two ringtones FREE OF CHARGE. Just download the proper file into your phone and hear a North Coast Imports ring every time someone calls! Both of these files are taken from the Rombach und Haas Glass Bell Cuckoo model #3400 or #3402 found on page 22 of the NCI orange Cuckoo Catalog #50. The "Glass Bell Cuckoo" is a pure recording of the clock striking and calling and the "Cuckoo Ring Tone" is conglomeration of sounds based on that cuckoo call (put together by myself).

Cuckoo Ring Tone
mp3
amr
qcp
mmf

Glass Bell Cuckoo
mp3
amr
qcp
mmf

Russolo and Marinetti - men of the future (part 2)

Luigi Russolo was another Italian Futurist who had ideas for Futurism in music. In 1913 he wrote, “We take greater pleasure in ideally combining the noises of trams, explosions of motors, trains, and shouting crowds than in listening again, for example, to the ‘Eroica’ or the ‘Pastorale.’”4 He describes the pleasure of listening to a large modern capital with its “gurglings of water, air, and gas inside metallic pipes, the grumbling of motors that breathe and pulse with an indisputable animality, the throbbing of valves, the rising and falling pisons, the screeching of mechanical saws, the jumping of trams on their rails.”5 Russolo’s idea is to form a new orchestra with a new classification of sounds. Instead of strings, brass, and woodwinds he envisions screams, thumps and explosions. These are sounds of the machine; essentially Russolo was describing a type of electronic music in 1913. The exact technology for performing these sounds was not yet possible but the Futurists envisioned a music that was free of the organic sounds of human performers. Russolo envisioned a new orchestra that would obtain sonic emotions by imitation of life but by a “fantastic association of various timbres and rhythms.”6 Russolo’s idea of Futurist music was the glorification of factory and machine simultaneously using new mechanical sounds as the orchestra of tomorrow. In other words Futurist music was music which neglected the organic human body while reveling in the power technology and its ability to do what the body could no longer match.

Marinetti’s motivation was somewhat political when he founded Italian Futurism; he wanted an Italy free of its archeological sleep and an Italy of vitality. His glorification of the new and avant-garde was a way of drawing attention to the future rather than the past. Neitzsche said, “there can be no nostalgia! No pessimism! There’s no turning back! Boldly, let us advance! Forward! Faster! Further, Higher! Let us lyrically renew our joy in being alive!”7 Like Neitzsche the Futurists believed in the potency of the future. They affirmed that “the future is a malleable entity in perpetual creation and is the only authentic dimension of reality,” and they believed that, “the past does not actually exist except in the memory.”8 What only exists in this latent fraction of the mind cannot be conceived of as reality instead absolute truth was to be found in the future.9 In 1909 Marinetti published the novel Mafarka the Futurist, the story of the birth of a mechanical winged superman. The author created a mythology of the future and set it in the past. This convergence of the past and future allowed the past to exist as a symbol of mysticism and the future to be exalted as the only truth. Marinetti wrote that only the machine could deliver us from our biological and genetic fate and, at the same time, assure the irreversibility of history.

The Futurist’s conception of time is one that further expresses the desire to escape from the human organic body. Futurist artists used simultaneity as the expresses the desire to escape from the human organic body. Futurist artists used simultaneity as the expression of the incredibly complex rhythms of life. Essentially Simultaneity is the perception of many different events and meanings at the same time. Simultaneity is movement beyond the body and a display of all things in the human experience, but exhibiting and comprehending this movement can only truly happen without the limited perceptions of the human body.

Mechanical Music - automatic birds

That scene in Bladerunner where Deckert goes to meet his girl and she has an artificial owl is a great extrapolation of the future rich.

Royalty had artificial birds in the 18th Century. They were really the first "robots" built and were the predecessor to the cuckoo clock. Here is an example of a modern mechanical bird that is built much the same way it has been for hundreds of years. There is a clip of the birds moving and singing, and then the works inside.

recent work of ANALOG arts ensemble member Jason Taylor

We are pleased to announce a lot of work coming out of the studio of ANALOG arts ensemble member Jason Taylor.

"Four Stories High" -for baroque lute solo was performed at the Fushimi Denki Bunka Kaikan Concert Hall in Nagoya,JAPAN by Shoji Nakagawa. The piece is in four movements: Initiation, Puzzle Piece, Toy for Luka, and Farewell.

Getting Here (guitar duet) performed by Jason R Taylor and Yoshio Nomura at the Yama no Hall.This piece is based on the idea of soul delay. I read about it in Willian Gibson's book "Pattern Recognition." The idea is then your soul can only travel at about 100m per hour, so if you travel over that speed, your soul can't keep up with your body. So, once you arrive at your destination it might take a few days for your soul to catch up with you. I really liked this idea and I started imagining the adventures my soul might have had on its way to Japan...a lonely early morning departure on silent seas...some turbulence and mythical creature sightings...a tribal dance in the shadows...arrival-cherry blossom snow and the final reunion celebrations.

Winter light-for violin and guitar at Nagoya's Fushimi Denki Bunka Kaikan at 10am.This piece was commissioned by Chie Morimoto as a program opener.

Click to order a copy of Jason Taylor's guitar quartet "October Dream" (email ANALOG for help)

Mr. Taylor has also been writing music for the Music for the Media Course. All videos are courtesy of Guy Michelmore and the MFTM Course.

call a dying ice mountain

With the help of sponsors, Virgin Mobile and Dolphinear, Paterson was able to drop a hydrophone into the icy lagoon where the glacier is disappearing and pick up the sounds.
The waterproof microphone is linked to a phone and amplifier housed in a tent on land.

The work, entitled "Vatnajokull (the sound of)", will continue until June 13.

Only one caller at a time can get through, which was deliberate so people can have a "one-to-one beautiful and intimate moment" with the glacier, she said. Calls to the number, 07758 225698, are charged at international rates.

British artist installs phone link to dying glacier Lifestyle Reuters

Mechanical Musical instruments - Nethercutt

"The Nethercutt collection is a world-class treasure house of prize winning automobiles, automobilia, and mechanical musical instruments. The heart of this 'functional fine art' collection contains over 200 meticulously restored American and European automobiles dating from 1898 to 1982."

This collection boils the excitement in the blood of any futurist. This spycam picks up the following:

1. an Ampico reproducing piano (where the player mechanism fits in a drawer below the keys),
2. "Vorsetzer" player piano (where the player mechanism is actually a turn-of-the-century robot that plays any piano - it sits in front of the piano and plays it with 88 fingers)
3. a quick shot of a Regina music box with automatic disc changer
4. some smaller orchestrions
5. an automatic banjo
6. a large orchestrion playing with closeups of the bellow action
7. some classic automobiles in a palatial showroom
8. an old battery charger and electric car from about 1905

more mechanical wonders

This musical automaton is much loved and over the last century has become the icon of The Bowes Museum. It was one of the many purchases that the Bowes’ made from Parisian jeweller M. Briquet, with John paying £200 for it in 1872. John and Joséphine first saw the swan at the 1867 Paris International Exhibition where jeweller Harry Emanuel exhibited it.
The Silver Swan dates from 1773 and was first recorded in 1774 as a crowd puller in the Mechanical Museum of James Cox, a London showman and dealer. The swan is life-size and is controlled by three separate clockwork mechanisms. It is still in working order, though it is operated only once or twice a day because of its age.
The internal mechanism is by John Joseph Merlin, a famous inventor of the time. When set in motion, the swan appears to preen itself, then bends its neck and takes a fish from the water. In reality the fish is concealed in the swan’s beak.
The American novelist Mark Twain also saw the Silver Swan at the Paris exhibition in 1867 and described it in his book The Innocents Abroad:
‘I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes…’
Joséphine, whose father was a clock-maker, seems to have had a fondness for automata. Whilst the Silver Swan is the best known, there are a number of others including mechanical toys, music boxes and watches with automaton movements. Examples include an early seventeenth century lion clock made in Germany, whose eyes swivel, and a mechanical gold mouse, circa 1810, probably to be Swiss.
The Silver Swan continues to play at The Bowes Museum everyday at 2pm and 3pm.

By the way, more related issues from our past can be seen here and here

IRCAM WebRadio

nice interview with John Adams

One More

Ok, I know there are definitely two sides of the fence on Wynton and his Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. My colleague has been known to say that he is "staunchly guarding Jazz [from the future]" I can understand the criticism in certain circumstances but to be honest it is hard not to be instantly taken aback by other examples of his prowess - especially on the horn.




Verily, I grew up on meals from his albums Live at Blues Alley, Black Codes (from the underground) Standard Time vol.3, and Citi Movements. My last post immediately reminded me of Wynton's opera performed by the old Septet. This post Free (and the last post too) viciously emphasises his mastery of the horn and all the notes and sounds to be found within.

Here...Now (yesterday's post) and much of the Septet's output in the late nineties exhibits a dryness, but be careful not to dismiss the secco, fugal strains (which are often dependant on instrumental color) for boring writing. Remember Stravinsky's Octet, for example. To be sure, Wynton is a classicist, and in the world of jazz he is surrounded by Dionysian counterparts and antagonists. In his playing though, he is able to stretch his Apollonian expressions into the modern - to where it exhibits relevancy and poignancy beyond classical limitations. Wynton playing on an Ornette Coleman tune is a great vehicle for this struggle.

More Birthdays

Elmore Leonard, Francois Moriac, Eleanor Roosevelt, Art Blakey, Ennio Morricone, and Christian Gindlesperger

listen to another Blakey and another Morricone