Midori Hirano is a musician, composer, sound artist and producer, born in Kyoto/Japan and now based in Berlin/Germany. She has been playing music since from the age of 5 when she used a piano to flesh out her earliest compositions. While this led her to major in classical piano at university, it was the less traditional aspects of electronica that would ultimately prove her major inspiration. A native to Kyoto, Japan but making the creative pilgrimage to Berlin in 2008, her productions are based around the use of traditional instrumentation – piano, strings, voice – and augmented with often subtle electronic processing and digital samples creating a rich, rolling sound that is at once warm and melodic while tracing unexpected musical trajectories.
Invisible Cities: An Interview with Christina Kubisch by Christoph Cox
Christina Kubisch is a pioneer of sound art installation and among the most prominent European sound artists working today. Trained as a visual artist, musician, and composer, she studied painting, flute, and piano before turning to electronic music in the mid 1970s. In 1980, she participated in “Für Augen und Ohren,” the first major exhibition of sound art. Since then, she has focused on sound sculpture and sound installations that often involve ultraviolet light, solar energy, and electromagnetic induction.
In 2003, she began an ongoing project called “The Electrical Walks.” This project employs specially-built headphones that receive electromagnetic signals from the environment and convert them into sound. Kubisch maps a given territory, noting “hot spots” (ATM machines,
security systems, electronic cash registers, subway systems, etc.) where the signals are
particularly strong or interesting. She then lends out headphones to the public, allowing participants to undertake an auditory dérive through the invisible network of electromagnetic information. To date, Kubisch has undertaken her own personal walks in Germany, England, France, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, Spain, Japan, and the United States, and has held public walks in Bremen, London, [other locations?]. In September 2006, she will stage an “Electrical Walk” in New York as part of an exhibition of Berlin sound art at The Kitchen. The interview was conducted by telephone between Amherst, Massachusetts and Hoppegarten, on the outskirts of Berlin.
In 2003, she began an ongoing project called “The Electrical Walks.” This project employs specially-built headphones that receive electromagnetic signals from the environment and convert them into sound. Kubisch maps a given territory, noting “hot spots” (ATM machines,
security systems, electronic cash registers, subway systems, etc.) where the signals are
particularly strong or interesting. She then lends out headphones to the public, allowing participants to undertake an auditory dérive through the invisible network of electromagnetic information. To date, Kubisch has undertaken her own personal walks in Germany, England, France, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, Spain, Japan, and the United States, and has held public walks in Bremen, London, [other locations?]. In September 2006, she will stage an “Electrical Walk” in New York as part of an exhibition of Berlin sound art at The Kitchen. The interview was conducted by telephone between Amherst, Massachusetts and Hoppegarten, on the outskirts of Berlin.
Your background is in painting and music. How did you come to work with electromagnetic induction?
I can’t explain exactly why, but I’ve always been more interested in electrical things than, for example, classical music. I began investigating electrical fields at the end of the 1970s. I had been studying electronic music at the Conservatory in Milan. But the classes there were very conventional; and I wasn’t very satisfied with what I was learning. So I decided to enroll in Milan’s Technical University—which was very hard for me because my brain is not very scientific. One day I bought a telephone amplifier, a little cube that you could put next to your telephone so that you could hear it without having the receiver in your hand. The cube was switched on, and when I came into the laboratory, it started to make really strange sounds in my handbag. I took it out and asked my professor what was going on. He explained to me that there were coils in this little cube, and that they picked up some of the machines in the room. It was like a flash in my mind. It was exactly at the time when I wanted to get away from performance and start producing installations.
In my early installations, there were people wandering around with these little cubes in their hands, walking along thick electrical cables that had sounds running through them. I didn’t think about using the sounds of the outside world. I had no idea about electricity in general or that it could make interesting sounds. I just used the system of electro
magnetic induction as way of amplifying musical sounds.
When did you develop the electromagnetic headphones?
It was kind of tiring to have these cubes in your hands all the time. So, four or five years later, I found a factory that built wonderful headphones. I went to them and asked whether they could put the components of the cube in the headphones. You know Italians, they like to invent things, especially when a blonde girl comes in and says “can you do this?” So I put all my money together—I was giving flute lessons at the time, a lot of flute lessons—and finally managed to pay for about 20 sets of headphones. The sound was better and more subtle. And the headphones worked over longer distances as well. I used this system for several years. Eventually the headphones got a bit broken. Sometimes people stole them. And I never got much money, because this was not considered a musical thing. It wasn’t a concert or something you could sell on the art market. I wanted to go on with other pieces and investigations. So I put the equipment away. About eight or ten years later, I found a sponsor who knew about these works and who gave me the opportunity to construct an even better system. With this new system, in 1999, I did a really large installation at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. When I put on the headphones again after all these years, I heard so many strange sounds: humming sounds, rhythms, and all kinds of things that, of course, disturbed me, because I didn’t want them. Eventually, I realized that I no longer needed to put my sounds in cables because they were already out there. So I built a new generation of headphones that are especially sensitive to electricity and that don’t surpress or ignore all these electromagnetic fields but, instead, amplify them.
How do the headphones actually work?
Every current in an electrical conductor—for example a wire or a cable—generates an electromagnetic field. These currents can be “musical,” like the signals running through loudspeaker cables; or they can come from electrical activity in the infrastructures of buildings or cities. The magnetic component of these fields is picked up by the sensor coils in the headphones. And, after amplification, these signals are made audible by the little speaker systems in the headphones. So if there’s an electromagnetic field (say, an underground cable) and another one nearby (say, the headphones), the fields pick up each other. The sound jumps through the air from one to the other.
How does flourescent lighting or a security system show up as sound?
You can transform any electromagnetic field into sound. That’s what happens when you send electrical information through a speaker cable.
. . . or a telephone.
Exactly! Just what we’re doing right now! It’s just the same thing. When this electromagnetic information runs through a cable to a speaker, the speaker reconverts it into sound.
What are some of the devices that generate these sounds?
There are so many—and more and more each day. They are also different in every city. Some of the best ones are the security or anti-theft systems that are at the entrance of every shop. When you walk through them, you get pulsating sounds that have different rhythms (Tracks 4, 8, 12, 14, 18, 23). Some are so strong that you can’t even come near them with the headphones. But they are all quite different. Some are very sophisticated, like the one at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (Track 14). Others are really simple, just a very constant beat. And some of them, interestingly enough, are not even working! I have a secret list for my friends! Lately, there are a lot of WLAN (Track 22), Bluetooth, and GPS systems, which make very nervous, crispy, irregular sounds. You can only hear them in certain areas. And sometimes, if you move 10 cm to one side or the other, they disappear. I think of them as electrical corridors. I’m struck by the similarity between some of these sounds and minimalist techno: PanSonic or Alva Noto, for example.
Yeah. There are some sounds that, when I listen to them for a half an hour, sound to me like La Monte Young. The tram in Bratislava, for example, is almost like a choir: a chord, three sounds together that are changing, but each at a different level (Track 25). Subways, buses, and trains are especially musical, maybe because they depend upon a constant flow of electricity. There’s a wonderful subway in China (Track 3) and another one that sounds to me like electronic music of the 70s (Track 11). Airplanes, though, sound really ugly: very high, thin, and noisy.
Is your interest in these phenomena primarily aesthetic or is there a critical element, an
desire to call attention to the environmental and psychological implications of this electromagnetic web in which we live?
desire to call attention to the environmental and psychological implications of this electromagnetic web in which we live?
That’s a hard question because I’m somewhere between. I have always been critical toward the way that people deal with technology and have made many pieces about the relationships
between nature and technology. But I never point a finger and say “This is bad” or “This is
good.” I’m more interested in having people recognize what’s around them by doing it
themselves. I could tell everyone that I think it’s bad. But that wouldn’t be an experience. It would just be didactic. On the other hand, this stuff is very fascinating as well. I mean, we love computers. We know that it’s bad to sit in front of them for hours and hours; but we still love them. So we arrive at the middle of these two worlds—the real world and the continuing substitution of real experience by a technological experience that replaces much of what counted as experience in former times. I’m not nostalgic; but, of course, I am worried about how these fields around us are increasing.
Nevertheless, this summer I put on my headphones during a very strong thunderstorm. There was no electricity, because all the power had gone out. But, when I recorded, I got the sounds of natural electricity, which was wonderful. The recording is so strange: very low, but very clear. At two points, you hear voices. You can’t understand the words, but you can tell that they are voices. I knew that electricity could transport voices, but I had never heard it before. It’s quite breathtaking when you hear things like that. This is nature, too—electrical nature!
between nature and technology. But I never point a finger and say “This is bad” or “This is
good.” I’m more interested in having people recognize what’s around them by doing it
themselves. I could tell everyone that I think it’s bad. But that wouldn’t be an experience. It would just be didactic. On the other hand, this stuff is very fascinating as well. I mean, we love computers. We know that it’s bad to sit in front of them for hours and hours; but we still love them. So we arrive at the middle of these two worlds—the real world and the continuing substitution of real experience by a technological experience that replaces much of what counted as experience in former times. I’m not nostalgic; but, of course, I am worried about how these fields around us are increasing.
Nevertheless, this summer I put on my headphones during a very strong thunderstorm. There was no electricity, because all the power had gone out. But, when I recorded, I got the sounds of natural electricity, which was wonderful. The recording is so strange: very low, but very clear. At two points, you hear voices. You can’t understand the words, but you can tell that they are voices. I knew that electricity could transport voices, but I had never heard it before. It’s quite breathtaking when you hear things like that. This is nature, too—electrical nature!
Does one often hear voices on your “Electrical Walks”?
There are a lot of induction systems for the hard-of-hearing. In the UK, I think they even have a law that churches or public meeting houses have to have these induction loops. What they don’t know is that, with these headphones, you can hear exactly what’s going on inside. In Switzerland, I came across a group of people—I think it was a group of Indian people celebrating a religious service in their own language. Because I didn’t understand the language, at first I thought it was some kind of terrorist meeting, with all this shouting and these rhythmic sounds. But then I heard the “hallelujah” and “amen,” and I understood what it was (Track 13).
In London, I walked by a church where I could hear the cleaning woman talking and, later, the organist playing jazz. So you become a sort of spy. Sometimes you hear sounds from offices. I’m sure that people don’t know that they have these induction systems in private offices. They must be there in order to secretly spy on people.
Do different cities have unique sonic characteristics?
In Bremen, there’s a tram system that you hear all over the city, even when you’re not near it. It’s a kind of basic drone that’s very present. And in Madrid, a really persistent sound is that of the mobile phones that people carry around. You don’t hear people talking, of course. But you hear when they dial—that moment when the information is being transported. It’s a sort of short chirp: dip, da-rip, da-rip, da-rip, something like that. You hear that every moment, sometimes in duos or trios, because, in Madrid, everyone lives with their phones. In Taiwan the sounds are very aesthetic. Maybe they have a new technology that’s already very sophisticated. In Paris you have some very heavy sounds, like in the train stations, where there is so much interrupted current. Train stations in general are very full, heavy, and dusty with sound. In the short time when I walked in New York, the sound came from everywhere, and a lot of it from underground.
It was incredibly dense. Even a short movement of my head made big changes in the sound.
There are some places that are always interesting, places where there is money: banks, shops, people working. In residential areas, you mostly find low sounds, not so many rhythms. And then there are surprising places where you don’t know what is happening.
It was incredibly dense. Even a short movement of my head made big changes in the sound.
There are some places that are always interesting, places where there is money: banks, shops, people working. In residential areas, you mostly find low sounds, not so many rhythms. And then there are surprising places where you don’t know what is happening.
When you generally choose business or shopping districts when you chart territory for
your “Electrical Walks”?
your “Electrical Walks”?
I start there, but then I go further out. I also ask people to tell me where they can imagine interesting possibilities. You can find interesting sounds anywhere. In the country, there are a lot of wires carrying electricity. They make very beautiful, very dense sounds. Everytime you stand under them it’s different. But, of course, if you want to have a quick walk and a lot of direct information, then a shopping area is always good.
I know that you are interested in the idea that each participant is a creator who makes his
or her own mix. That’s true. Each person should probably begin with the help of some instructions, so that they know, for example, that you sometimes have to go very close to things. In electronics shops, for instance, you have to bring your ears very close to the screens to hear them. And every screen has a different sound. Or sometimes you have to stop and do nothing. So the maps that I make are really just aids to teach you how to investigate on your own.
I know that you are interested in the idea that each participant is a creator who makes his
or her own mix. That’s true. Each person should probably begin with the help of some instructions, so that they know, for example, that you sometimes have to go very close to things. In electronics shops, for instance, you have to bring your ears very close to the screens to hear them. And every screen has a different sound. Or sometimes you have to stop and do nothing. So the maps that I make are really just aids to teach you how to investigate on your own.
If you were to stand in one place for a while, would a signal likely pass your way?
Yeah. Some places, like train stations—I could just stay there for hours. It’s like a movie, an audio movie. Sometimes signals come for just a short time. So the sounds that I find may have disappeared by the time you get there, because the whole electrical world is constantly in flux.
It’s a mystery.
It’s a mystery.
Your work connects with the recent renewal of interest in electronic pioneers such as
Nikola Tesla, Guglielmo Marconi, Heinrich Hertz, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham
Bell, and others. What do you think accounts for this revival?
Nikola Tesla, Guglielmo Marconi, Heinrich Hertz, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham
Bell, and others. What do you think accounts for this revival?
I’ve been working for so long on these electromagnetic investigations. Sometimes it was completely out of fashion; but now, as you say, it has become rather trendy. When Tesla started his experiments, there were no telephones and few trains. It was a very simple world. Maybe this is the fascination. Now that we are so surrounded by electrical signals, we look to the pioneers and come back to the first experiments. Back then, it was so physical. In those beautiful old photographs, you see these big machines. Today, everything is nearly invisible. Everything digital is so small and becomes smaller and smaller. You can’t really touch or see it. So I think that’s part of the fascination as well.
One of my favorite things is something I discovered in the diary of Heinrich Hertz, who died very young due to his experiments. For several days, he wrote nothing in his diary but the phrase “electromagnetic fields”—over and over!
Do you have plans to develop this work?
What I would really like is to do is to make a map of several cities and continents. In a large city, for example, where are the electromagnetic fields? where are security gates? You could just mark them with little dots. They even have the same sound systems all over the world. It’s the globalization of sound. So this is something that I think would be very interesting: to see a network of little dots showing where things are and where they are spreading. Every time I do an “Electrical Walk” it adds to this general map of sound that I’m collecting. It’s artistic work; but it’s a kind of social research, too.
The interview was published in:
Cabinet Magazine, Issue 21 Spring 2006, "Electricity"
Cabinet Magazine, Issue 21 Spring 2006, "Electricity"
here you can listen to some sound samples from Electrical Walks: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/21/kubisch.php
That Day
That Day is new Lali Puna video,
directed by Yu Sato
(animation by Matt Cooper and Tim Divall).
The band has made a new album album called Our Inventions, it's a good record...
Find and Listen
Whispering in the Leaves
Chris Watson - Whispering in the Leaves from Whispering in the Leaves on Vimeo.
Hi everyone.
I would like to introduce you to a very interesting ambient sound project.
It's called Whispering in the Leaves. The creator is Chris Watson: sound recordist and musician specialising in natural history, renowned for his award-winning wildlife work with David Attenborough on productions such as The Life of Birds and The Life of Mammals. Watson was also a founding member of the electronic music pioneers Cabaret Voltaire (1971) and the Hafler Trio (1981), and has since released music projects on Touch.
Whispering in the Leaves is an extraordinary sound installation that immerses visitors to Kew Gardens’ Palm House in the dawn and dusk choruses of the Central and South American rainforests. Alongside the installation, part of the Summer Festival at Kew Gardens, a programme of special performances, workshops, guided tours and talks gives you the chance to find out more about sound, the environment and biodiversity.
This installation is the audio equivalent of 3D cinema. Visitors will be immersed in a dynamic, spatial soundscape of primate calls and birdsong, backed with a shimmering wall of insect sounds. Some of the species heard are currently unknown to humans. Visitors will experience the heard but never seen.
I'll give you some links of people and organizations who have collaborated on the project:
Soundandmusic
Forma
Chris Watson
I would like to introduce you to a very interesting ambient sound project.
It's called Whispering in the Leaves. The creator is Chris Watson: sound recordist and musician specialising in natural history, renowned for his award-winning wildlife work with David Attenborough on productions such as The Life of Birds and The Life of Mammals. Watson was also a founding member of the electronic music pioneers Cabaret Voltaire (1971) and the Hafler Trio (1981), and has since released music projects on Touch.
Whispering in the Leaves is an extraordinary sound installation that immerses visitors to Kew Gardens’ Palm House in the dawn and dusk choruses of the Central and South American rainforests. Alongside the installation, part of the Summer Festival at Kew Gardens, a programme of special performances, workshops, guided tours and talks gives you the chance to find out more about sound, the environment and biodiversity.
This installation is the audio equivalent of 3D cinema. Visitors will be immersed in a dynamic, spatial soundscape of primate calls and birdsong, backed with a shimmering wall of insect sounds. Some of the species heard are currently unknown to humans. Visitors will experience the heard but never seen.
I'll give you some links of people and organizations who have collaborated on the project:
Soundandmusic
Forma
Chris Watson
MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
MY CAT IS AN ALIEN (MCIAA) is the audiovisual duo formed in late 1997 by the brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio from Torino, Italy. They primarily play electric and acoustic guitars, voice, toy microphones, various toy instruments, electronics and percussion. Roberto Opalio and MCIAA's work range over many artistic activities: musical performance, films and videos, audiovisual installations, photography, painting and drawing, poetry.
On their own Opax Records, they release vinyls, tapes, cds and dvds, whose unique handmade art-edition style represents the esthetics of the duo, giving a strong and peculiar visual aspect to all MCIAA's artistic works.
MCIAA have set up multimedia collaborations with vanguards such as Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Christian Marclay, Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Nels Cline, Text of Light, Steve Roden, Mats Gustafsson, Enore Zaffiri and many more.
MCIAA's prolific works have been released by Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) on his own Ecstatic Peace! label, as well as by Atavistic Worldwide (USA), Les Disques VICTO (CAN), Important Records (USA), Very Friendly/ Cargo (UK), PSF (Japan), Staalplaat/ Mort Aux Vaches (NL), Eclipse Records (USA), Starlight Furniture Co./ Revolver (USA), Last Visible Dog (USA), Time-Lag RecordsPseudoArcana (NZ), Sloow Tapes (B), Ikuisuus (FIN), A Silent Place (ITA), Foxglove/Digitalis Industries (USA) among others. (USA),Between 1998 and 2009 MCIAA toured several times in Europe with Sonic Youth, and have performed at many prestigious international festivals: Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (Canada), ATP Nightmare Before Christmas curated by Thurston Moore (UK), Music Lovers' Field Companion festival at Sage Gateshead in Newcastle (UK), CCA Center of Contemporary Arts di Glasgow (UK), K-raa-k Festival (B), State-X Newforms (NL), Feedback Festival in Dijon (F), Stimul Festival in Prague, All Frontiers in Italy, among many others.
In 2005 Roberto Opalio has been commissioned to design a t-shirt for The Wire magazine.
Roberto Opalio and My Cat Is An Alien are currently taking part to the ongoing Sonic Youth etc.: Sensational Fix museum exhibition, scheduled in Europe, America and Asia for the next three years. For the first opening at LiFE museum (F) in June 2008, MCIAA set up a live performance collaboration with Lee Ranaldo and Micheal Morley of Dead C, published by Starlight Furniture Co. USA in September 2009.
Other than the official exhibition catalog published by Walter Koenig, curator Roland Groenenboom will present a spin-off limited zine at Malmo Konsthall, featuring exclusive artworks by Roberto Opalio and MCIAA.
Other than the official exhibition catalog published by Walter Koenig, curator Roland Groenenboom will present a spin-off limited zine at Malmo Konsthall, featuring exclusive artworks by Roberto Opalio and MCIAA.
MCIAA's articles, interviews and extended reviews are featured on the most important international music magazines like The Wire (UK), The Sound Projector (UK), Dream MagazineArthur Magazine (USA), The Ptolemaic Terrascope (UK), Brokenface (SWE), Dusted Magazine (USA), Foxy Digitalis (USA), Studio Voice (JP), Stylus Magazine (USA), Noiseweek (USA), Industrial (USA), Brainwashed (USA), Kwadratuur (BE), PanPot (CAN), Blow Up (ITA), Rumore (ITA), Il Mucchio (ITA), Gaz-Eta (PL), His Voice (CZ), and many more.
Last performance (I have seen) : http://www.netmage.it/2010/artist/my-cat-is-an-alien.html
HeartBeat
Heart Chamber Orchestra - Pixelache from pure on Vimeo.
The Heart Chamber Orchestra - HCO - is an audiovisual performance. The orchestra consists of 12 classical musicians and the artist duo TERMINALBEACH.
Using their heartbeats, the musicians control a computer composition and visualization environment. The musical score is generated in real time by the heartbeats of the musicians. They read and play this score from a computer screen placed in front of them.
HCO forms a structure where music literally "comes from the heart".
HCO is not a composition in the traditional sense. It draws its inspiration from music, art and science. This interdisciplinary approach pushes and questions the boundaries of the contemporary practice within these disciplines.
The creative act does not create an object but implements a space of possibilities, a structure for processes to evolve. There is no clear distinction between author and interpreter, but the emergence of a reading/writing continuum with no territory for a single author.
Using their heartbeats, the musicians control a computer composition and visualization environment. The musical score is generated in real time by the heartbeats of the musicians. They read and play this score from a computer screen placed in front of them.
HCO forms a structure where music literally "comes from the heart".
HCO is not a composition in the traditional sense. It draws its inspiration from music, art and science. This interdisciplinary approach pushes and questions the boundaries of the contemporary practice within these disciplines.
The creative act does not create an object but implements a space of possibilities, a structure for processes to evolve. There is no clear distinction between author and interpreter, but the emergence of a reading/writing continuum with no territory for a single author.
RHEO: 5 horizons - Audiovisual Installation 2010
Ryoichi Kurokawa composes time based sculpture with digital generated materials and field recorded sources, and the minimal and the complexities coexist there. Kurokawa accepts sound and imagery as a unit not as separately, and constructs very exquisite and precise computer based works with the audiovisual language. That shortens mutual distance, the reciprocity and the synchronization of sound and visual composition. He also performed live-visual for musicians such as HUMAN AUDIO SPONGE(ex.YMO: Sketch Show + Ryuichi Sakamoto). In recent years, Kurokawa is invited to numerous noted international festivals and museums in Europe, US and Asia including TATE MODERN[UK], ARS ELECTRONICA[AT], transmediale[DE], Shanghai eARTS[CN], MUTEK[CA], and SONAR[ES] for concert and exhibition, and he continues to be an active presence on the international stage.
Music is Math
Boards of Canada
Music is Math
Film: Glenn Marshall
Music is Math
Film: Glenn Marshall
Release: 18.02.2007
Glenn Marshall is a new media artist, who's distinct style is abstract computer animation blends modern art, eastern mysticism, mathematics, nature and science. A strong advocate in the digital artist’s necessity to be both artist and programmer, creating their own technology to create their own art, his recent works are entirely self-coded animations, and is currently reimagining his computer generated worlds into innovative apps for the iPhone and beyond.
UtKu Tavil
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Coordonnées
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MI AMI 2010 - Musica Importante a Milano. Sede: Circolo Magnolia (Segrate). Data: 4 Giu 2010 – Last.fm
Circolo Magnolia (Segrate)
June 4, 2010
Important event for the New Italian Music.
Rockit confirms and raises the sixth edition of Festival. Also confirmed the location, Magnolia, near the Idroscalo park of Milan.There are two stages:
Sandro Pertini ( homage the President Sandro Pertini ,remember the twenty years since his death, holds even more punch and will host some of the best Italian bands ever)
and
The Jack's Mound (Jack will play certainties many bets).
Here the program.
Nice that you can download for free, on the official site of the event, the compilation with all the artists. Hooray, finally something 4 us poor students (or not).
Here you can find info on how to arrive to Magnolia, this year there will be a free shuttle service. 8 shuttles for 8 people (!).Interesting initiative: if you reach the place by bike will reward you with a free drink.
Rockit confirms and raises the sixth edition of Festival. Also confirmed the location, Magnolia, near the Idroscalo park of Milan.There are two stages:
Sandro Pertini ( homage the President Sandro Pertini ,remember the twenty years since his death, holds even more punch and will host some of the best Italian bands ever)
and
The Jack's Mound (Jack will play certainties many bets).
Banquet area and area comics. Concerts, readings and DJ sets.
Here the program.
Nice that you can download for free, on the official site of the event, the compilation with all the artists. Hooray, finally something 4 us poor students (or not).
Here you can find info on how to arrive to Magnolia, this year there will be a free shuttle service. 8 shuttles for 8 people (!).Interesting initiative: if you reach the place by bike will reward you with a free drink.
Grazie per aver contribuito a Google Traduttore con la traduzione che hai suggerito.
Lingue disponibili per la traduzione:
Afrikaans Albanese Arabo Armeno Azero Basco Bielorusso Bulgaro Catalano Ceco | Cinese Coreano Creolo haitiano Croato Danese Ebraico Estone Filippino Finlandese Francese | Galiziano Gallese Georgiano Giapponese Greco Hindi Indonesiano Inglese Irlandese Islandese | Italiano Lettone Lituano Macedone Malese Maltese Norvegese (Bokmål) Olandese Persiano Polacco | Portoghese Rumeno Russo Serbo Slovacco Sloveno Spagnolo Svedese Swahili Tailandese | Tedesco Turco Ucraino Ungherese Urdu Vietnamita Yiddish |
Here opens a new blog, open to all and opens with an interview conducted through an alliance with Présence Electronique, and Riccardo Mantelli, which allowed Pepefritto met in person Carsten Nicolai aka Alva Noto!
Hoping in many new collaborations I will post old interviews with The Mistaken Press, smell of sweaty indie rock (more unknown bands!) photos and reviews of live experimental flavor...and more ...
ALVA NOTO INTERVIEW
9.05 2010 Aosta
-In your opinion, do you think that music itself is an absolute form of art, or image may compete it?
1. Firstable I think, I’d like to talk something more about sound rather than music, because I really see sound as a little wide of spectral of frequency so music is only like a part of this and in this case if you look in the wide of picture and of course, have seen a big connection between sound and light for instance, for me is very related, both describe frequencies, of course, in a very different range... but for me there’s a really strong relation to these events and I really, let’s say than into electronic music and looking with pure wave forms - that’s how you generate quite artificially sounds won’t not that separated than system than nature. Then, this kind of sounds they have a kind of graphic equivalent very easy, actually because the wave forms can generate really geometric shapes, very simple because of the assembled diametric nature of the wave form. So for me, there’s a strong relation, and sound always is, and at the same time the music, is a very abstract language who talks to me in a very direct way.
-In your works we note various attempts of sound synesthesia : do you relate sounds to shapes and/or colors. Have you ever related auditory perception to tactile, taste or smell sensation? Would you like to work on it?
2. Of course when you worried of the sense of hearing and seeing you think about other senses too. So, temperature, like acceleration, smell, of course this is something immediate. And I think in a way like temperature … is very related to sound, even acceleration of speed is very related, but smell not in the first place of course, but, of course, when y think about perception, how you percept then this kind of senses are interesting too.
-When you hear a sound, does it remain pure in your mind, or do you elaborate it almost immediately creating distorsions and variations?
3. Yes, sometimes yes, sometimes no. But it’s not always the same, you know. Yeah, but in a way they stay pure, they kind of stay pure for me.
-In your works you have often used light. What does it mean for you the interweaving of shadows , the alternating of spaces and bright shapes?
4. In the first place I’m really interested, of course, in what we see, how we see, what is colour, what we percept really. And of course what we percept is light, is all reflection of light. And this is very interesting to me because of course we know that our brain can be full by very like optical illusions and many other things, but our brain is as well as quite clever, is kind of interprets already something, is kind - when something is missing is kind of heading. So for me, when I use light is not so much about the shadow, there’s something that is really beautiful, of course light and shadow, but for me, in the first place I’m really interested about what is light, what is excepting.
[the work with Sakamoto is related?]
The work with Sakamoto is really like music in a very poetic way, the way we used light in this case has a very strong poetic aspect of to use light. And we collaborated for light designers for the show and the projection. but all the goal was, this is what we brought, we want to stay very pure, like the colour or simple geometric elements who impressed as with the intensity of light, intensity of colour this is something really straighten for my works.
-Loop: how repetition is important for you? Not only in your composer job.
5. I mean repetition this all sentence about repetition. Repetition is the mock of knowledge, people say, so you learn things by repeating. And of course you took everything different and that is as well, repetition is something really interesting because I’m not only pure interested in repetition, as well as I’m interested in when things all go wrong in the process of repetition. This interesting aspect: one thing is, of course, pure mistakes, like repetition process of a tape, the tape is kind of discrediting; or in a machinery process the computer makes hour in the calculation process. But, as well our perception dusts builds these kind of phantom words when you hear a long phrase’s repeating often, often and often, we’re kind of building new phrases together. This is another kind of aspect that I’m really interested to.
-Do you think that ambient sounds are, somehow, more delightful than the arificial ones, due to the fact that the ambient sounds are closer to intimate human nature.
7. I don’t think so. I think for me, when you mean ambient sound maybe you mean like a field recording, like a natural recording. [yeah] Of course this is a really complex sound, I mean what is very, very difficult to repeat artificially because the environment and everything is incredibly complex. But, I really think that’s something I’m really interested into, it’s that you can destivate specific events with this knowledge, specific stuff out of these events and kind of use it [I’m not wondering to use a ray construction] in a kind of way that you can use here as pure wave forms. So, you can create space by specific phasing of 2 frequencies in the left and in the right channel and imitate here and space … it’s really about space, really interesting.
-In consideration of actual audio production technology, what do you prefer to use of software and hardware? And how much is Graphic interface important for you?
8. I think graphic interfaces are really important in general because we work with the computers, and computers have graphical representations. So, I think we’re really in an age, in a moment where our graphical representation is really strong and is rolling really quickly. I think more, more people orientation, analyses, medicine, they are really more picture oriented, much, much more. The society, as well, needs this kind of really fast, quick guideline, a visual guideline to orient. As well, it seems we really have a quite incredible fast perception: it’s really incredible how fast we can percept, how much we can percept as well.
[for example reason interface]
Yeah, I think, interfaces are really become important because computers are, like for me as any performance places, I use any kind of interfaces from circumpending ?????? hardware to software, to touch-screen. I’m just using what I feel as absolutely practical for me: I’m using the touch-screen because I want to have the maximum flexibility for different performances with the same controller so I can figure out if I knew every time I performed, for instance and I can keep on going. If I’d have only one controller then an hardware too, it’s one specific controller, I kind of like, but..I like this kind of flexibility, I like this idea of having everything with me and create everything.. and I have my all set up with me.
[so, the customization of the advices is really important for you..]
What I really like a perform of the same tools as the tools, so my NAPATORY???? is at the same time my instruments, my performing, but at the same time I have all the possibilities to create music like the day before the performance I can do, I can just before..
I dare to say, you are to music as Nam June Paik is to the video, above all as far as your origins in East Berlin are concerned.
What led you to create sounds starting from rearranged objects? When you see a device do you automatically think to the sound it may ensue? Also in this case is there any relation between audio and shapes?
9. [..] Of course it’s a big compliment to be compare to Nam Jun Paik, in my work, it’s really nice, I’m very inspired by his stuffs, is really nice. [you’ve used the television..] and the telephone ring..And she did very similar things, experimentations, but I found later out, it’s not so far away.
What I really like with the television is its, and this is very similar for N.J.Paik, that I used the television as a creative expression. So normally a television receives its signal and broadcasts a signal. So it’s really like, let’s say that it’s somebody delivering information and watching it. But I’m really interested actually in what is television. Can I make it a creative tool to television? And, so, what you do if you do different sources inside instead of the normal television programs. So I think this is something really interesting when you deal with the wrong standards or experimenting with this kind of tools.
[This is also referred to Berlin’s political situation?]
Of course for me the television was always, is always a problem, also today cause television is a big problem again, is a political tool, and is always connected to this. I don’t have a television, but I have many in my installations. For me, I feel a big danger because they produce television program, they produce certain needs, they produce certain opinion and I think it’s kind of dangerous. I like using the television as an aspect in each process.
-Whay do you think about Contemporary music, and how do you approach it?
10. I think music is always something that was around us. I think it will never ever disappear. I think is a phase really important, I think is really as a daily life, it’s part of our daily life. To the new generation of music makers I can always tell don’t use the tools we can buy in the shops. And use unusual tools, like look for tools that not everybody uses to create something new. This is very important, cause, analyzing, if we use all the same tools that everybody uses, it will always sound the same.
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