Deconstructing IKEA by Amund Sjølie Sveen

This work investigates the richness of sounds in an ordinary consumer object such as an IKEA plate. As the plate is gradually destroyed, the sound material becomes richer. The destruction of the physical object is the construction of the sound object. Beyond the consumerism and globalization criticism, this installation has the quality of evoking nature or the cosmos, as the moon or planet-like white plates in the beginning gradually give place to scattered pieces reminiscent of broken ice, starry skies and strange galaxies.

TOPO GLASSATO AL CIOCCOLATO: applying audio morphing to foleys

Artist: Donato Sansone
Sound: Enrico Ascoli

blowjob - aeolic concert for 3 electric guitars and fans

Blowjob - myatelier.net - Rome 2011

Description of work: Three amplified electric guitars and three fans.

Soundscape generated naturally by the passage of air through the strings and by its set in motion light filaments, that touch , in a stochastic way, the instruments. What you can hear is a universe unique and uncontrollable and at the same time uniform and harmonious: stillness in motion.

Blowjob born by the natural development of two themes: the first is based on building self generative soundscapes and sculpture, the second is based on archetypal sounds, those sound marks that could be deeply recognized in a trans-cultural way by human beings. Among these there is surely the wind and its ability to animate what it skims: "... the answer my friend is blowing in the wind ..."

Tellus Totem - sound installation

From 23 to 27 November 2010, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the terrible earthquake of Irpinia, in Avellino (Italy) was' done the festival E-ArtQuake 2010. Leandro Pisano, curator of "Mnemosyne", the sound art section of the festival, invited me to design an installation having as theme "the memory". I'd like to do a site specific project so I went in that territories for some time. Talking with people about their experience of that day I was surprise in discover that most of them remembered clearly sequences of sounds: objects moving, shaking or breaking. So I decided to follow this idea and to find objects abandoned  in the ruins of some still ghost villages around Avellino. I chose things with interesting sound properties and I assembled them into 5 scultures/totems.

I fixed at the basis of these structures some bass shaker in order to give them life through slow and powerful vibrations.

I spend some days in discovering the best frequencies for shaking the sculptures and obtain different timbres from the objects. Then, using a 5.1 system,  I composed a sequence listening in real time the answer of this strange ensemble. The result was a sharp and intense sound scape as you can listen in the following excerpt

excerpt from Tellus Totem installation by imaginary axis

 

Tellus Totem - sound installation video documantation from Enrico Ascoli - Sound Design on Vimeo.

Foods that sound better taste better (source "bodyinmind.com")

The pleasure we derive from eating obviously depends on what food tastes and smells like. Visual presentation and colour are also important, as is the feel of the food in the mouth (i.e., its temperature and texture). But did you know that what a food sounds like can also determine how pleasant food tastes as well?
The latest research from Prof Charles Spence of Oxford University has shown that Pringles crisps (potato chips) taste better if they sound noisier when you bite into them.

Participants in Prof Spence’s experiments had to bite into 180 Pringles crisps of varying freshness, while the sound that each crisp made was changed in real-time using a microphone, computer, and headphones. The results of this research, which was funded by Unilever Research, showed that people rated Pringles as tasting 15% fresher and crisper when the crisp sounds were made louder, or when just the high frequency components of the biting sound (above 2 KHz) were boosted. Prof. Spence and his colleagues have now gone on to show that it is not only the sound of the food that matters, but that the sound of food packaging can also influence our perception of crispness. Why else, after all, do you think that so many manufacturers sell crisps in such noisy packets?

The Pringles research, for which Prof Spence and Max Zampini were awarded this year’s prestigious Ig Noble prize for nutrition, is not as silly as it sounds. Indeed, many large food companies (such as Unilever who funded the original study and Nestle) have now started to conduct their own research in-house based on these findings. Prof. Spence’s research has also demonstrated that people’s perception of how carbonated a fizzy drink appears to be can also be modified by changing the sound; In the future, we may be able to reduce the amount of ‘tooth-rotting’ carbonic acid in fizzy drinks simply by changing the sound that the drink makes in the can. Prof Spence’s research may also suggest novel interventions to bring back the enjoyment of food for the growing elderly population who have started to loose their sense of taste and smell since there is currently nothing we can do to bring bask those senses once they have started to decline.

Finally, Prof Spence has been collaborating with Heston Blumenthal, the world-famous chef at The Fat Duck restaurant in Bray. Together, they have shown that you can flip the flavour of bacon and egg ice cream by changing the background sound – that is, it tastes more ‘bacony’ if you can hear the sound of bacon sizzling in a pan, while it tastes far more ‘eggy’ if the sounds of farmyard chickens are played instead. Even oysters taste nicer when they are eaten while listening to the sounds of the seaside (seagulls, waves crashing on the beach etc). One of the signature dishes on tasting menu at the restaurant, aptly named ‘The sound of the sea’ now involves diners being presented with a plate of seafood while listening to the seaside soundtrack via a pair of iPod headphones placed inside a seashell on the table. As Prof Spence says.

Taken together, these results suggest that our perception and evaluation of food and drink depends not just on the taste, smell, sight touch and sound of the food itself, but also on the packaging, and even on the environment in which those foods are eaten.

"Canale Audio": Venice Underwater Soundscape

"Canale Audio" is a sound installation by the italian artists Hilario Isola, Matteo Norzi and Enrico Ascoli at Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation (Venice). It brings the unknown sound scape of the other face of Venice, the one submerged, inside the museum, revealing an unexpected urban life, if not impossible to explore with the ear.
Here are some sample recorded from the window of Palazzetto Tito, the exhibition venue. 
We marked some points and post some comments to explain what you are listening 

"Canale Audio" - passage of a gondola by an hydrophone in venice

"Canale Audio" - Church bells and an outboard motor of a boat by an hydrophone in venice
 
"Canale Audio" - Rainy day on the canal by an hydrophone in venice

"Canale Audio" - a master shipwright repairing a boat by an hydrophone in venice

"Canale Audio" - tourist steps on a little bridge by an hydrophone in venice

"Canale Audio" - Windy day on the canal by an hydrophone in venice

"Canale Audio" is part of the exhibition entitled ‘A Ballad of the Flooded Museum’, curated by Paola Nicolin. The exhibition opens on Thursday 26th August 2010, during the opening days of the 12th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice. The exhibition, housed in Palazzetto Tito rooms (Dorsoduro, 2826) , is a reflection on water as a contradictory element, able to link and divide, preserve and destroy, remind and submerge forever, radically changing the perception of space, light and bodies. The project is inspired by Jacques Cousteau utopia of house settlements in Sudan deep sea and a possible life underwater.

FOODJOB - frequencies under the tongue from Enrico Ascoli - Sound Design on Vimeo.

"the sonic weapon of the snapping shrimp"

sound archeology -- De animantium naturis.

Leonum est fremere vel rugire, tigridum rancare, pardorum felire, pantherarum caurire, ursorum uncare vel saevire, aprorum frendere, lyncum urcare, luporum ululare, serpentium sibilare, onagrorum. mugilare, cervorum rugire, boum mugire, equorum. hinnire, asinorum rudere vel oncare, porcorum grunnire, verrium quiritare, arietum blatterare, ovium balare, hircorum miccire, haedorum bebare, canum latrare seu baubari, vulpium gannire, catulorum glattire, leporum vagire, mustelarum drindrare, murium mintrire vel pipitare, soricum desticare, elephantum barrire, ranarum coaxare, corvorum crocitare, aquilarum clangere, accipitrum plipiare, vulturum pulpare, miluorum lupire vel lugere, olororum drensare, gruum gruere, ciconiarum crotolare, anserum gliccire vel sclingere, anatum tetrissitare, pavonum paupulare, graculorum fringulire, noctuarum. cuccubire, cuculorum cuculare, merularum frendere vel zinziare, turdorum trucilare vel soccitare, sturnorum passitare, hirundinum fintinnire vel minurrire (dicunt tamen quod minurrire est omnium minutissimarum avicularum), gallinarum crispire, passerum titiare, apium bombire vel bombilare, cicadarum fritinnire.
Caius Svetonio Tranquillus

power of sound in branding

View more documents from guest0e11c849.

Purple Rain - Flexibility - Torino World Design Capital 2008

Site Specific Sound Installation for 5 HSS (hipersonic Sound System) speakers

Purple Rain

 

Text catalogue: invisible and untouchble sound, not homogeneously widespread, an acoustic arcipelago done by islands of intensities, timbers, and rhythmic clusters interacting in a random way in a intense harmonic bubbling. Enrico Ascoli installation is a bright fabric that wraps the ambience in its thin folds, inviting to follow the woof and the weave by leaving behind the retinal paradigm that parvades our contemporary society.
It is an exploration of space not driven by visual traces; it is an acousticdrift that is supported only bythe ability of our interior ear to create , from this faint magma, sound swarms with a meaning. The material used for the installation comes from the recordingsthat the composer recently did in New York. Enrico Ascoli focused above all in selecting sounds that have an intrinc music featurea (harmonic and rhitmic), as the soporiferous drone of the laundrettes, the breath of the subway, the voice of an homless in the middle of the night. From those sounds he extractd micro samples that he successively merged, in aestethic and musical terms, either in time and space. The result is a silent and archetypal urban buzz, at the same timefamiliar and unknown, tha crash into the visitoras the arrival of a memory and dresses him interiorly as the persistence of an emotional mood. Metaphorically it could be a humming of the metropolis that never sleeps and that breathes all around in a multi-layer and random flux of the contemporary life.

Bright Circle stereo version by imaginary axis

about spot-light audio:

"...Similar to a beam of light, HSS uses ultrasonic energy to “shine” your sound on a very specific area.
My idea was to create a sound as a suit for the walls or as an invisible garden in wich you can stop yourself  irrispective of the formal and claustrofobic prison that surround you. Imagine this installation as a sound shower or rain that the visitor can pass through or stop inside. Using hss tecnology I designed a sort of acustic chessboard on the floor and I created an invisible and alternative room maden of sound pillars. The most difficult think was to find the appropriate timbers for that ambient because when an hss speaker hit a surface the sound is generated and the it start to jump everywhere. In this way dipending fro material to material, some timber have a good reflection and other are completely mute. The prison space was an ambient maden of ceramic and iron a lot fractioneted in micro space so it was very important to compose direcly in place the installation, testing each sound source in its movement and reflection in the room. The result was an acusti suit perfeclty fit..." (Enrico Ascoli interview) 

Berio from trash can

In a garbage in my neighborhood one years ago I found, in perfect state, the n.3 of Elettronica an electronic music magazine from 1956. Toghether with it there was as gadget a records of Luciano Berio

Inside you can find an article of Luciano Berio describing the tracks of the record and talking about perspective in new music (article in PDF)

Here you can listen in a little bit scratching way the tracks :

SIDE A


SIDE B

Mediate Auscultation and the Stethoscope

I found in a street marcket this record:

It was released in the 50's and it contain the samples of cardiopatology.

Also if it is very damage you can listen it here

SIDE A

SIDE B

auscultation (o-skuhl-TAY-shuhn) noun

   1. The act of listening.

   2. The act of listening for sounds made by internal organs,
      as the heart and lungs, to aid in the diagnosis of
      certain disorders.

[Latin auscultatio, auscultation-, from auscultatus, past
participle of auscultare, to listen to.]

   "Chest auscultation with a stethoscope will help detect
   any heart murmurs or harshness of the lungs."
   D.V.M. Ronald Ulfohn, Check Out That laid-Back Lab,
   Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jan 22, 2000.

Listening it immediately I thought how was important in medicine the the inner sound of our body and how little change in timber and rhythm can reveal so different kind of pathologies with out any visible symptom. 

In the centuries our ear help us in scheduling notes about the sounds of our body, and many things change of course with the invention of the stethoscope, symbol of our mental model of a doctor.

I was curious to know more about this argument and I found a very interesting Jonathan Stern article. Here are the abstract:

"The practice of mediate auscultation—listening to the body through a stethoscope—was at the center of new articulations of medical thought and practice in the 19th century. During that period, the stethoscope became the hallmark of medical modernity. This article offers a detailed examination of the work of RTH Laennec and other important writings on the stethoscope in order to argue for the centrality of a distinctive orientation toward listening in modern medicine. The development of mediate auscultation applied medical and scientific reason to listening, just as a particular practice of hearing the body became integral to everyday functioning of medicine. Mediate auscultation was thus an artifact of a new approach to reason and the senses, one based in a scientific mindset and a logic of mediation.

(Jonathan Sterne “Mediate Auscultation, the Stethoscope, and the ‘Autopsy of the Living’:
Medicine’s Acoustic Culture.” Journal of Medical Humanities 22:2
(Summer 2001): 115-136. ") http://sterneworks.org/

war acoustic locator

Amplifiers at Bolling Field, 1921.

Two giant horns with ear tubes, evidently designed to listen for approaching aircraft.


Acoustic location was used from mid-World War I to the early years of World War II for the passive detection of aircraft by picking up the noise of the engines. It was rendered obsolete before and during World War II by the introduction of radar, which was far more effective.
Many examples of acoustic location mirrors can still be found on the seacoast of Britain to this day (acoustic mirrors).




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The height-locating half of the Czech four-horn acoustic locator, 1920s

Intel Inside sound logo analysis

Nissan consulting music composers to make electric cars noisier (from news.in.msn.com)

Tokyo: Toshiyuki Tabata spent 30 years as a Nissan Motor Co engineer trying to make gasoline-powered cars quieter. Now he’s consulting music composers to make electric cars noisier — and safer.




Electric and hybrid cars, with little or no engine noise, are lauded for their silence, yet some groups including advocates for the blind say pedestrians may fail to notice them approaching. To address those safety concerns, transportation agencies in the US and Japan may mandate artificial sounds for the vehicles.

"We fought for so long to get rid of that noisy engine sound," said Tabata, Nissan's noise and vibration expert. With electric cars, "we took a completely different approach and listened to composers talk music theory."

Carmakers including Nissan and Toyota Motor Corp, manufacturer of the Prius gasoline-electric hybrid, are researching sound as more silent models come to market. Nissan will start selling its Leaf electric car next year in the US, Japan and Europe, while General Motors Co plans to introduce its Volt plug-in electric car by November 2010. Toyota will introduce a battery-powered vehicle in 2012.
Tabata was instructed about three years ago to re-create the sound of an engine. Given his years of work eliminating noise to enhance the driving experience, he said he balked at the suggestion of turning back the clock and adding anything evocative of an engine.

"We decided that if we're going to do this, if we have to make sound, then we're going to make it beautiful and futuristic," Tabata said.

The company consulted Japanese composers of film scores. What Tabata and his six-member team came up with is a high- pitched sound reminiscent of the flying cars in "Blade Runner," the 1982 film directed by Ridley Scott portraying his dystopian vision of 2019.

"We wanted something a bit different, something closer to the world of art," Tabata said.
The sound system would turn on automatically when the car starts and shut off when the vehicle reaches 20 kilometers per hour (12 mph), Tabata said.

At higher speeds, electric cars generate tire noise and the engines in gas-electric hybrids kick in, said Suzuki Takayuki, a spokesman for the Japan Federation of the Blind.

Danger to Children
While no serious injuries have been reported in Japan, Suzuki said a hybrid car he didn't hear approaching once ran over his cane while he crossed a Tokyo street.

"This isn't just an issue for the blind," Suzuki said. "There's also a danger to children and the elderly."

Earlier this year, the federation submitted a request to Japan's transportation ministry, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association and the country's carmakers to consider the issue. The ministry set up a committee that met in July and August, and will present recommendations by December 31.
Japanese regulations say cars can't be equipped with devices that emit sounds that could be mistaken for a horn.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also is analysing data on crashes involving pedestrians and hybrid vehicles and plans to issue a final report by January, spokeswoman Elly Martin said. The regulator works with advocacy groups including the National Federation of the Blind, which urged makers of electric cars and hybrids to incorporate noise into their designs.
Nissan gained 2.3 per cent to ¥627 in Tokyo today.
Nissan presented its sound system to the NHTSA on September 3, Tabata said.
Car electronics manufacturers also developed noisemakers. Tokyo-based Datasystem Co makes a device selling for ¥12,800 ($140) that emits 16 different sounds including a cat's meow, a cartoon-like "boing" and a human voice saying, "Excuse me."

"There is a risk of these things sprouting up like bamboo shoots everywhere and disrupting the general noise environment," Tabata said.

Even though regulators haven't issued rules or guidelines, Nissan may equip the Leaf with its sound system in time for the car's introduction next year, Tabata said. The system will increase the car's sticker price, he said while declining to provide an estimate. Nissan hasn't announced the model's pricing.
At the same time, the "beautiful" sound may help sales, Tabata said.

"We don't want to destroy the brand of the electric car," he said. "We want to have something that will enhance its image."

suoni dalle piante

cito da http://www.vocidipiante.it

apparecchio per la rivelazione del movimento linfatico:
L'apparecchio per la Musica delle Piante consiste in un sistema di rilevazione del movimento linfatico foglia – radice, misurata attraverso un particolare tipo di rilevatore dotato di due sensori posti alle radici e sulle foglie della pianta collegata. Tale apparecchio registra la resistenza elettrica dei tessuti della pianta dovuta alla variazione della densità cellulare della linfa stessa. Le variazioni di resistenza elettrica, vengono poi convertite in segnali digitali, cioè in note musicali secondo lo standard MIDI ed inviati ad un sequencer (banca dati di timbri musicali). L’apparecchiatura di rilevazione dispone di filtri per limitare le interferenze elettromagnetiche ed estrarre in modo “pulito” le variazioni rilevate sulla pianta.

Come tutti gli organismi viventi, le piante subiscono variazioni di resistenza elettrica dovute a vari fattori: fisici e sottili, tra cui importantissimi stati fisiologici ed “emozionali”. Le piante sono delle grandi antenne, dei ricettori sensibilissimi, esse captano dall’ambiente moltissime variazioni energetiche fisiche (campi elettromagnetici statici e variabili, ecc) e “sottili”. Tra queste ultime, molto importanti nella relazione con questi organismi, sono le interazioni con i campi energetici delle persone stesse.
Il risultato finale consiste nel poter udire ciò che normalmente non siamo in grado di vedere né tanto meno di percepire: il movimento vitale di una pianta, le sue reazioni, il suo campo energetico.

Analisi musicologica

Volendo tentare un’analisi musicale del modo di esprimersi in suoni delle piante, si è giunti alla conclusione che esse utilizzano scale arcaiche. Tali scale si rifanno alla modalità greca antica e sono formate da una successione di 4 suoni discendenti (tetracordi) compresi nell’intervallo di una “quarta giusta”. E’ dall’unione di più tetracordi che nascono le armonie musicali composte dalle piante.

Secondo i teorici greci le melodie composte su ciascuna di queste armonie sono contraddistinte da un carattere particolare, con effetti propri dell’armonia stessa sulla volontà e sulla psiche umana. Per capire ciò che le piante vogliono comunicare a chi le ascolta occorre quindi porsi in un particolare stato emotivo.

CLOUD-CHAMBER BOWLS

:: 1950-1951, near Gualala, and at Mills College, California.
:: The rack is 7 feet long, 6 feet high.
:: Redwood frame, glass carboys, rope. and funnels for suspension purposes.
:: From 10 to 12 tops and bottoms of 12-gallon Pyrex carboys (the bottoms are inverted). At the University of California Radiation Laboratory, at one time, centers were cut from such carboys for use in "cloud-chamber" experiments. Played on the edges with small soft mallets, also on the flat tops. The bowls give a bell-like tone, and each has at least one inharmonic overtone. When one of them breaks it is virtually impossible to find an exact duplicate.

Tim Kaiser

Sound installation based on live sounds of woodworms

.

ho trovato queste note di viaggio sui suoni di Istambul navigando a caso per il web

"Vivo ad Istanbul solo da poche settimane, ma se mi portaste bendata in qualsiasi parte di Istanbul, saprei dove mi trovo! I suoni e gli odori di Istanbul sono come quelli di nessun'altra città.

Suoni.

I turchi amano il calcio. Vivo lontana dallo stadio, ma potrei fare la cronaca di ogni partita che si gioca, dato che ogni azione è acclamata da tutto il quartiere, entrando in casa mia dalle finestre aperte (la primavera è arrivata!). La gente lascia sventolare dalle proprie finestre, ben in evidenza, la bandiera turca. Anche le macchine che viaggiano sul Bosforo suonano il clacson ad ogni tiro in porta, e le ambulanze fanno altrettanto! Quando la partita sta per finire, e la Turchia, o la squadra locale, sta vincendo, i suoni vanno aumentando, fino ad arrivare ad un apice di cacofonia al termine dell'incontro.

Durante il giorno, il canto del muezzin che chiama i fedeli alla preghiera è ormai coperto dal rumore della città, tranne a Sultanahmet, dove dai minareti della Moschea Blu il richiamo sembra farsi più forte. Ma il canto per la prima preghiera del mattino, attorno alle 5, lo si sente bene ovunque, alzarsi dalle decine di moschee di Istanbul.

Ogni venditore ambulante ha il proprio 'urlo' per attirare l'attenzione dei passanti. Questi venditori spingono per le vie di Istanbul i loro carretti, su cui si vende di tutto: pistacchi, pannocchie di granoturco, simit (ciambella di pane ricoperta di semi di sesamo, la mia colazione preferita!), cozze, accendini, penne, calze a righe... Senza dimenticare il signore che con voce roca si offre per scattarmi una foto con la sua Polaroid!

Non ci sono centrali del gas ad Istanbul. Io ho una cucina a gas, e devo quindi comprare la bombola da uno dei furgoncini che girano per i quartieri. Questi venditori, per avvisare del loro passaggio, fanno regolarmente partire la registrazione di una melliflua voce femminile che canta la canzoncina di 'Aygaz'. La prima volta che l'ho sentita pensavo fosse il camioncino del gelataio!

Se un giorno lascerò Istanbul, mi mancheranno il rumore del traffico, il suono della musica che esce da ogni dove, il canto del muezzin all'alba. Ho dimenticato il suono del silenzio che c'era nella mia casetta in Svizzera......"

The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933

"...e quando uscii dalla mia solitudine, e attraversai il ponte per la prima volta, non potei credere ai miei occhi; guardai, guardai ancora!!! e alla fine dissi 'Un orecchio! Un orecchio tanto grande quanto un uomo'..." (Nietzche's Zaratustra)

Project Mars è un landscapes project di Jarosław Kozakiewicz, architetto e artista. Si tratta di proiettare la mappa del sistema solare su quella dell’Europa, collegando l’anatomia e la fisiologia del corpo umano con la struttura cosmica, attraverso dieci aperture del nostro corpo che rappresentano anche i dieci pianeti del sistema solare, nove più il mitico Pianeta X individuato oltre Plutone.

Un orecchio della Terra per ascoltare il respiro dell'universo, che noi facciamo di tutto per assordare; un monumento abitabile per ricollegare l'uomo nell'armonia che gli appartiene e a cui appartiene. Questa è la poetica dell'autore ed è con questa che Project Mars, nasce nel 2003 come vincitore di un concorso indetto dalla città di Boxberg, a 150 km da Berlino, per riqualificare tutta la zona post-industriale presso i grandi laghi artificiali.
Il progetto consiste in un “orecchio” avente la lunghezza di m 350, la larghezza di m 250 e l’altezza di m 18, il cui “lobo” è ubicato nelle vicinanze del lago artificiale Barwalde.
All’interno, ella zona del “timpano”, è situato un anfiteatro all’aperto, inaugurato nel giugno 2008. Ogni esatate questa struttura ospiterà 'Transnaturale - Light and Sound festival'

The suikinkutsu, literally meaning ‘water harp chamber,’ is an underground Japanese water instrument which is usually located in temple gardens and places of ceremony. The water chime consists of an upside down pot with a small hole through it’s bottom. The upside down pot is buried underground, with a porous rock layer above and an impermeable layer below.

Water slowly seeps through the rock bed above, drips through the hole in the pot, and splashes in a shallow pool of water inside of the pot’s chamber. The dripping water creates a pleasant ringing sound, a sound who’s quality can be manipulated by the height of the water pool and the size and shape of the pot.

The sound of a suikinkutsu is so important, it can be divided into two groups, ryusuion and suitekion. “The ryusuion is the sound of the first few water drops at the beginning of washing hands. The suitekion describes both the sound of a lot of water falling at the same time during washing hands and the slower drops at the end of the washing.” -Wikipedia
The pot or jar is usually ceramic, the unglazed type being the best for the aggregation of water droplets due to it’s rough and porous surface.

“Architecture is crystallized music.” – Goethe

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, former Radiophonic Workshop members Paddy Kingsland, Roger Limb, Peter Howell, Dick Mills and Mark Ayres (all over retirement age now) got together to play an amazing spine tingling show that sounded as avant-garde today as it did then....

link to Design Assembly

All Avant-Garde All The Time: The Sounds of The UK


The Poetry Foundation on Ubu Web

Intervista ad Alan Howart, sound designer di poltergeist, dracula, start treck.
Molto interessante la prima parte in cui si concentra su quelli che sono gli sviluppi del suono in surround soprattutto in vista dell'avvento massiccio del cinema 3D. Parla di "sound shower" e "bubble sound", docce e bolle sonore che avvolgeranno lo spettatore

I wanted to work exclusively with vocal sounds, but to try to ignore entirely such things as words and sentences. Instead I decided to concentrate on ways in which the human voice communicates without recourse to the intricacies of language. I wanted to dig down to the deepest level and lay bare a universal language of squeaks and grunts, which might communicate emotion in the most direct manner, with as few civilising niceties as possible!

I had two primary influences: The first was that of various Dada writers/performers, in particular Kurt Schwitters. Some of the vocal patterns that I used as my source material were based on quotations from Schwitters’ Ursonate, which was a particularly strong influence.

The second was that of early animated cartoons, such as those of Tex Avery. I wanted to make something that had the same kind of manic and visceral energy as an Avery cartoon, the crude caricature and capricious, free-form narrative, and, of course, the humour.

Joseph Hyde

progetto di soundscape sulle città italiane originale per la sua interazione circadiana:

The circular life

Matteo Milani di U.S.O project mi ha appena inviato questo interessantissimo video sugli studi di ingegneria acustica sulle automobili: dinamica, confort ed emozione

uno strumento come il Daxophone mi mette allegria...
al seguente link potete ascoltarlo in un brano composto dal suo stesso inventore Hans Reichel:

Lower Lurum

david byrne: playing the building

La musica è una di quelle intensità della vita che ci fa dimentichi della morte o bramosi di conoscerla come finitura di un atto compiuto

102 anni fa, esattamente il 24 dicembre del 1907, all'Opera di Parigi si tenne una solenne cerimonia in cui vennero sigillate alcune registrazioni con i principali cantanti lirici dell'epoca. Le incisioni vennero donate da Alfred Clark della Grammophone Company in Francia, che stipulò che avrebbero dovuto rimanere sigillate per cento anni "Così gli uomini del futuro potranno ascoltare il suono delle principali voci del nostro tempo".
Due anni fa le urne in cui erano state sigillate le registrazioni sono state aperte...

Les voix ensevelies 1
Les voix ensevelies 2

L'immagine di innamoramento perfetto, e dunque di perfetto stupore, che io trattengo dall'infanzia è quella di un forte controluce estivo in cui una pila di libri è immersa nel malinconico dialogo tra il sitar di Ravi Shankar ed il violino di Yehudi Menuhin in "Shankar meet Menuhin" del 1967

Inside Oliver Sacks's Brain



per chiunque non l'abbia ancora letto suggerisco Musicophilia, l'ultimo libro di Oliver Saks

SAVEOURSOUND

stephanmathieu from twitter: My favourite kind of holidays - sitting in the garden, browsing through 67 antique sound FX 78RPMs with a picnic gramophone all afternoon.

Erotic play discloses a nameless world which is reveled by the nocturnal language of lovers.
Such language is not written down. It is whispered into the ear at night in a hoarse voice. At Dawn it is forgotten.
(Jean Genet)

Messaggio da Paola Olivetti, amica e ricercatrice all'università di Birmingham (UK). I suoi studi sono focalizzati sul trovare tracce della musica degli antichi greci all'interno dei testi omerici. In particolare si concentra sulla forma musicale del lamento.

Facebook message 7:07pm:
...Ho un po` di cose da mandarti, mi organizzo un po` le idee e ti inviero` prossimamente qualcosa di preciso.Non so se rispondero` alla tua domanda, se il lamento sia archetipo del suono. Platone certamente non sarebbe affatto d`accordo con questo, vista anche la sua interpretazione `etica` della musica( e il lamento rappresentava un tipo di musica non adatto per la virtu`).

D`altro canto, c`e` un altro aspetto interessante, se per archetipo intendi anche ancestrale, primordiale c`e` qualcosa di interessante in Omero e nelle tragedie: il lamento come suono della natura. Le rocce, i fiumi, le citta`, gli animali `si lamentano` in risposta agli eventi tragici. Questo verbo e` pero` normalmente riferito a persone.
Io pero` non credo che il lamento della natura fosse solo un` immagibe letteraria: c`e` da chiedersi se il lamento fosse percepito come elemento comune tra esseri umani e natura e persino come mezzo di comunicazione. La partecipazione della natura al lamento di Orfeo per la morte di Euridice la dice lunga sul fatto che questa comunicazione fosse `naturale`, e magari questo dovrebbe farci pensare che magari certi significati del suono noi li abbiamo proprio dimenticati.
Esperienza personale: il mio gatto. Ma questo te o raccontero` un`altra volta e non credo ti serva...

Diego Stocco - Music From A Tree.

Mi è successo nuovamente. Passeggiavo nella zona semi pedonale di fronte all'università di Torino. Qualcosa mi metteva a disagio, una presenza! Mi sono voltato e ho avuto un sussulto. A mezzo metro da me, mi seguiva; aspettava che mi accorgessi di lui e mi scostassi. Era il solito silenziosissimo bus elettrico.
La nuova sfida del sound design nell'industria automobilistica sarà trovare un suono per i nuovi veicoli elettrici, un espediente acustico che li renda percepibili a distanza ma che moltiplicato per milioni di auto, non diventi l'ennesimo tormento per le nostre orecchie.
Al link seguente trovate un articolo uscito sull'Economist a questo proposito.

>> Economist: electric cars and sound design

Nelle metropoli il silenzio è uno spazio dove i rumori sono al di fuori della portata d'orecchio. Lontano, oltre i tetti. Ho come l'ipressione che la città trattenga il respiro. L'apnea estiva dei suoni.