lunedì 30 gennaio 2012

Versus, sounding dialogues - by David Letellier

VERSUS . David Letellier from David Letellier on Vimeo.


Versus is a kinetic sound installation by David Letellier. Its functioning is characterized by an interactive dialogic mechanism. There are two kinetic sculptures that are interdependent and they have to be face to face to make sense.Each sculpture is made out of 12 triangular panels, joining at the center in a flower-like shape with actuators to allow slow movement. In the center of this singular "corolla" there's a microphone and a speaker. At fixed timing each sculpture "dialogues" with the other one producing a sound which is recorded and whose frequencies are analyzed by the opposite sculpture. The sculptures then move accordingly, with a pulsating conceptual attitude, before playing back a modified sound. In fact, the original sound emitted by the first kinetic flower is modified by sounds and presence of the visitors and by the reverberations of the room. By their presence these external agents become active actors in the installation, making the continuous loop always unpredictable. An alien communication is established, but one grounded in the obscure grammar coded by the artist. The spectators are the "noise" in this communication, but are also the agents of variation and evolution of the dialogue. It's a classic ecosystem for the transmission of sense, and the kinetic movements are not only functional (changing the shape changes the emission of sounds as well), but they are also shown to be alive and reactive, which in a communication environment is simply essential.
Chiara Ciociola

http://www.neural.it/art/2012/01/versus_sounding_dialogues.phtml
http://www.davidletellier.net/works.html#versus

martedì 24 gennaio 2012

[culture jamming propaganda made for a school project]





Leah Lievrouw, Alternative and Activist New Media



Alternative and Activist New Media provides a rich and accessible overview of the ways in which activists, artists, and citizen groups around the world use new media and information technologies to gain visibility and voice, present alternative or marginal views, share their own DIY information systems and content, and otherwise resist, talk back to, or confront dominant media culture.

Lievrouw ranges over five different fields of investigation: culture-jamming, alternative computing, participatory journalism, mediated mobilization, and commons knowledge. Taking Dada and Situationism as initial reference points, she goes through different classic artworks (by Surveillance Camera Players, RTMark, Jonah Peretti, for example) analyzing the hacktivist initiatives of sharing the DeCSS code embraced by 2600 The Hacker Quarterly magazine and the whole history of Indymedia.

venerdì 23 settembre 2011

Urban Audio, composing with traffic


Click on image to play video






When R. Murray Shafer conducted the International Sound Preference Survey a few decades ago, traffic noise was categorized as one of the least appreciated sounds in the world, together with dentist drills and chalk squeaking on blackboard. Sound artist Florian Tuercke has been spending the last few years attempting to transform the ever-hated noise of traffic into harmonious music, taking up a challenge that could be compared to the alchemist’s goal of turning lead into gold

http://www.youtube.com/user/urbanaudioorg

mercoledì 14 settembre 2011

lunedì 12 settembre 2011

VidiMasher 3000 (Video Mashup Screen) Demo - Mark Gunderson, aka The Evolution Control Committee


Click on image to play video







The mashup master Mark Gunderson, aka The Evolution Control Committee, has been in the music plagiarism field for the last couple of decades. One of his latest tactical products (after so many others) is called VidiMasher 3000. It's a 122-centimeter rear-projected faux touchscreen, which shows the overloaded Ableton Live software setup of loops Gunderson uses during his live, plagiaristic shows.

The VidiMasher 3000. Based off of Johnny Chung Lee's whiteboard, we assembled a four-foot rear-projected faux touchscreen. It's perfect for our Wheel Of Mashup shows, which depend on an overloaded setup of Ableton Live. Because it's overloaded, it's very difficult to mouse quickly and accurately enough to mash things up on the fly. The touchscreen solves that.

http://evolution-control.com/index.php/experiments/videos/151-video-mashup-screen-demo/

giovedì 8 settembre 2011