Sensing City: Urban Rhythms Influence a Musical Performance in Real-Time :: February 14, 2009; 9:00 pm :: Atelier Fachhochschule Meppen, Schliemannstrasse 37, 10437 Berlin.

Sensing City is a live concert by an eleven-piece-ensemble which is influenced by urban rhythms, namely the movement of cars outside the concert venue. As the passing cars trigger the rhythms that are being played, the city becomes audible through the musicians, even when the urban dwellers are part of the composition unknowingly.

A city has its own rhythm that affects the life of its people and is at the same time created by them. Bus schedules, traffic lights and the turn signals of cars are familiar patterns to the citizen. This interplay between creation and inspiration takes place at the heart of the music.

Watch a short preview here. Images of the concert are also available here. Thanks: information aesthetics.

4th Radiator Festival and Symposium: Exploits in the Wireless City :: January 13-18, 2008 :: Nottingham, UK :: Launch Event: January 14, 6:00 -11:00 pm — Broadway Media Centre, Backlit (tbc), Surface Gallery.

Exploits in the Wireless City aims to instigate discussion, debate and new interdisciplinary research networks based on the understanding that the development of digital networks are transforming our notion of space.

GOING UNDERGROUND: Through its artistic interventions, Radiator will put theory into practice with projects and events that both position and challenge the dominant forces at work in the urban environment and explore the new territories opened up by new hybrid spaces. Radiator will set up investigations into this infrastructure by placing 5 artists into the urban confines of British cities in the Going Underground project: Continue reading

Going Public ’08 – Port City Safari: The Sound of the City by Zafos Xagoraris, Piazza Garibaldi, Sassuolo :: until December 21, 2008 :: aMAZElab Via Cola Montano 8, 20159 Milano, Italy.

Starting from the text by the famous writer Italo Calvino ‘Le città invisibili/The invisibile cities’, The Sound of the City intends to map the city through a collection of sounds / silence / noises which are typical of specific areas: the suburbs, schools, markets, squares. The project intends to create spatial and functional surveys for the definition of an idea of architecture and space referring to today’s acoustic ecology and sociology. Zafos Xagoraris’ work can be seen both as an architecture and a sculpture in the public space. His sound installation will be presented in the main square of the city Piazza Garibaldi with a transmission of sounds from different port cities. Continue reading

LAb[au] presents Binary Waves :: November 28 – 29, 2008; 2:00 – 10:00 pm :: Opening: November 27, 6:00 -9:00 pm :: Gesu Church, Rue Royale 165 Koningstraat, Brussels, Belgium.

Binary Waves is an urban and cybernetic installation based on the measuring of flows and their transposition into luminous, sonic and kinetic rules. The installation is constituted by a network of rotating and luminous panels of 3 meter-high and 60 centimetres wide, forming a kinetic wall. Their rotation is controlled by microprocessors, allowing to determine precisely the rotation speed and angle, while their networking allows to synchronise the movement of the panels. The microprocessors are connected to infrared sensors, capturing the movement of passer-by’s. Continue reading

A10LAB & SCIE PROTOCOL are invited to the MobilFest III – Conference on Cyborgorganism – Open Cities – Electromagnetic Spectrum Research performance by THE NOISER :: November 14-17, 2008 :: Sao Paulo, Brazil.

“The Farther we emerge from the inner city, the more political the atmosphere becomes. We reach the docks, the inland harbors, the warehouses, the poor neighborhoods, the scattered refuges of wretchedness: the outskirts. Outskirts are the state of emergency of a city, the terrain on which incessantly rages the great decisive battle between town and country. It is nowhere more bitter between Marseilles and the provençal landscape. It is the hand-to-hand fight telegraph poles against agaves, barbed wire against thorny palms, the miasmas of stinking corridors against the damp gloom under the plane trees in brooding squares, short-winded outside staircases against the mighty hills. Continue reading

Returning for its third year, the Electronic Music Foundation’s acclaimed sound art, music and ecology festival Ear to the Earth will take place this month in locations all over New York City. Ear to the Earth is organized around the principle that sound’s distinct emotional impact makes it a significant medium in which to explore environmental concerns such as global warming, extinction and habitat destruction. Divided into two sections, “New York Soundscapes” and “Other Soundscapes,” this year’s events maintain a strong urban emphasis. Andrea Polli’s installation Cloud Car, takes the automobile, a key force within the development of American cities, as its locus. With the aide of special effects technician Chuck Varga, Polli will envelop a Ford Taurus station wagon entirely in mist. Visitors will be invited to sit in the car and listen to environmental sound compositions. Resembling a broken down vehicle on the side of a highway, the work is a poignant symbol for America’s current predicament in regards to oil dependency. Cloud Car will be on display at Eyebeam October 18th and will then move to the New York Hall of Science on October 25th. Continue reading

TINA B – The Prague Contemporary Art Festival presents Stefano Cagol: Un-Secret Signals :: October 9-13, 2008 :: Janovského 23, Prague 7, Czech Republic.

Mass communication and Babilonia. Fragmented communication and freedom of expression. Secrecy and disclosure. Locked and open. Black and white. Morse Code and Light. Hallucinatory flashes of light from the top of the Petrin Tower in Prague illuminate and disorient the nocturnal cityscape of this historical and fascinating place. Sound sequences play intermittently night and day, concurrently accompanying light signals that simultaneously spell out cryptic messages in Morse Code. Continue reading

13th Media Art Biennale: WRO 09 Expanded City :: WRO Center for Media Art, Wrocław, Poland :: CALL FOR WORKS – Deadline: February 15, 2009.

WRO Center for Media Art Foundation announces the international competition WRO 09 Expanded City. The Competition is aimed at artists, producers, distributors and rights holders who explore novel forms of artistic communication, created within the field of electronic media. The competition encompasses screenings, installations, objects, performances, multimedia concerts, net and interactive projects. Continue reading

Electrical Walks with Christina Kubsich :: Launch – September 10, 2008; 5:30 – 8:30 pm :: OBORO New Media Lab, 4001 Berri, 2nd floor, Montreal :: Headphones available from September 11-20, 2008 at Goethe-Institut Montréal, 418, Sherbrooke East) (Free) For more information, see press release.

For the first time in Canada, and concurrently in Quebec City and Montreal, Christina Kubisch presents her Electrical Walks, where members of the public are invited to pace the urban space with headphones specially developed by the artist to transform electromagnetic fields into audible frequencies.

WORKSHOP: Electromagnetic Explorations of the City :: September 16 – 18, 2008 :: OBORO’s New Media Lab. Continue reading

Summertime is the perfect opportunity to visit Graeme Miller’s permanent sound installation, Linked, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this year. Receiver packs are available from:
Artsadmin, Local libraries including Leyton, Leytonstone, Vestry House Museum, Museum of London. Full list of pickup points here. A detailed map and information sheets are available at receiver pick-up points.

Stretching from Hackney Marshes, through Waltham Forest to Redbridge, the M11 Link Road was completed in 1999 after the demolition of 400 houses amid dramatic and passionate protest. Graeme Miller has filled the empty spaces these buildings once occupied with a treasure trail of sound celebrating everyday East End life. Continue reading