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MONTHLY ARCHIVES: May 2010

SOUNDWALK SETS UP IN CHINA!

Monday, May 31, 2010

Picture 3

ArtInfo China, the Chinese branch of the international art news journal, has covered Soundwalk’s arrival in China and installation of Ulysses’ Syndrome at the Lille Europe Pavilion at the 2010 Expo in Shanghai. We’re excited to be there – there should be a lot of great work there this year. In the near future we’ll keep you updated with photos of this and other upcoming installations of Ulysses’ Syndrome around the world!

Thanks to ArtInfo for the coverage! For the international edition of the magazine online, click here.

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SOUNDWALK IN FRENCH MORNING: MELDING JOY & FEAR

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

French Morning - 05-18-10

French Morning, a French online news magazine based in New York City, has featured Stephan Crasneanscki in a May 18 article about the inspiration behind his creation of Soundwalk and why Soundwalk is different from any other audio guide series. The magazine describes Soundwalk’s stages of incubation this way: “Like any great invention, this one began with a madness among friends. Nearly twenty years ago, Stephan Crasneanscki arrived in New York from France to study at NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. His French friends regularly visited him in his “dilapidated loft” in the Lower East Side, and, ever the good host, he provided neighborhood guides for them.” Upon deciding to turn these guides into audio walks, consisting of a tape of directions, practical information, and more, the magazine quotes Crasneanscki in remembering, “I had [the listeners] play a role, perform a scavenger hunt or enter friends’ houses, climb up to roofs, take off layers of clothing or buy things.”

Now, with a cache of successes marked by names like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Philippe Starck, and the Louvre, French Morning cites Crasneanscki in continuing to insist upon the importance of the human element at the heart of Soundwalk tours, both existing and in development: “I am not interested in the history of the city in general because there are a million guides for that. What we’re searching for in our Soundwalks is something deeply felt, the thrills of joy and of fear.”

Behind each guide, continues French Morning, are “months and months of editing, timing, assembly and testing.” But, as the city changes, they inquire, in what ways does Soundwalk attempt or not attempt to change along with it?  In response, Crasneanscki states, “Like a flower wilts, places close. I’m not looking to reinvigorate these places; the idea is that when a walk dies, it dies. Happily, certain things will never fade, like the Jewish element of Williamsburg. The force of the Hasidic Jews – it is endurance!”

The article closes in mentioning Soundwalk’s and Ulysses’ Syndrome’s presence at the Universal Shanghai Expo 2010, which we’re also very excited about.

Thanks to French Morning for the coverage!

Download the Lower East Side Soundwalk (mp3)

Download the Williamsburg Hasidic Soundwalks (mp3 or iPhone app)

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BLAST MAGAZINE REVIEWS ULYSSES’ SYNDROME

Monday, May 10, 2010

Picture 5Blast Magazine, a French Design, fashion, and culture publication, has featured Soundwalk’s Ulysses’ Syndrome installation at the Shanghai 2010 Expo on their site this week, April 3, 2010. The review, written by Guillaume Fédou, names Ulysses’ Syndrome as “[the most ambitious piece of sound art since Homer's Odyssey, dipping its toes in the China Sea]“.

“[Ulysses continues his trek to the port of Shanghai, mixing the flavors of the Mediterranean with the fruits of the China Sea. A 24-hour work of sound gathering a range of fragments recorded in autumn 2009 between Troy and Ithaca (passing by the Gulf of Naples, Palermo, the Stromboli Volcano and the Eolie Islands, Carthage), Ulysses' Syndrome is likely Soundwalk's most ambitious work since the film Kill the Ego. The fact that it is being presented today, in Shanghai, is no coincidence since it is there the mythology of the twenty-first century is playing out. It is situated in the center of the cosmopolitan city, on Nankin street (the equivalent of the Champs-Elysées) in an ancient Taoist temple named Hong Niao (red bird)

The Ulysses' installation is realized in relation with a series of projects for Lille 3000 (for which Soundwalk has also created an installation titled Room Number 8 with the voice of renowned actress Joan Chen in the Saint Sauveur train station reborn as Hotel Europa). The project was curated by Didier Fusillier, who also headed the Exit festival at MAC Créteil. [The installation occupies] a freely accessible terrace in the heart of the most passionate city in the world, contrary to the French Pavilion, which one must pay to enter. Amongst the dozens of other pavilions, Ulysses remains proud and free: not much has changed since the days when he left, and then returned to his kingdom in Ithaca]”.
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Thanks to Blast for the great article!
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About Editions

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

ABOUT EDITIONS

“A soundscape consists of events heard not objects seen.” – R. Murray Schafer

Soundwalk Editions features artists and composers who use environmental field recordings as a point of departure in their work.  By recording sounds outside of the conventional studio you are in the act field recording, audibly engaged with ears that gradually refine a sonic experience, like the eye looking through a camera lens.  Field recording  is often synonymous with phonography, in which sound takes the place of image in documenting a location, physical act, or a natural occurrence.  Drawing attention to the quality and experiential nature that can exist in the soundscapes of our environment, these works allow the viewer to have an intimate experience with the various compositional approaches practiced by each individual artist.  Through listening to these recordings we have the opportunity to become aware of the various dialects that can exist in the language of field recording compositions.

contact + more information

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Edwin Lo | Editions – Issue #7

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Artist:         Edwin Lo
Title:           Rabbit Travelogue: Central Region  | ©
Date:          July, 2007 – January 2010
Duration:    10′29

EDITIONS#7_LO
photo by: Edwin Lo

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THE SOUND

Rehabilitation, demolition, collective memories, public spaces…..with no doubt, these words can be considered as the most frequent words appearing in the discussion of urban planning in Hong Kong.  Streets, spaces, the aura of daily life, landscape and soundscape are undergoing the rapid changes in recent years. Behind these changes, what is the mechanism or ideology indeed?  Taiwanese essayist and cultural critic, Lung Ying-tai, articulates the term “central value” which describes the domination and limitation of the perspective in observing Hong Kong as well as main and absolute value in determining the urban development of the city. Wandering in different places or spaces and collection of soundscape in Central and Sheung Wan, what Rabbit Travelogue: Central Region suggests that we observe, correspond, and question the central value by using sound and its archival and creative practice.  By continuously recording and observation of the places around the areas, this project aims at portraying different possibilities of understanding, constituting and examining the places where the artist has been over Central and Sheung Wan.  Through the attentive listening about places, events and happening of the areas, how does the artist and listeners go deeper in searching for the other side of certain memories and emotions the confront the central value?

THE ARTIST

Born in 1984. Edwin Lo is a sound artist, sound designer, field recordist and phonographer form Hong Kong graduated from School of Creative Media (SCM), City University of Hong Kong.  Through different experiments on sound, Edwin Lo tries to develop his own philosophy and language on sound and listening: thinking sound as an object of desire, as haunting memories and experiences, articulation of our consciousness and awareness on listening and the evolution of listening.  Edwin Lo’s works were published in various places such as Hong Kong (Lona Records), China (Little Sound), Japan(Niko Edition) and Mexico (Mandorla).  In 2007, he established Rabbit Travelogue with video and film director Rita Hui and they are producing an on-going dialogue between sound and vision.  Lo’s sound works were exhibited since 2008 in various local and overseas exhibitions. In 2010 spring, He finished his new granted project, Rabbit Travelogue: Central Region, supported by Hong Kong Art Development Council.

links: http://rabbit-travelogue.com/centralregion/ |  http://rabbit-travelogue.com/fragments

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Sawako | Editions – Issue #7

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Artist:          Sawako
Title:           umi to mimi to nami to  | ©
Date:          2010.4.28
Duration:    5′16

EDITIONS#7_SAWAKO_1
photo by: Sawako

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THE SOUND

Light and shadow. real and dream. public and private. subjective and
Objective. individual and universe. despotic and collaborative.
Ownership and commons. un/controlled materials and un/expected result.
Playing and listening.

Me in the dream of butterfly in the dream of mine in the dream of.

Everything gets mixed on the audible palette.
The border was not there from beginning, in fact, you created it in
Your imagination.
Disappear from the stage and leave only slight trace of existence.

Maybe that is the reason why I am fascinated with field recording. maybe.

The original field recording was recorded by sawako in Niigata Japan
on March 2010, in the sound walk workshop lead by hofli, organized
by Flea Ongaku, attending 15 people of various back ground including
Japanese sound artist asuna.

THE ARTIST

Originally born in Nagoya, Japan, Sawako is  a sound sculptor, a timeline-based artist and a signal alchemist. Once through the processor named Sawako, memories in everyday life float in space vividly with a digital yet organic texture. She has 4 solo CD releases from 12k, and/OAR and Anticipate Recordings, has collaborated with Taylor Deupree, Andrew Deutsch, Kenneth Kirschner, Taku Sugimoto, Toshimaru Nakamura, asuna, Daisuke Miyatani, Radio Sonde, Ryan Francesconi and Jacob Kirkegaard, and has performed in Tonic, WFC, Armory Show, Issue Project Room, Roulette, Warm Up at P.S.1, Monkey Town (NYC); Send + Receive Festival, MUTEK (Canada), Kunstraum Walcheturm (Zurich), m12 (Berlin), Corcoran Gallery (Washington DC), UCLA Hammer Museum (LA), offsite, Apple Store Sinsaibashi (Japan); OFFF Festival (Lisbon), Glade Festival, Resonance FM, ICA London (UK), and other venues in the US, Europe and Japan. Sawako obtained a Master’s degree in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

links: http://www.troncolon.com

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