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TAG ARCHIVES: field recording

TRANSMISSIONS | HONG KONG

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Picture 3

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This week’s transmission is an excerpt from our archive of field recordings done in Hong Kong in 2008. Though recent, many sounds captured in these few minutes reflect a Hong Kong of the past: due to development, the sound landscape of the city has changed drastically within the past few years, as Chinese institutions like the open-air food markets, or dai pai dong, disappear from the streets. This clip echoes the sounds of a Hong Kong that can no longer be accessed.

We hope you enjoy this third installment of transmissions.

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TRANSMISSIONS | DEATH MUST DIE

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Death Must Die

This week’s transmission is an extract from Death Must Die, which, like La Brulure, is one in a series of limited-edition Soundwalk releases with custom-designed letterpress packaging.

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“Death Must Die is a sound piece that begins before the rising of the sun and reproduces the cycle of a day in Varanasi… Benares, Kashi; a sacred city, where death is everywhere, bathed in light. It is here that the Hindus come to die and burn their dead. It is here, on the river’s edges, that the wrath and the grace of Shiva are expressed.

The sound intoxicating as death itself, it is a hammering song of the dead, playing until one is transfixed. It’s the murmuring of the Ganges… the power of silence.

[Death Must Die] revisits the cycles between life and death, using sound as a metaphor: the laughter of children playing, dogs barking – it contrasts the extreme accumulation of bells, the infernal trance of religious songs, the peculiar sound of bodies burning upon wood… the voice of a young nun coming from an ashram in the silence of the night.”

We hope you enjoy this second installment in the summer Transmissions series.

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TRANSMISSIONS | LA BRULURE

Sunday, August 1, 2010

La Brulure

In light of Soundwalk’s various site-specific projects in the works to be featured in China, Europe, and the United States, we’d like to send word of our travels in the form of weekly installments of sound recordings from the Soundwalk archives, made around the world by our sound artists over the past few years, and the accompanying photography.

We’ll begin with an excerpt from our new sound project, La Brulure, which evokes the heat of summer at its most basic and primal. La Brulure is the first in a series of limited-edition Soundwalk releases with custom-designed letterpress packaging.

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“In a solitary trek along the Mediterranean coasts from Spain to Greece, along the south of France, through Italy, Montenegro, and Albania… Stephan Crasneanscki of Soundwalk records the sulfurous fury of summer. It all begins with sound.

It is that of a cricket in the heart of summer, which, in the intoxication of a lovesong, perishes, sucked dry, burnt by the rays of the sun.

It is the memory of childhood under the sky of vacation, always denser and more blue. The memories of adolescence which burn our skin. Bodily desire, sensual pleasure, betrayal.

The encounters of one night, of one day, the fever of a summer without sleeping. When the spirit is consumed and the passion does not rest.

The trance of cicadas, the music and the songs collected in villages, which like ripples of heat in the air rise to the surface.”

We hope you enjoy the summer’s first installment of recordings from the archives.

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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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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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Cathy Lane | Editions – Issue#6

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Artist:         Cathy Lane
Title:           The Pickle Jar is her home | ©
Date:          2010
Duration:    10′27

LANE_ISSUE#06
photo by: Cathy Lane

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THE SOUND

This composition is an multi-faceted exploration of food as a material, a commodity and as a sounding substance. It also aims to explore  the many  relationships between food and sound from their basic ephemerality to the links and metaphors that tie them as materials to be processed and transformed – from ideas of “mixing”, “chopping”, “cutting” and “blending”.  Mixed, cut and blended together in this ‘ear-piece’ are sound recordings, from both the UK and India, of  food being prepared and cooked, of the places where food is grown and sold, of people and companies selling food and food products and of people talking about food that reminds them of home and childhood and foods that they like to cook and how to prepare them.

The research for this piece into personal and  global food culture  included looking into how food, spices and materials have been and are still central to colonialism and how political exchanges have influenced food, food preparation and taste. This seems particularly pertinent in India where battles  between small producers and agribusiness which have, by and large, been long lost in Western Europe are very much current and where strong regional food cultures seem to still be holding up  against  and possibly enriched by cultural invasions from Europe and the US.  I am also interested in people’s emotional investment in food – as a carrier of memory and of ideas of “home”.  Composing with spoken word material and with ‘real world’ recordings have been long held practices of mine combined with an interest in memory and how this can be both triggered and preserved in sound.

The links and metaphors between food and sound have also been used structurally in the compositional process particularly in the spatialisation and movement  of sounds  where gestures and spatial motifs used in cooking and preparing food have informed the organisation, distribution and movement of sounds between the speakers. This is part of a long held practice based research trajectory into gestural metaphor as a structuring process in sonic composition.

Thanks to all the interview participants, Srishti College of Art, Bangalore, London College of Communication, Sujata and Anurag at Rainforest Retreat.

THE ARTIST

Cathy Lane is interested in sound and how it relates to the past, our histories, our environment and our collective and individual memories. This informs her current work as a composer, sound artist, lecturer and researcher.

She has recently edited Playing with Words: The Spoken Word in Artistic Practice, (available from Cornerhouse Books ) an anthology of works from over forty leading contemporary sound artists and composers who use words as their material and inspiration.  A companion audio compilation will be available in mid 2010 on Gruenrekorder.

Cathy Lane co – directs Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice, (CRiSAP) at the University of the Arts, London.

links: www.crisap.org

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STEPHAN CRASNEANSCKI FOR LACHAINETELE

Monday, March 8, 2010


Interview du créateur du collectif Soundwalk, Stephan Crasneanscki

The French webchannel Lachainetel.tv has just interviewed Soundwalk founder Stephan Crasneanscki about Soundwalk’s beginnings, Le Son du Nous, the Exit Festival at MAC Créteil, the Ulysses Syndrome, and what Crasneanscki considers to be his own individual sound.

For English readers: a brief summary of the interview -

On SOUNDWALK: ["I began by making synchronized audio tours of my favorite places in New York City using my own voice, for my friends...the tours then evolved into a way to enter into the life of another person for an hour and see the city through their eyes, while following the narrative of their story."]

On LE SON DU NOUS: ["The idea is to create these three movements of sound - natural and organic sounds existing before humanity, internal sounds of the human body, then sounds created by humans' influence on their environment, both small & large: a spoon against a glass, the sound of a building being constructed or crumbling to the ground...to lead us together to find the true Sound of Us."]

On MAC Créteil’s EXIT FESTIVAL: ["An interesting and exciting platform for experimental projects in art and design, where creatives like Starck and Soundwalk can meet and collaborate...."]

ULYSSES SYNDROME: ["The project entails capturing Hertzian frequencies on the Mediterranean Sea, like  fishermen have snared fish throughout history, and melding the sounds into a 24-hour audio collage, resonant of the 24 songs of Homer."]

On his INDIVIDUAL SOUND: ["Since I work with sound as a material every day, in the end I prefer silence, but among sounds my favorites are natural: the sounds of the body, of breath, and of nature - of wind, of falling rain...."]

Click here to tell us about your individual sound and WIN TICKETS to LE SON DU NOUS with Philippe Starck at MAC Créteil! Also watch for more interviews, sound clips, and exclusive sneak-peaks at the show during the next week!

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Machinefabriek | Editions – Issue #5

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Artist:         Machinefabriek | Rutger Zuydervelt
Title:           The Breathing Bridge, part 2  | ©
Date:          2010
Duration:    10′01

EDITINOS_ISSUE5_FABRIEK

photo by: Rutger Zuydervelt

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THE SOUND

Composed for the International Film Festival Rotterdam, this piece is created using recordings made at the famous Rotterdam Erasmus Bridge.  It’s a sonic portrait and one of two sound-works that attempts to capture the bridge as a living creature while revealing the aural dynamics of everything that happens on and under it.  The first section of the piece focuses on the bridge itself and the second part is mostly constructed using recordings of the Nieuwe Maas river that runs beneath the bridge.

Both pieces were played in a darkened theater.

THE ARTIST

Born on 28 July 1978 in Apeldoorn (The Netherlands), now living in Rotterdam, Rutger Zuydervelt started working as Machinefabriek in 2004.  Machinefabriek’s music combines elements of ambient, modern classical, drone, noise and field recordings, to create ‘films without image’. He released on labels like Type, 12K, Dekorder, Digitalis and Staalplaat. Gigs were played in countries all over the globe, including Russia, Israel, Canada, Switserland, Spain, Chech Republic, Germany, England, and -obviously- The Netherlands.  Rutger collaborated (on record, or live) with artists like Ralph Steinbrüchel, Aaron Martin, Peter Broderick, Frans de Waard, Wouter van Veldhoven, Simon Nabatov, Xela, Simon Scott, Gareth Hardwick, Stephen Vitiello and Tim Catlin amongst others.

links: www.machinefabriek.nu

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