Michael Landy's Art Bin

Project NADAL

  

NADAL Beta 2009
canon ball, walls, zinc, tennis balls

The project NADAL is an attempt to get close to a geometrical fantasy. By facing the limits of performance and failure, by challenging borders between a champion and a machine, it can be seen as one of the constant love & hate story (interaction) which shapes our relationship with technologies. 

The installation NADAL Beta consists in a purview which is meant to insert and to deploy itself within an architectural in order to animate it. The installation proposes a degenerated form of tennis loaded by a canon ball. The machine propels balls on a meticulously calibrated trajectory in order to generate a space emulation.
The installation develops a kind of clinical juggling generated by a radical and mecanical purview... Among this perspective, the intervention questions notions of shifting process and network in order to produce an innovative plastic concretisation of circulation within a steady space.

http://www.pauldestieu.com/nadal1.php

I had a similar idea. My installation idea consists of a tennis ball machine (many) that shoot out tennis balls at the audience/visitor/viewer. Off course no one would get hurt as there would be a glass wall or netting as protection.

NADAL in KIBLA by PAUL DESTIEU 2010 from paul destieu on Vimeo.

Without Records

 

 "without records" Otomo Yoshihide＋Yasutomo Aoyama  

In this installation, there are about over a hundred portable record players without records. In the space, turntables scattered everywhere, high and low, right and left, produce noises by the rotating friction, resonating in multilayer. Quiet, low-fi sounds form groups and change the entire image of sounds. This works provide people with an opportunity to reconsider the meaning, possibilities, and historical significance of sound art composed of records and turntables, which are being consigned to oblivion in the digital age. 

Otomo Yoshihide is an artist I really appreciate. He has a huge influence on my work and ideas. Today I was talking to a fellow classmate about an idea I have for a project using CD/DVD players (although different to Otomo's colab I see a connection).  I realized that I've had this idea stored away in a hidden (forgotten) compartment of my brain. I should write everything down and then develop them at a later stage (or discard them).

Hum

Mounted on each ceiling fan is one speaker and audio equipment. Sound is activated with a tilt switch (movement activated switch) when a fan starts spinning. The sound consists of a simple, hummed melody. Each 2 minute recording is endlessly looped while the fan spins six fans spinning six melodies to create a chorus. The spinning speakers give the audio a tremolo effect (like the spinning speakers of the Hammond organ) which varies based on the fans speed. Each fan is moving in the same pattern (controlled by a computer) but the staggered start time of each fan results in an ever-changing pattern.

Exhibition History:
2003 York Quay Gallery (Toronto); 2005 Toronto Convention Centre (in conjunction with Toronto International Art Fair)

www.marlahlady.com

MUAC installation

Instalación de Cildo Meireless from Ismael on Vimeo.

Cildo Meireles is one of Brazil’s most respected and international artists. He is known as a conceptual installation artist. He is noted especially for his installations, many of which express resistance to political oppression in Brazil. These works, often large and dense, encourage the viewer’s interaction. This is a piece he showed at the MUAC museum in Mexico City.

Still no guides

Emmanuel Lagarrigue is a young French artist who works with sound as a material rather than as a medium. He uses it in sculptures and installations. This video features the piece Still no guides from 2008, an atmospheric combination of neon lights and buffer sound.

Command Line Wave

'Command Line Wave' is a work combining live performances and installations that use light cubes with built-in handheld microphones and sounds for controlling the patterns of the light. What you hear from a fax or a modem when they are connecting is the information transformed into sound under a certain rule and it somehow sounds cool. I came up with an idea of making sound for my live performances by generating sound under a certain rule. (Not a musical rule, but a rule that derives from a technical reason for communication.) 

The plan of commands to control the patterns of light on the cube becomes the rule and the sequences of those commands generated under the rule becomes music. Also, the connection of the cube has an uncertainty depending on the position and angle at which it would be placed. This is not a simple interactivity on a one-on-one level, but a work that generates not only micro rules but also macro and spatial rules by selecting commands according to the information received previously such as by how many percent the object is unreactive. The cube not only glows in response to sound , but also blinks and glows in a curve sometimes, regardless of the sound. How the cube glows can be controlled by sending sound commands. For example, in one scene, the cube blinks regardless of the sound, in the next scene, the cube reacts to low pitch sound and glows red. After that, the cube reacts to low pitch sound by glowing blue, middle pitch sound by glowing green, and high pitch sound by glowing red. Creating the cube object and designing the plan of commands is merely making a platform. There are many possibilities for which this can be presented. If one wants to enjoy such a media work using those commands and exchanging data, usually one needs a computer or a special interface device. However this work only requires speakers、and one can enjoy the results to the full extent. For example, you can input commands to an audio CD and the cube would respond fully to the sound. This work can be played using existing infrastructures.

This time we have light and sound working together. This is obviously work in progress.

Kinetic Light Installation

Beacon at Lightwave 2009 from Cinimod Studio & Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.

Lately I have been interested in exploring light (with sound). Yes I'm aware there is no sound in this particular piece.

Interactive wall

The idea was to create the wall which in case approach any person to its surface will change the visibility and make impossible to look inside into the private space of the inhabitant. The wall consist of modular cells with the dimensions 30×30 cm. In each cell three fans are located which are connected to the motion sensor. Person entering to the sensor active zone [1,5 m from the wall surface] by his motion actuate the sensor which actuate fans. Fans by their movement make the foamed polystyrene balls flying. Movement of the balls block off the view and change transparency of the wall. Active sensors actuate also stripes of leds located in the cells creating sensual scene of flying balls similar to water motion. The wall can be programmed in several different behaviors and give different impressions. It was created as a modular object and can be implementet in many different scenarios.
The cell construction.
The cell has a internal closed space filled by foamed polystyrene balls and external open space in which all wiring system was placed. Internal surface in the lowest and highest parts is filled by small holes which enable natural air movement. Back part of the cell [internal surface of the wall] impenetrable the air at all, front part of the cell [external surface of the wall] is filled by small holes and make possible to flow natural air from the atmosphere. All parts are made from transparent plexiglass.

Very interesting. This is useful for my polystyrene ball sound sculpture/objects ideas.

Floating Forecaster

Floating Forecaster from Richard Harvey on Vimeo.

A floating display that reinterprets weather information via hovering patterns and flowing movements. The user is invited to create patterns and sequences using either an iPhone interface or a sequencing program

Made with: 30 airbed pumps, a lightuino, max msp, c74 app

Adaptive Bloom

Justin Goodyer: Adaptive Bloom - Bartlett School of Architecture from Ruairi Glynn on Vimeo.

Justin’s work is a prototype responsive screen proposed as a speculative stage set. Blooming mechanical flowers are used as pixels in a grid formation responding to movement. It draws on the balletic tradition of a choreographic poem combining narrative, choreography and score.

The piece is conceived as the backdrop to a holistic improvised performance featuring an aleatoric score, with the dreamlike behaviour of the screen responding to the interplay of a male/female dance pair. It is framed from a narrative taken from the song “Busby Berkeley dreams”... http://www.constructingrealities.com/?p=5

Timecodematter Installation

In the interactive installation Timecodematter the visitor enters an arena that is bordered with vibrating sheets of massive steel. The steel objects are pulsating with low frequencies and they react to the approach of persons. The acoustic energy in this installation is both penetrating and intangible: the resonant properties of twelve different steel sheets respond to the low frequencies and produce a conjuring effect.
 

Christoph De Boeck is part of the production structure 'deepblue' - www.deepblue.be

Detroit Airport Light and Sound Tunnel

I'm interested in art/design/sound that changes the ambience of sterile boring institutionalized public spaces. I don't particularly like the music (in the documentation) but I like the concept. I like airports.

Kinetic lights

"Kinetic lights" consists of a flexible arrangement of remote controllable cable winches with attached LED light modules. Each light module can be adjusted individually in height and luminance by the control software. By synchronizing position and light animation, complex shapes and light patterns can be generated within the array. Any number of winches can be arranged in any spacial configuration. Various LED modules can be attached to the system to form individual custom solutions. White, colored or full RGB LED modules can be attached to the flexible system to produce individual custom solutions.

kinetic lights is a product by WHITEvoid

http://www.kinetic-lights.com
http://www.whitevoid.com

Projects 003: Test Set 1

Osanyow - Test Set 1
 
Just testing the waters...

Projects 002: Trial and Error

Lately I've been thinking about my noise project. I have some ideas of how I will structure my sets. I'm interested in exploring extreme noise and silence. I would like to add rhythms to the layers of noise. 

A few months ago I put up an ad online looking for black metal style drummers and found a few who were interested in joining my experimental project. For now I will keep it solo perhaps using a cheap drum machine (or Korg DS). The layers of noise will come from my mixer (feedback), and other found (metal) objects. I'm interested in creating specific industrial sounds such as the screech of sheet metal. Many thanks to my friend James Wright for designing the logo.

As part of my research I have been listening to the Merzbow box set (50 albums).

Crowbot Jenny

Crowbot Jenny is a shy and reclusive girl preferring to spend time surrounded by animals rather than with humans. One day she creates the Crowbot, a robot which vocalizes a variety of crow calls to control and converse with her newly formed bird army – but just what exactly will she do with her new powers?

Inspired by the book “When Species Meet” by Donna Haraway, the project sets out to explore the world of animal intelligence and animal-human interactions. Sputniko! worked with two world specialists in crow intelligence, Prof. Nathan Emery and Prof. Nicola Clayton, who provided her with samples of rook calls (the ones flocking in London parks are usually ‘rooks’, not crows) The calls were reproduced to communicate, attract, repel and engineer the behavior of rooks in Finsbury Park and Hyde Park, London.

 
 The robot makes four different crow calls - "I'm dying" "I found food" "Hello" "I'm in a fight so please come help me" in an attempt to communicate with the crows in urban wild life.

A video from Sputniko!’s initial tests conversing with crows in Finsbury Park

Projects 001: Baptized today

 
I've decided that my solo noise project will be called Osanyow.

Well I should get on with making some noise (which is the important part...)

Trimpin - Guitar Tower

 

Massive sound sculpture of electric guitars forming a tower.

Manuel Rocha Iturbide - Ping Roll

Since I'm interested in working with balls I thought this ping pong piece is something to look at and ponder about. I don't particularly like or dislike this work. The artist explains (see below) the whole process and ideas behind his piece.

 

Sound Sculpture by Manuel Rocha Iturbide
 
The sound sculpture has 3 series of speakers that play 3 tracks with the sound of processes of ping-pong balls bouncing stochasticly, alternating with periods of silence, and with pure sinusoidal frequencies. The sound of each track alternates between each other so that the speakers sound at different times. The sinusoidal frequencies diffused through the speakers were calculated in order to be sympathetic to the natural tuning of the sculpture's alluminum plate, so that they make it vibrate and resonate. The effect of the vibrating plate over the ping-pong balls is that some of them bounce in a fixed point...continue here

Robin Minard - Outside In (Blue)

I really like the ambience on this sound installation. The blue light is really effective. I've been thinking a lot about lighting and presentation, on how it can enhance the overall experience of a sound piece.

Nam June Paik - Video Flag

 

Installation: "Video Flag" by Nam June Paik  

Sound: "Statement" by Koxbox

This is brilliant! Political and humorous.

Carsten Nicolai - syn chron

 syn chron 2004

lightweight structure, steel, aluminum, laser projection, sound system, rubber

1250 x 800 x 460cm

The intention of syn chron is to create an integral sculpture of light, sound and architecture. the translucent skin of the crystal-shaped body besides its function to define the spatial structure of the object additionally serves as an interface for a synchronized play of light and sound. the object at the same time is a room for spatial experience, an acoustic resonance body, and a projection surface. the visitor is witness to an interplay of electronic sound – transmitted onto the surface of the crystal shape – and programmed laser beams that are visible both on the out- and the inside. syn chron hereby creates an synaesthetic experience: on the level of human perception space, light and sound blend into each other to form a holistic experience.

Carsten Nicolai is a sound artist that often collaborates with Ryoji Ikeda. He's released numerous electro glitchy albums under the name Alva Noto. Below you can see it in action.

The Singapore river as a psychogeographical faultline

 

Do you know the starting or ending point of Singapore River? Or the shape that the Singapore River takes? Conceptualised and produced by 26-year-old Singaporean artist, Debbie Ding, the exhibition will examine and reconsider the role of the Singapore River through a unique mix of interactive and generative map installations.

Video Credits:
Edited by Jared Keh
Camera by Keshav Sishta
Audio composed by Simon Petre

Interesting interactive installation by Debbie Ding. For more documentation and technical details go here

Dissertation 002: Fluxus Movement

 

In theory the fluxes movement should be the answer to works that are more accessible and understood. They break down the boundaries between the performer (or work) and audience (or viewer of the work). There are elements of chance and playfulness we can all relate to. I've been looking at another art movement of the 90's that has a lot in common. I will expand on this later as my ideas are not fully formulated at this stage...

Borrowed manifesto!

 

 'Art has been removed from being an integral part of our society and has been relegated to mere processes which had lead to the production of dry, academic, pedantic, superficial, mechanical, and mass produced works of art devoid of all integrity, honesty, and meaning and has stripped art of its physical, psychological, moral and spiritual impact necessary for the thriving and indeed the very survival of human culture'  

Manifesto by Umberto Crenca, Martha Dempster and Steven Emma (1982)

   

And if you replace Art with Sound Art...

Dissertation 001: Philosophy and Improvisation

In a few weeks time I will hand in my dissertation proposal. 

I've been researching and reading on and off during my summer break. It's a matter of me picking a subject within sound art discourse (that I'm passionate about) and sticking with it.
I think I've found a direction to pursue...

I'm currently reading 'Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art' by Salome Voegelin, 'Sudden Music: Improvisation, Sound, Nature' by David Rothenberg and various online journals. I've identified four more books I want to take out. More updates soon.

Acorn Bath

Maybe I am biased but this album is amazing!

Horacio Pollard (Leon) is crashing at our house and he gave me a copy of his latest album released on Twilight Luggage (a small Norwegian record label dedicated to noise, experimental, improv and drone music). You can download it for free here

Acorn Bath is Horacio Pollard's second album for Twilight Luggage, and his world doesn't seem to have gotten any less strange since the last visit. Bizarre creatures play manic musique concrete while pieces of broken machinery jump out of the bushes to partake in the spectacle. Come along on another wonderful journey into the unknown with Horacio!

http://www.twilightluggage.com/rel/TLMP26

Kari Tykkyläinen

 

I recently discovered this amazing old man on YouTube (thanks to Rich). His name is Kari Ahti Ilmari Tykkyläinen, he's an artist, sculptor and musician. One of his other passions is making videos with young (and old) girls dresses in stockings (off course it's deeper than that). He has uploaded over 700 videos on his YT page. He uses his own music on many of the clips.

Incubate

 

 

I might go to this festival if it's financially viable. A lot of my friends are playing over that weekend (Festival runs from September the 12th to the 19th).

Incubate is the annual celebration of independent culture. Expect a diverse view on indie culture as a whole, including music, contemporary dance, film and visual arts. We bring more than 200 cutting edge artists in an intimate context to an international audience. Black metal next to free jazz. Street art next to academic dance.

Listening Post

I went to see Listening Post yesterday at the Science Museum. It took me about two hours to get there, that's London traffic for you! Once I found the entrance I was excited like a kid going to see a dinosaur exhibition for the first time. The installation by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin was captivating and humorous. The overall experience reminded me of cyberpunk films such as Hackers to name one. As soon you enter the dark room you are drawn into it, staring at 200 mini screens that resemble a home cinema screen. The seating arrangement and dramatic ambient music add to the cinematic feeling. The long intervals after the messages are displayed and read out create anticipation and tension. I did not particularly appreciate the cheesy background music that accompanied the whole process. I do like the concept of computer generated voices reading out uncensored random messages abstracted from chat rooms on the internet. The randomness made me stay longer waiting to hear more absurd messages. 

Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin's Listening Post immerses us in a rhythm of computer-synthesised voices reading, or singing out, a fluid play of real-time text fragments. The fragments are sampled from thousands of live, unrestricted internet chatrooms, bulletin boards and other online public forums. They are uncensored and unedited. Stray thoughts resonate through the space in sound and voice as texts surge, flicker, appear and disappear, at varying sizes and speeds, across a suspended grid of over 200 small electronic screens. An ambient soundtrack accompanies the activity with isolated pulses reminiscent of computer modems, clatterings, footsteps and the beeping of mechanical answering machines. At intervals darkness and silence take over, creating momentary pauses before Listening Post continues with its next movement.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/

Pepperminta

I really want to see this surrealist film by Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist. This is her first full length feature film. The visuals are stunning and the soundtrack is amazing. She is best known for her I'm Not The Girl Who Misses Much (1986) video.

Pepperminta (Ewelina Guzik) is an anarchist of the imagination. She lives in a futuristic rainbow villa and according to her own rules. Colors are the young woman’s best friends and strawberries are her pets. She knows the most amazing remedies to free people of their fears. Pepperminta‘s wish is for everyone to see the world in her favorite colors. Werwen (Sven Pippig), a young plump and shy man yet whose sex appeal Pepperminta finds highly attractive, and the beautiful Edna (Sabine Timoteo), who talks to tulips, join her on her passionate mission.

These three musketeers of a different kind set out to fight for a more humane world. Wherever the gang appears, everything is turned upside down and people’s lives are transformed in the most miraculous and wondrous of ways.

http://www.pepperminta.ch/en/

Flying Tape

Žilvinas Kempinas is an artist I've only recently known about. When talking to a friend about my obsession with fans (ventilators) he told me about this installation he saw in Paris. He had no idea who the artist was but with some extensive research I managed to track him down. I found the work seen in Paris (Flying Tape) and learned more about the artist and his other projects. A lot of his work has sound as a by product and he's obsessed with magnetic tape.

'Flying Tape' features an enormous circular loop of tape filling the entire space, floating and spinning in mid air. The tape is held aloft by a vortex of air created by seven industrial fans pointed outward toward the gallery walls. As the tape spins, it slowly ascends and descends, allowing the viewer to step inside its circle.

The installation achieves its serene monumentality through the careful calibration of the given architectural characteristics of the space and the introduced elements of the fans. ‘Flying Tape’ emphasizes videotape’s contradictory materiality, its surprising strength and flexibility, yet barely-there lightness: the installation is both subject to, yet magically defiant of gravity.

With the growing ubiquity of digital recording technologies, the simple magic of the first VCR’s is becoming ever more remote, and the actual material of analogue videotape, slowly obsolete. Kempinas’ installation manages to re-engage with the metaphorical power of tape as a recording medium. The literal and perceptual feats that ‘Flying Tape’ achieves, serves to powerfully extend tape’s virtuality and transformative potential into an entirely new physical domain.

http://www.spencerbrownstonegallery.com/

Tube

TUBE (created at the Atelier Calder, Saché, France) can be described as a translucent tunnel of parallel lines, created with magnetic tape. Žilvinas Kempinas’ TUBE “resonates with the environment of the floating city and creates a space where vision and movement are linked by means of the body. TUBE addresses the physical and optical experiences of the viewer, and the passage of time, while creating the feeling of being inside and outside simultaneously. One can describe TUBE metaphorically or geometrically but to be appreciated it must be experienced directly. No image can convey the gradual accumulation of sensory experiences awaiting visitors who pass through the translucent tunnel of parallel lines. Kempinas changes the function of magnetic tape from an information carrier to a linear map of time and space.”
(Excerpt from the press release).

White Noise

Žilvinas Kempinas uses unspooled videotape as a material to create unique works which encourage us to consider tape as both physical object and container of information.

Moving on from his gravity-defying works, such as Double O, in which large shimmering loops of tape are levitated in space by industrial fans, White Noise more explicitly refers to videotape as moving image medium. Viewers enter a dark, almost cinematic space and are confronted by what appears to be a large projection screen of pixelated static. The screen vibrates with the fragmented black and white pixels we associate with an untuned video source. A low hum and fluttering sound reinforce the connotation. As viewers move forward, they become aware that the screen is actually hundreds of strands of videotape stretched in horizontal bands vibrated by air currents created by a multitude of fans.

The obsolescent medium of tape is employed to evoke the flickering visual sensation of noise, thus creating a formal resonance with Ryoji Ikeda’s installation of monochrome pixels and digits in the Exhibition Hall.

Kempinas shows us that videotape is more than merely a neutral carrier of virtual moving images. He uses tape to extend its virtuality, transforming it into a medium of futurity, which sculpts and redefines space.

Zilvinas Kempinas is represented by Yvon Lambert in Paris and New York, and Vartai Gallery in Vilnius

The Small Within the Great

An instrument built on a concrete wall, this installation reflects on the survival of information and our participation in that which we observe. Warning! If using headphones, keep the volume low! This can easily give you ringing in your ears. It is a more or less endless drone derived from data of quantum decay; truly random, but also dependent on the act of observation. The viewer(s) is entwined with the sound in a kind of communication. Largely inspired by David Bohm's ideas of active information and mutual participation. More recordings and information forthcoming on my own website. The recordings on this video in particular are quite aggressive, while at other times the sound can be quite sweet, reminiscent of sitar harmonics. While part of my master's thesis, this exhibition was mainly a proof of concept. Future installations of this work would use a more robust BLDC motor system, as well as proper instrument strings.
by Barrie James Sutcliffe

Sound Looking - Rain

Ki Chul Kim - “Sound Looking - Rain”

Telic Arts Exchange and the Center for Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts present a sound installation by the Korean media artist Ki Chul Kim.

“Sound Looking - Rain” is a sound installation that investigates the nature of perception and representation in relation to the Buddhist concept of emptiness. Suspended from the gallery ceiling is a matrix of audio speakers, wires and monofilament, the audio that fills the space is a sound collage of falling rain. Kim’s sound landscape induces us to float between the opposing forms of sight and sound. Kim also references a formal minimalism as we experience the shifting relationships between sound, speakers, the gallery space and our bodies.

This exhibition is made possible in part by the generous support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Korg Monotron

I've just bought this online! The Korg Monotron (based on the MS-20) is similar to my DS-10 but it can do a lot more I hope.

Analog on the go!

Analog synths were once massive, temperamental monsters; but no more! The true analog monotron fits in your pocket and is ready to play – anytime, anyplace. Although small enough to hold in one hand, the amazing monotron delivers ginormous and dazzling sounds. Best of all, it's a blast to play. The controls have been streamlined for ease of use. Concentrating on the most important sound parameters, the panel contains only five knobs and one switch. With this level of simplicity, now anyone can easily enjoy the world of analog synthesizers.

http://www.korg.com/monotron

White Noise Machine

White Noise Machine by Yuri Suzuki. This machine reminds me of Luigi Russolo's 'Intonarumori'. It was constructed in India and the kids are having so much fun interact with it.

Prepared Turntable

Designed by Yuri Suzuki 2008
A turntable that focuses on actively composing and playing music.This record player has 5 tone arms, each of which can have its volume controlled by its own fader.
This is an analogue answer for the digitalized DJ. Filmed by Ben.

Breakfast Machine

Hollywood directors dreamed of it: the breakfast machine. Imagine a contraption that sets a chain reaction in motion at the push of a button, frying eggs, juicing oranges, brewing coffee, making toast, and serving it all on a plate with jam, meat and cheese. What a perfect way to start the day! This fantasy became reality during Platform21 = Jamming, when Japanese designers Yuri Suzuki and Masa Kimura built a machine just like this at Platform21 with help from fellow designers and the public.

Platform21 = Jamming was Platform21’s final project, and so we threw everything into the mix. Yuri Suzuki and Masa Kimura reused the remnants of previous Platform21 projects in their breakfast machine, from remote-controlled toy cars to hacked IKEA lamps. They got help from other designers who’ve taken part in past Platform21 projects, and many vistors lended a helping hand too!

So whether you’re a Gyro Gearloose or all thumbs didn't matter. The building consisted of a hefty dose of improvisation and a great deal of testing. Every day the machine took on a new function and the breakfast gained a new component. By the end, Platform21 changed into a restaurant serving all-day breakfasts!s

This breakfast machine reminded me of the one seen in Pee Wee's Big Adventure.