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New podcast: ON LISTENING #1. Thinking (through) the ear. Curated by Arnau Horta. Music by Annie Goh. With conversations with Salomé Voegelin, Peter Szendy, Christoph Cox, Casey O'Callahan, Seth Kim-Cohen and Julian Henriques Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/on-listening-1/capsula To what extent is listening ‘thinkable’? Philosophical inquiry, deeply rooted in the visual regime, seems to struggle when it comes to theoretically coming to grips with listening and sonic phenomena. It is, after all, no coincidence that the Greek term ‘theoria’ (θεωρία) means ‘looking at, viewing, beholding’. This programme explores philosophy’s seeming difficulty in grappling with listening and its counterpart – sound – as a powerful deconstructive means to cut through some of the philosophical certainties that underpin classical and modern Western thought. Can we conceive sounds as objects, or it would be more appropriate to consider them events? How far can the phenomenological approach to sound take us, and how much can we rely on it? And what about new materialisms? Are they more useful, in hermeneutic terms, when dealing with sound and listening? These are some of the issues addressed in part one of ON LISTENING. Timeline 1:30 Salomé Voegelin - Listening as a tool to reconsider philosophical certainties and conventions. 6:40 Peter Szendy - The auscultating subject, power and the fundamental disimetry in listening. 20:50 Christoph Cox - Materialistic listening and the limits of a phenomenological approach to sound. 31:24 Casey O'Callahan - Sounds are not objects but events. 46:10 Salomé Voegelin - Possible world theory and listening. 58:21 Seth Kim-Cohen - Listening as a form of writing and inscription. Anthropocentrism versus Anthropomorphism. 1:09:19 Julian Henriques - Embodied listening as a dinamic mode of engagement with the world. + If you liked this podcast, you may also enjoy this one: ON LISTENING. Research process: Jacob Kirkegaard Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/extra/jacob-kirkegaard/capsula
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New #podcast/mix: PROBES #16.2. Auxiliaries. Chris Cutler wonders how far you can go with banjos, mandolins, balalaikas, jew’s harps and ensembles of folk instruments. And it’s pretty far. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/probes16-2-chris-cutler/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20160129/Probes16_2_eng.0.pdf The PROBES Auxiliaries collect materials related to each episode that try to give a broader – and more immediate – impression of the field. They are a scan, not a deep listening vehicle; an indication of what further investigation might uncover and, for that reason, most are edited snapshots of longer pieces. We have tried to light the corners as well as the central arena, and to not privilege so-called serious over so-called popular genres. In this new auxiliary, we wonder how far you can go with banjos, mandolins, balalaikas, jew’s harps and ensembles of folk instruments. And it’s pretty far. And here you can find the complete series of PROBES! Enjoy! -
New podcast: PROBES #15, on experimental uses of the more intractable folk instruments. Curated by Chris Cutler Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/probes-15-1-chris-cutler/capsula In the late nineteenth century two facts conspired to change the face of music: the collapse of common practice tonality (which overturned the certainties underpinning the world of art music), and the invention of a revolutionary new form of memory, sound recording (which redefined and greatly empowered the world of popular music). A tidal wave of probes and experiments into new musical resources and new organisational practices ploughed through both disciplines, bringing parts of each onto shared terrain before rolling on to underpin a new aesthetics able to follow sound and its manipulations beyond the narrow confines of 'music'. This series tries analytically to trace and explain these developments, and to show how, and why, both musical and post-musical genres take the forms they do. In PROBES #15 we look at experimental uses of the more intractable folk instruments: bagpipes, hurdy gurdy and harmonica. Is nothing sacred? You can find the complete series so far, here: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/probes_tag Enjoy!
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New podcast: ON LISTENING. Research process: Jacob Kirkegaard
RWM posted a topic in Music Discussion
New podcast: ON LISTENING. Research process: Jacob Kirkegaard Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/extra/jacob-kirkegaard/capsula In 2014, we interviewed Danish artist Jacob Kirkegaard as part of a research project entitled ON LISTENING. This podcast takes us back to that conversation. With projects on the deserts of Oman, the Chernobyl 'zone of alienation', Arctic calving glaciers and the tones generated by the human inner ear itself, mapping out Jacob Kirkegaard's artistic practice is no easy task. He allows himself to be led by wonder, focusing on hidden or unheard layers of sound and sonic phenomena in highly charged contexts. Kirkegaard uses accelerometers – special contact microphones that record the imperceptible vibrations of materials – to capture hidden resonances. He later works these sounds into compositions or mixed media installations that channel an access to an inner world, addressing complex and often conflicting realities from a neutral standpoint: it is just sound. A cluster of keywords may suggest an insight into his artistic practice: resonant frequencies; accelerometer; Fukushima; calving glacier; metalistening; space; Palestine; neutrality; radiation; John Cage, hydrophones, cochlear; layering; otoacoustic emissions; Arctic; rooms; disharmonic; sleep; nuclear; recording. Kirkegaard is a graduate of the Academy for Media Arts in Cologne and a member of the sound art collective freq_out. He regularly collaborated with the late electronics pioneer Else Marie Pade. His first retrospective solo exhibition was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, and he has presented his work at galleries, museums, and concert spaces throughout the world. His sound works have been released on labels such as TOUCH, Important Records, VON Archives and Posh Isolation. In this podcast, Kirkegaard reflects on the importance of listening and argues that sound art can create purely sensory spaces that go beyond our immediate perception, helping us to grasp the unfathomable. Timeline 02:04 The medium is not often the message 06:48 Framing ressonant frequencies 10:26 Maybe I never went to Chernobyl 17:52 Sound as side effect 20:02 Isfald, 2013 25:33 On neutrality 27:05 How to record a place 31:51 Doubt, knowledge, wonder 37:45 Otoacoustic Emissions 47:30 Earprint: Spontaneous Otoacoustic Emissions 53:43 If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? 56:09 "House of Mare", 2010 ENJOY! -
New podcast: Conversartion with Alvin Lucier Link. http://rwm.macba.cat/en/sonia/alvin-lucier/capsula A key figure in post-Cage experimental music, Lucier is one of a kind, a composer who, as James Tenney says, makes his fellow musicians find themselves “having to revise our basic (and often unconscious) assumptions – our self-evident axioms about music.” Driven by a curiosity to understand “how things work” (an innocent and unprejudiced curiosity that Tenney compares to that of a child), Lucier always seems ready to disappear within sound. It is as if his fascination with the sound phenomenon leads him to avoid interfering in its manifestation. His work is thus by no means based on self-expression or on compositional interventions. Instead, he allows sounds to “be themselves” without pushing or directing them in any way. To coincide with his 85th birthday, SONA features a conversation with Lucier (that took place in Boston in 2014) in which he talks about the need to listen carefully, the composers that have accompanied and influenced him over the years, and the role of space and technology in his work, among many other things. Near the end, he also explains some interesting facts about “I am Sitting in a Room”, one if his best known and most enigmatic works. Many happy returns, Mr Lucier! Background music: "Music on a Long Thin Wire 1", 1977 Timeline 00:00 Not just listening 00:46 Revealing implicit sounds 02:53 Let it happen: on "Music for Piano and Magnetic Strings" 07:18Transparency of sounds 08:35 The question of space 10:48 Music that happens in a loudspeaker 13:16 Letting the players play 14:59 "I'm Sittting in a Room"... live: something wonderful about real time 17:30 "All I wanted to do is to tell people what I was doing"
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In PROBES #14 Chris Cutler take a detour to show how a collision of folk mechanisms, social upheaval, sound recording and electrification underpinned the growth of a new polyglot musical language, and a new aesthetic constituency. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/probes-14-1-chris-cutler/capsula Transcript: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20150909/14probes_transcript_eng.pdf Enjoy!
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New podcast: Angela Dimitrakaki talks about the new feminist critique, the limits of democracy, the wiles of post-capitalism, and the ambivalence of the commons. We also touch on the notions of radical curating and collaborative practices. Featuring music commissioned to AGF and mixed by Lucrecia Dalt. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/sonia/angela-dimitrakaki-agf/capsula Angela Dimitrakaki is an essayist, novelist, and Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art History and Theory at the University of Edinburgh. From the trenches of Marxist-inspired materialist feminism, Dimitrakaki analyses the links between art, the economy, and politics against the backdrop of globalised late capitalism. What type of feminism does the twenty-first century call for? How can anti-patriarchal strategies join forces with the struggle to undermine neoliberalism? How can art history give rise to a new critical paradigm? In her essays, Dimitrakaki discusses all of these issues and examines the ways in which the economy shapes our identities and affects our labour, sexual, migratory, class, and gender relations. Angela Dimitrakaki talks about the new feminist critique, the limits of democracy, the wiles of post-capitalism, and the ambivalence of the commons. We also touch on the notions of radical curating, collaborative practices, and biopolitical art. Timeline 02:44 Feminism / Feminisms 07:18 Struggling against system. We are the system 10:28 Capitalism is a complex monster 15:31 Communalism in times of neoliberalism 18:57 Elections change nothing 23:42 A materialist feminism 27:21 From the cultural subject to an economic subject 32:01 The contemporary art network 34:28 Radical curating 37:59 Some strategies Enjoy!
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New podcast: INTERRUPTIONS #20. The Little People In The Radio present... By Anna Friz link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/anna-friz-interruptions/capsula text+ playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20151110/20Interruptions_eng.pdf A show riffing on the anachronistic childhood fantasy of the little people who live inside the radio and perform all the voices and sounds heard. Turn on the radio, the little people begin to talk; change the station, and they change their voices. Most basically an exploration of the uses and misuses of the trope of the radio host, taken from archival material, scans of the dial and excerpts of works by radio artists, mixed into a landscape of radiophonic interceptions and interfrequency radio sounds. The result is an investigative bricolage that considers the environment, morphology and taxonomy of the little people inside the radio.
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New podcast: PROBES #13.2: Chris Cutler digs into new sounds with long-forgotten instruments. Featuring Nissim Schaul, Arvo Pärt, Phil Legard, Ryōhei Hirose, Bülent Arel, George Crumb and more! Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/probes13-2-chris-cutler/capsula Playlist+info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20150729/Probes13_2_eng.pdf The PROBES Auxiliaries collect materials related to each episode that try to give a broader – and more immediate – impression of the field. They are a scan, not a deep listening vehicle; an indication of what further investigation might uncover and, for that reason, most are edited snapshots of longer pieces. We have tried to light the corners as well as the central arena, and to not privilege so-called serious over so-called popular genres. Related material >>PROBES #13 >>PROBES #13. Transcript >>And here you can find the complete series of PROBES And if you liked PROBES, you will also emjoy Jon Leidecker's VARIATIONS, on the history of sound appropiation and sampling Enjoy!
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New podcast: Roc Jiménez de Cisneros about EVOL's very free deconstruction and reinterpretation of György Ligeti's 'Continuum' and Hanne Darboven’s 'Opus 17a' Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/sonia/evol/capsula The name of EVOL comes from the Catalan word for Sambucus Ebulus, a herbaceous species of elder with a characteristic foetid smell. Under this moniker, Roc Jiménez de Cisneros and Stephen Sharp make what they call 'computer music for hooligans' or 'rave synthesis'. Since 1996, their deconstructed rave objects have been released on record labels such as Editions Mego, Diagonal, Entr'acte, Presto!?, and ALKU, and presented as installations and live performances worldwide. Even though they reject a clear divide between high and low culture, their aesthetic exploration of algorithmic composition could be said to occupy a neutral place between academia, experimental music and club music. With influences ranging from popular culture – from Basshunter to 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' - to highbrow music by composers such as György Ligeti and Hanne Darboven, their music is slippery as slime when it comes to definitions. As their close friend Goodiepal put it a while ago: 'it’s radical computer music'. A list of keywords that have been applied to their work may offer some clues to crucial and lateral aspects of their work: rave, synthesis, elasticity, time dilation, chronesthesia, goo, hoover, hoover-stretching, hyperobject, slime, psychedelia, altered states, fractal, upward spiral, downward spiral, warping, hooliganism, mereology, horns, horny, kaiju, tetrafluoroethane, acid, anti-humanism, mentasmic, climax, freeze-frame, recursive, poing, non-anthem, strobe, party boobytrap, fold-in, continuum, squashed, monolith, asymmetry, homeomorphic, recurrence, fluorescence, phlop. SONA talks with Roc Jiménez de Cisneros about EVOL's very free deconstruction and reinterpretation of György Ligeti's 'Continuum' and Hanne Darboven’s 'Opus 17a', and how these works relate to the duo’s current artistic practice. Unusual notions of time in relation to music, algorithmic reverse engineering, complexity through simplicity, anti-climax, ancient trance music, weird mental states and Dick Higgins' Superboredom concept pop up in the conversation. More EVOL @Radio_Web_MACBA: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_2_evol_marcus_schmickler/capsula Enjoy!
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New podcast: Chris Cutler's PROBES #13 tracks the recovery and reassignment of ancient and folk instruments in unfamiliar contexts. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/probes-13-1-chris-cutler/capsula Transcript: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20150625/13probes_transcript_eng.pdf Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20150706/Probes13_eng.pdf In the late nineteenth century two facts conspired to change the face of music: the collapse of common practice tonality (which overturned the certainties underpinning the world of art music), and the invention of a revolutionary new form of memory, sound recording (which redefined and greatly empowered the world of popular music). A tidal wave of probes and experiments into new musical resources and new organisational practices ploughed through both disciplines, bringing parts of each onto shared terrain before rolling on to underpin a new aesthetics able to follow sound and its manipulations beyond the narrow confines of 'music'. This series tries analytically to trace and explain these developments, and to show how, and why, both musical and post-musical genres take the forms they do. PROBES #13 tracks the recovery and reassignment of ancient and folk instruments in unfamiliar contexts. The complete PROBES series so far can be found here: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/probes_tag Enjoy!
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New podcast: INTERRUPTIONS #19. The possibility of drumming, by Morten J. Olsen (of N.M.O and MoHa! fame) One can easily compile a list of tags to describe a mix, but the real question is whether the list comes after the mix, or whether all those items in the list were already in the author’s practise/background to begin with. Or maybe it’s a bit of both? Innate music, innate rhythms, universal grammar, YouTube-anthropology, vestigiality, rudiments, Swiss mercenaries, acid techno and other elemental forms of expression. Norwegian drummer Morten J. Olsen (of N.M.O and MoHa! fame) delivers a true tour de force of a mix in which he manages to connect all those more or less distant dots, in order to share his very unique views on percussion music. Listen: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/drumming-morten-j-olsen/capsula Read: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20150608/19Interruptions_eng.pdf Think: If we look at it from an outside point of view, from the point of view of an alien, it seems there is no actual need for music at all. I’ve heard it being called cheesecake, Robin Hayward mentioned it, quoting someone I don’t know, maybe it means we like it but it doesn’t serve a clear purpose for survival? At first this may seem like it goes against an idea of a universal grammar of music, but, in fact it works quite well considering we are equipped with many traits and tools that we are not quite sure anymore what they are needed for, i.e. they have lost their original function (these include the tailbone and the appendix, Darwin’s tubercle – which is a piece on 10% of the populations ears, and also goosebumps) – and music? Or is it rather that we haven’t discovered its true function, yet? Anyway this phenomenon is called (human) vestigiality.11 Incidentally, the same phenomenon is called ‘rudiment’ in Germanic languages. And then we are right at the core of where my mix is going: ‘In percussion music, a rudiment is one of a number of relatively small patterns which form the foundation for more extended and complex drum patterns.’ 12 Wikipedia continues: ‘The term “rudiment” in this context means not only “basic”, but also fundamental. While any level of drumming may, in some sense, be broken down by analysis into a series of component rudiments, the term “drum rudiment” is most closely associated with various forms of field drumming, also known as rudimental drumming.’ Morten J. Olsen + You can find the complete INTERRUPTIONS mix series here (feat. mixes by Dave Phillips, Felix Kubin, Wobbly, Chris Brown, Terre Thaemlitz, Vicki Bennett, Carl Michael von Hausswolf, Ben Vida, Kenneth Goldsmith...) http://rwm.macba.cat/en/interruptions-tag
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COMPOSING WITH PROCESS is a podcast series, curated by Mark Fell and Joe Gilmore and commissioned by Radio Web MACBA, exploring generative approaches to composition and performance primarily in the context of experimental technologies and music practices of the latter part of the 20th Century. Below we compiled all the episodes and information: COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #1.1. Continue. A range of sound works representing different periods, traditions and approaches to generative and systems based music. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_1_mark_fell_joe_gilmore/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/process/composingwithprocess1_eng.pdf Transcript: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120201/Composingwithprocess1_transcript_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #1.2. Exclusives. Exclusive music by German artist Florian Hecker and Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_exclusives_florian_hecker_ryoji_ikeda/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20100921/composingwithprocess1_2_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #2.1. Systems. The role of formalised systems in music making. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_1_mark_fell_joe_gilmore/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/process/composingwithprocess1_eng.pdf Transcript: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120201/Composingwithprocess2_transcript_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #2.2. Exclusives. 10.12.2010 (38' 18'') Exclusive music by Marcus Schmickler and EVOL. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_2_evol_marcus_schmickler/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20101209/Composingwithprocess2.2_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #3.1. Determinacy and indeterminacy. This episode looks at how chance has been used in a variety of ways in the composition and performance of musical works. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_3_mark_fell_joe_gilmore/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20110420/Composingwithprocess3_eng.pdf Transcript: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120201/Composingwithprocess3_transcript_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #3.2. Exclusives. Exclusive music by Yasunao Tone and Christophe Charles. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_exclusives_yasunao_tone_christophe_charles/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20110608/Composingwithprocess3.2_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #4.1. Time. The relationship between time and music and the impact of technological development and how time is treated within a range of musical idioms. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_4_mark_fell_joe_gilmore/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20110907/Composingwithprocess4_eng.pdf Transcript: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120201/Composingwithprocess4_transcript_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #4.2. Exclusives. Exclusive music by Laurie Spiegel and Terre Thaemlitz Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_exclusives_laurie_spiegel_terre_thaemlitz/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20110928/Composingwithprocess4.2_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #5.1. Duration. This episode explores the concept of duration in music. It examines the different ways that composers and musicians have explored duration in terms of both the large and small. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_5_mark_fell_joe_gilmore/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20111214/Composingwithprocess5_eng.pdf Transcript: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120201/Composingwithprocess5_transcript_eng.0.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #5.2. Exclusives. Exclusive music by Ben Vida and THE HUB. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_exclusives_ben_vida_the_hub/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120207/Composingwithprocess5.2_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #6.1. Space. This episode explores sound in relation to space. It considers various ways in which composers have utilised acoustic space as an active element in the process of music composition. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_6_mark_fell_joe_gilmore/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120328/Composingwithprocess6_eng.pdf Transcript: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120411/Composingwithprocess6_transcript_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #6.2. Exclusives. Exclusive music by Stephan Mathieu and Russell Haswell. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/omposingwithprocess_exclusives_stephan_mathieu_russell_haswell/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120508/Composingwithprocess6.2_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #7.1. Approaches to change. This episode considers the notion of change in music. It asks how we perceive and quantify change in musical structures, and how generative processes disrupt and enlarge our sense of surprise, expectation, tension and boredom. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_7_mark_fell_joe_gilmore/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120807/Composingwithprocess7_eng.pdf Transcript: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120917/Composingwithprocess7_transcript_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #7.2. Exclusives. Two exclusive works-interviews by Goodiepal. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_exclusives_goodiepal/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20120907/Composingwithprocess7.2_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #8.1. Models of change. This episode considers the notion of change in music. It looks at how scientific and mathematical concepts can be used to model change in the acoustic domain. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_8_mark_fell_joe_gilmore/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20121009/Composingwithprocess8_eng.pdf Transcript: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20121023/Composingwithprocess8_transcript_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #8.2. Exclusives. Exclusive music by Keith Fullerton Whitman and Carl Michael von Hausswolff. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_exclusives_whitman_hausswolff/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130325/Composingwithprocess8.2_eng.pdf COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #9.1. Two Discrete Generative Systems. Mark Fell and Joe Gilmore wrap up this series on generative and process music with a piece created specifically for the occasion: 'Two Discrete Generative Systems'. Podcast: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/composingwithprocess_9_mark_fell_joe_gilmore/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130606/Composingwithprocess9_eng.pdf + You can find the complete podcast series here: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/composingwithprocess_tag So... ENJOY!
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Ràdio Web MACBA's most listened podcasts 2014 1- MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH.... Andy Votel Part I. Produced by Matias Rossi Over the past twenty years, Andy Votel has travelled far and wide in a quest to buy as many records as he could. His main motivation is to listen to music, and the only way to get the music he likes is generally to buy and collect it. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-andy-votel/capsula More info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20131212/Memorabilia_Andy_Votel_eng.pdf 2- MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH.... Brian Shimkovitz. Part I. Produced by Matias Rossi The tale of how a student of ethnomusicology from Brooklyn spent a year in West Africa buying tapes off street markets... and how he managed to turn that bizarre collection into one of the most revered record labels in recent years. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia_brian_shimkovitz/capsula More info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130903/Memorabilia_Brian_Shimkovitz_eng.pdf 3- PROBES #1. Curated by Chris Cutler PROBES #1 sets the scene and investigates early reconsiderations of pitch: probes that postulate new scales to be constructed through the ever-greater subdivision of the inherited intervals of equal temperament. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/probes1_chris_cutler_/capsula More info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20121023/Probes1_eng.pdf 4- ONLY GIRLS OF 17 CAN HEAR UP TO 16.000 HERTZ. A short history of the audio cassette. Curated by Felix Kubin Following with Felix Kubin’s line of research on the creative underground tape scene, in this brief podcast we revisit the origins of the format with former Philips employee Wim Langenhoff. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/extra/wim-langenhoff/capsula More info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20140917/Wim_eng_PDF.pdf 5- INTERRUPTIONS #16. On duration: silence is unavailable, please buy time or switch dimensions. Curated by Dave Phillips Dave Phillips' mix is a true assault on the senses that reflects on extreme durations in music and our relationship with the temporality of sound. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/dave-phillips-on-duration/capsula More info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20140220/16Interruptions_eng.pdf 6- MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH... Eric Isaacson. Part I. Produced by Rosanna Arbon It may seem obvious looking back but Eric Isaacson had no idea that a childhood obsession with The Beatles and an armful of Daniel Johnston cassettes would be the foundation for his work as founder of Mississippi Records label and shop and the keeper of a uniquely free flowing record collection that is detached from time. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-eric-isaacson/capsula More info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20140313/Memorabilia_Eric_Isaacson_eng.pdf 7- PROBES #3. Curated by Chris Cutler This is where pitch becomes weightless and all that is solid melts into air: futurism, noise, electricity, ecstasy and uncertainty. We look at the lure and power of sliding tones. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/probes3_chris_cutler_/capsula More info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130221/Probes3_eng.pdf 8- OBJECTHOOD #2. Curated by Roc Jiménez de Cisneros Cuts, folds, scales, sound objects, charts, chimeras. Artists Erick Beltrán and Florian Hecker discuss different theories about objects in relation to their respective artistic practices. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/specials/objecthood2-florian-hecker-erick-beltran/capsula More info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20140613/Objecthood_2_en.pdf 9- SONA #119 Interview with Allan Sekula about the relationship between art and photography, about artistic activism, the role of the artist in the public sphere and "Waiting for Tear Gas". Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/sonia/allan_sekula/capsula 10- INTERRUPTIONS #15. Cumulative Tails. Curated by Vicki Bennett Cumulative Tails is a pun upon the 'cumulative tale', where each part of a story relates to that which just preceded and followed it. This radio mix, curated by Vicki Bennett, has been created using that process – a succession of audio tracks picked in conceptual relation only to that which was previously played. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/vicki-bennett-cumulative-tails-/capsula More info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20131230/15Interruptions_eng.pdf
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This mix explores extended techniques for percussion and winds. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/probes9-2-chris-cutler/capsula The PROBES Auxiliaries collect materials related to each episode that try to give a broader – and more immediate – impression of the field. They are a scan, not a deep listening vehicle; an indication of what further investigation might uncover and, for that reason, most are edited snapshots of longer pieces. We have tried to light the corners as well as the central arena, and to not privilege so-called serious over so-called popular genres. This auxiliary explores extended techniques for percussion and winds. Enjoy!
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What is Radio Art? What are we doing? Ben Vida, Felix Kubin, Goodiepal, Kenneth Goldsmith, Jon Leidecker, Tetsuo Kogawa, Chris Cutler and Roc Jiménez de Cisneros give their own answer to these ontological question. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/extra/radio-as-art/capsula In June 2014 we participated in the international symposium 'Radio as Art - Concepts, Spaces, Practices: Radio Art between Media Reality and Art Reception', co-organised by the Centre for Artists’ Publications at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art in Bremen and the Universities of Bremen and Cologne. True to RWM form, we asked some of our closest collaborators to answer two simple questions. You can listen to the contributions of Ben Vida, Felix Kubin, Goodiepal, Kenneth Goldsmith, Jon Leidecker, Tetsuo Kogawa, Chris Cutler and Roc Jiménez de Cisneros in this podcast. Enjoy!
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Following with Felix Kubin’s line of research on the creative underground tape scene, in this brief podcast we revisit the origins of the format with former Philips employee Wim Langenhoff. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/extra/wim-langenhoff/capsula As a former employee at Dutch electronics conglomerate Philips, Wim Langenhoff was involved in the development of the audio cassette. He was also a member of The New Electric Chamber Music Ensemble, an Eindhoven-based artists’ collective that became notorious in the region for their anarchic performances in the late sixties. The different sections of this interview are separated by two musical excerpts from the 2008 compilation 'The Spirit of Eindhoven'. The ensemble’s adventurous arsenal of instruments included kitchen utensils, workmen’s tools, radio and TV sets, motorbikes, EEG equipment, gramophones, discarded super-8 movies and various lighting effects. Philips had no problems with its employee’s double life: the company even financed some of Langenhoff’s performances. When the group eventually disbanded, he set up the Instituut voor Betaalbare Waanzin (Institute for Affordable Madness), which he still runs today. Enjoy!
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The Japanese Red Army fraction reconstructed by Eric Baudelaire
RWM posted a topic in General Banter
New podcast: FONS ÀUDIO #21. Eric Baudelaire Born in Salt Lake City but based in Paris, Eric Baudelaire uses various formats to explore politically-charged historical events and documents. In FONS ÀUDIO #21 he discusses the background and context of the ideas and procedures behind 'The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years Without Images'. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/specials/fons_eric_baudelaire/capsula More info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130827/Fons21_eng.pdf In 'The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years Without Images' Baudelaire creates a transmedia piece (a film shot on Super 8, but also photographs and printed documents) that brings to light the personal stories, the political intrigue and the life journeys of these three iconic figures linked to the Japanese Red Army in the course of almost three decades living underground in Lebanon. Like other works by Baudelaire, this piece emphasises multiple tensions, between yesterday and today, between the real and the fictitious, the absent and the present, over-documentation and oblivion, actual events and memory. Always focusing particularly on Masao Adachi, the Japanese filmmaker and political activist who, in the sixties, developed a methodology for critical analysis based on the observation of the landscape. Baudelaire’s work thus stems from an experimental approach, almost in the scientific sense: what happens when you apply a theory that is virtually an unexplored mystery to the person who created it? An experiment that, Baudelaire claims, raises other interesting questions, regardless of the end result. Is it possible to reconstruct those twenty-seven years of exile in Beirut through the study of the day-to-day surroundings of its protagonists? What narratives can we deduce from the remains of certain architectural and power structures? How do we, in general, reconstruct history through fragmented and terribly subjective fragments? What role do images play in this reconstruction? Timeline 00:20 Introduction to the work 01:33 The characters and their journey 03:22 Masao Adachi's Landscape Theory 08:36 Anabasis as analogy 12:03 Adachi and the permanent revolution 13:56 The revolutionary potential of a camera You can find other features related to cinema and filmmaking here: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/cinema -
New podcast: OBJECTHOOD #1. featuring interviews with Graham Harman and Luciana Parisi Curated by Roc Jiménez de Cisneros A historical overview and some new perspectives on objects in contemporary philosophy and art. Featuring interviews with Graham Harman and Luciana Parisi. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/specials/objecthood1_graham_harman_luciana_parisi/capsula Info: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130823/Objecthood_1_eng.pdf MP3: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/objecthood/objecthood_1.mp3 This podcast is about objects, but more importantly, it is about some of the recent theories that offer new conceptualisations of objects in contemporary philosophy and art. This first episode features philosophers Graham Harman and Luciana Parisi. Harman's object-oriented ontology opposes Kant's anthropocentrism and the scientistic standpoint, in defence of a radically broad notion of objecthood; while Parisi looks at the relations between things and data, between macrophysical objects (or blobjects, as Karim Rashid called them) and the algorithms that create them. Enjoy!
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New feature: Conversation with Peter Muldavin on his sound collection This is an email conversation with 78-rpm and 45-rpm record collector Peter Muldavin, which took place between Winter 2012 and Summer 2013. Info: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/extra/conversation_peter_muldavin/capsula PDF: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130903/memorabilia_peter_muldavin_conversation_eng.pdf Transcript of the email conversation with 78-rpm and 45-rpm record collector Peter Muldavin, as part of the research process for the podcast series MEMORABILIA. Collecting sounds with... Peter Muldavin (also known as The Kiddie Rekord King) is acknowledged as the world's leading expert on vintage 78-rpm records. An avid collector since the early nineties, his 78-rpm and 45-rpm children's record collection is amongst the largest in the field and is mainly focused on nostalgic treasures. Muldavin is also the author of the book 'The Complete Guide to Vintage Children's Records: Identification & Value Guide' (Collector Books, 2007).
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New podcast: MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH... Brian Shimkovitz. Part I Produced by Matías Rossi The tale of how a student of ethnomusicology from Brooklyn spent a year in West Africa buying tapes off street markets... and how he managed to turn that bizarre collection into one of the most revered record labels in recent years. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia_brian_shimkovitz/capsula When Brian Shimkovitz went to Ghana on a Fulbright Scholarship for ethnomusicology in 2005, he was confronted with a rich, bizarre, puzzling and extremely varied array of music, mostly released on cassettes. 'I had never really considered going to Africa,' he says, 'but I had this interest in popular music in cities.' And the African music scene turned out to be just the ideal fieldwork project for Shimkovitz. For a whole year he was based in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, but occasionally traveled to other locations in West Africa such as Mali, Togo and Burkina Faso. In all of these places, street markets and stalls provided him with a seemingly endless supply of out-of-the-way material. By the time he went back to Brooklyn, having interviewed a substantial number of MCs, DJs and producers, he had amassed an impressive collection of tapes, but had no master plan for them. Starting a blog to channel his findings ('communicating it to people without dumbing it down completely', as he recalls) seemed like a reasonable enough idea. The name of the blog was pretty self-explanatory: Awesome Tapes from Africa. Steering away from the stereotypical afro-exoticist formulation that had been associated to the World Music market for decades, Brian made an effort to simply share his own excitement for the sounds, the artwork and the richness of his fragmented collection: 'a non-encyclopedic approach to this very, very broad and deep array of music that's out there – that I'm certain my 4,000 cassettes is only scratching the surface of 0.01% of music that’s commercially available.' It was probably this straightforward approach, combined with the viral potential of the web that made the project grow beyond his wildest expectations. Some years later, what began as a fairly underground resource for close friends, some connoisseurs and digital crate-diggers, has turned into a full-fledged record label. Awesome Tapes From Africa reissues all sorts of African tape rarities, from folkloric pop, to left-field dancefloor gems and hip-hop bangers, shedding light on obscure and wonderful sounds from across the continent. The label has received major acclaim from publications worldwide for its reissues by re-discovered legends including Ethiopian accordion and keyboard maestro Hailu Mergia, Somali funk and soul group Dur-Dur Band and Malian chanteuse Nahawa Doumbia, underscoring the broader mission of Awesome Tapes from Africa: contributing to building the international market for African music and helping a few of his favorite artists find new audiences through touring and reissues. You can find the complete MEMORABILIA. Colllecting sound with... podcast series here: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/memorabilia_tag/ Enjoy!
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New pocast: PROBES #5, curated by Chris Cutler This fifth programme sets the scene for a wide range of very different approaches to the exploration of timbre and looks at ways of modifying or preparing the traditional piano. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/probes5_chris_cutler_/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130806/Probes5_eng.pdf In the late nineteenth century two facts conspired to change the face of music: the collapse of common practice tonality (which overturned the certainties underpinning the world of art music), and the invention of a revolutionary new form of memory, sound recording (which redefined and greatly empowered the world of popular music). A tidal wave of probes and experiments into new musical resources and new organisational practices ploughed through both disciplines, bringing parts of each onto shared terrain before rolling on to underpin a new aesthetics able to follow sound and its manipulations beyond the narrow confines of ‘music’. This series tries analytically to trace and explain these developments, and to show how, and why, both musical and post-musical genres take the forms they do. This fifth episode looks at timbre and the many routes to its extension, and then explores the somewhat exotic range of modifications, preparations and ways of subverting pianos that have been tried to date. The transcript is available here: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130801/05probes_transcript_eng.pdf You can find the complete series here: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/probes_tag Enjoy!
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New feature: Conversation with plunderphonic artist Vicki Bennett on her sound collection The following is a transcript of the email conversation with plunderphonic artist and sound collector Vicki Bennett, which took place in Summer 2013, as part of the research process for the podcast series MEMORABILIA. Collecting sounds with... Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/extra/conversation_vicki_bennett/capsula PDF: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/extra/conversation_vicki_bennett/capsula Vicki Bennett (b.1967) is been an influential figure in the field of audio visual collage, through her innovative sampling, appropriating and cutting up of found footage and archives. Using collage as her main form of expression, she creates audio recordings, films and radio shows that communicate a humorous, dark and often surreal view on life. These collages mix, manipulate and rework original sources from both the experimental and popular worlds of music, film, television and radio. An avid collector, Vicki operates under the moniker People Like Us and promotes an open access to archives for creative use. >>Vicki Bennett @Radio_Web_MACBA
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New podcast: MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH... Kees Tazelaar. Part II. Music selected by Kees Tazelaar This mix, clocking in at over two hours, is a retrospective snapshot of the musical legacy of the Institute of Sonology. It alternates classic pieces, recent works and unreleased gems from the Sonology archive. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia_kees_tazelaar_collection/capsula Playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130313/Memorabilia_kees_tazeelar_partII_eng.pdf The first electronic music studio in the Netherlands was founded in 1956 at Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven. This studio moved to the Utrecht University in November 1960, and was then called STEM (Studio voor elektronische muziek, but 'stem' also means 'voice'). Gottfried Michael Koenig became artistic director of STEM in 1964. Instead of just a studio, STEM became a large institution for production, research, education and preservation of electronic music that had a pioneering role in the development of voltage control techniques, algorithmic composition, digital sound synthesis and electronic composition theory. In 1967, STEM was named Institute of Sonology. Frits Weiland, who was a staff member at STEM practically from the beginning, immediately understood the importance of setting up an archive. This analogue tape archive now is one of the main archives of electronic music, and contains master tapes from compositions produced at Philips starting in 1956, until the late eighties, when analogue recording techniques gradually disappeared. Since I started to teach analogue studio techniques at the Institute of Sonology in 1993, I have felt a great responsibility for this archive. An important aspect of that responsibility is to have and maintain a set of top quality tape recorders that are capable to play back the material from the archive. Digital transfers and reconstructions of early electronic music compositions have led to remarkable CD-releases with works by composers such as Henk Badings, Dick Raaijmakers, Tom Dissevelt, Edgard Varèse, Gottfried Michael Koenig, Luctor Ponse, Ton de Leeuw and Jan Boerman. However, the music selection for contains many unreleased treasures from the archive too. Kees Tazelaar, February 2013 If you enjoy this mix, you may also be interested in our interview with Kees Tazeelar: MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH... Kees Tazelaar. Part I http://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia_kees_tazeelar/capsula You can find other installments of our series on sound collecting here: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/memorabilia_tag/
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New podcast: INTERRUPTIONS #13 The inhuman voice, curated by Genís Segarra Since the late eighteenth century, speech therapists, linguists, entrepreneurs, artists and musicians have nurtured the dream of emulating human speech. In this mix, Genís Segarra offers a personal overview of a subject that fascinates him, with the story of voice synthesis as a narrative thread. Link: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/genis_segarra_inhuman_voice/capsula Text and playlist: http://rwm.macba.cat/uploads/20130626/13Interruptions_eng.0.pdf Summary There is a long history of mankind's attempts to build a machine capable of reproducing human speech. Some of the inventors who embarked on this quest where driven by curiosity – speech therapists and linguists interested for scientific purposes, for example –, while others were entrepreneurs with an eye to business opportunities. The first talking machines date from the late eighteenth century, and many theoretical advances were made during the nineteenth century. But the turning point came with the emergence of electronics in the twentieth century. You can hear an example at 20'35'' of this selection: a demonstration of the Voder (Voice Operator Demonstrator) at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The arrival of computers and microchips led to speech synthesis machines being marketed by companies like Bell Systems, Votrax, General Instrument, IBM and SAM, who developed them with the aim of replacing human beings in communications. At 27'38'' you can hear the first computer that ordered a pizza by phone. 'Domino? I want to order a pizza, a large pizza, pepperoni and mushrooms', the machine says. Although it is fair to point out that the experiment failed, given that the Domino employee hung up on the computer. At 31'17'' you can hear the first videogame that included a synthesised voice: an arcade shoot 'em up called Stratovox. The mix includes several examples of talking software and microchips, but I've also thrown in songs that have used similar technology creatively: from German group Kraftwerk to the Japanese phenomenon of virtual singers. You will also hear songs that use a vocoder, an instrument that does not generate a human voice but can analyse the harmonics of a voice and then modulate it in another sound. This means that it can make any source of sound 'talk' or 'sing'. The vocoder was invented with the same aim in mind: to synthesise the human voice. Although it has now been superseded by chips that can generate vowels and consonants, artists and musicians have developed and used the vocoder in order to stand in for human beings. One of the first machines that achieved this effect was the Sonovox, which Disney used in 1941 as the voice of Casey Jr., the train engine in Dumbo. In this mix you can hear Casey's cheery 'All aboard!' at 17'01'' and listen to him chant 'I think I can' as he struggles to climb uphill at 27'01''. The Sonovox was first used on a record in 1947, in the children's book Sparky's Magic Piano, in which a little boy discovers that his piano can talk and play itself. The voice of the piano was created with a Sonovox that transformed piano notes into a human voice. At 13'59'' you can hear the fragment in which Sparky discovers that his piano can talk. At the other extreme in terms of time and technology, the situation is much the same: at 13'18'' you can hear a grand piano being 'played' by a computer-controlled mechanical system which manages to make the piano recite the Declaration of the International Environmental Criminal Court, a work created by the composer Peter Ablinger with the help of a software programme that assigns vowels and consonants to different combinations of piano keys. Throughout the mix, you will hear vocoders and computers talking and singing. I've included several examples in which I've used vocoders or speech synthesisers in my own works with the groups Astrud and Hidrogenesse. There are also samples taken from a voice synthesiser competition held at the 2007 INTERSPEECH Conferences, in which participants had to make their programmes sing 'The Synthesizer Song'. Several universities and companies participated in the competition and demonstrated their systems. Previous installments of this series: http://rwm.macba.cat/en/interruptions-tag/