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Sphinxxx: The Sound of Windsor by Chris Flanagan

Sphinxxx - The Sound of Windsor (2013)

Sphinxxx: The Sound of Windsor by Chris Flanagan

Exhibition on view from December 5th to 30th – Opening Reception on Thursday, December 5th at 7pm – CIVIC Space (411 Pelissier Street, Windsor)

Chris Flanagan has created a site-specific installation work based on Windsor’s musical history and hypothetical stories based on the city’s relationship with Detroit and waves of migration. He will be presenting this work (artifacts, sound clips, and process documentation) at CIVIC Space and around the city.

Please join us on Thursday, December 5th at 7pm for an opening reception and to explore the artifacts Chris has uncovered. The artist will be present and is looking forward to discussing Windsor / Detroit’s musical histories. If you’re unable to make it to the opening, the exhibition will be up in CIVIC Space until the end of December.

Chris Flanagan is a Toronto-based installation artist. His work is concerned with music, secret societies and fabricated historical narratives. He has exhibited widely in public galleries across Australia and Canada.

For more information, please visit: www.chrisflanaganart.com

OAC-OTF

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WTPh? What the phonics

WTPh? – What the Phonics from Andrew Spitz on Vimeo.

Super fun project … thanks to @RichardZimmer for the link!

WTPh? (What the Phonics) is an interactive installation set in the touristic areas of Copenhagen. Street names in Denmark are close to impossible for foreigners to pronounce, so Andrew Sptiz and Momo Miyazaki did a little intervention

Project by:
Andrew Spitz – andrew-spitz.com/
Momo Miyazaki – momomiyazaki.com/

For more info, check out soundplusdesign.com/?p=5405

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Micro-Residency #4: Iga Janik

Iga Janik is an artist, curator, and the director of Artspace in Peterborough. We got to hang out with her back in October for about a week. It was awesome, and now we get to hang out again, but this time, in Windsor.

For her Micro-Residency, Iga will be bringing some micro radio transmitters, which you can see above.  We’re not sure what she’ll do with them over the course of the weekend, but their signals can be picked up by car radios, and hanging out in a parking lot or bugging a city block could be a lot of fun.

However, for Iga, the important part of all of this is what transmitters can do, not how they do it. Consider us very excited!!!

If you want to catch up with Iga, send us a note, we’ll get you connected.

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Drawdio: Audio Made by Drawing

Drawdio is a DIY music project by designer jay silver that let’s users draw the instrument of their choice on a piece of paper and play it with their finger.

While possible to use in a variety of  objects, when used with a pencil, the graphite acts as a circuit on the paper, transmitting the electric signal across the drawing to produce a different sound based on the specific form.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDaj3tBSM2M

If you can get past the sort of hilarious / awkward editing in the video, it’s a very cool and simple design. It makes me curious about the potential for creating some kind of traceable sound-map, what sounds would Detroit’s streets make versus Windsor’s streets? What would happen if you added new roads or buildings — what sound could that make?

[via Designboom]

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Terrafon Amplifies the Earth

harvest

This is the Terrafon, which is basically a huge turntable for the earth. Designed by artists Olle Cornéer and Martin Lübcke, the Terrafon premiered at the Volt Music Festival in Sweden.

The sound of the Terrafon is pretty much what you’d expect from something being dragged across the ground. The video does a good job at capturing the variations in sound, but mostly it’s the sounds of rocks or gravel being rubbed against something. It reminds me of when I was a kid and would drag things behind my bike.

The look of this thing is very cool and made me think of other ways to use something like this, rather than necessarily making it performative, what if there was something large and industrial-looking like this installed along the river, or at the entrance to old industrial buildings, what sounds would it make?

[via Inhabitat]

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Improv Everywhere’s MP3 Experiment

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1O1rv7vDsE&feature=player_embedded

As part of their sixth annual MP3 Experiment, Improv Everywhere used Roosevelt Island, situated in between Manhattan and Queens on the East River.

To participate in this year’s experiment, “agents” were given these instructions. Everyone synchronized their watch to the clock on the instruction page, downloaded the mp3, wore a red, blue, yellow, or green shirt, and then traveled to the island. At exactly 4:00 PM, everyone would press play from wherever they happened to be on the island.

Another amazingly fun gesture from Improv Everywhere, with the scale of this “mission” being particularly incredible.

[via Urban Prankster]

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Project Citizens Band

Project Citizens Band Container

I’ve found a group of individuals who have been creating some absolutely amazing work bordering on sound and technology called Intermod Series.  I may post a few of their works as I feel many of them are extremely interesting.  This particular project consists of a sound transmitting device and is called Project Citizens Band.

“This project was a month long broadcast over CB radio using prerecorded sounds designed to be mood altering. Four different audio tracks corresponded to common emotions experienced at the scheduled time of day. These were transmitted for a 5-minute duration, creating a sedative or stimulating affect.”

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Sound Parachutes

Stephen Vitiello - Flutter

I have been interested in field recording and found sound as of late, but do not know of many artists. I stumbled across an experimental electronic sound artist named Stephen Vitiello. He uses atmospheric noises for most of his audio work and has worked with artists such as Tony Oursler and Julie Mehretu.

“In 1999 he was awarded a studio for six months on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center’s Tower One, where he recorded the cracking noises of the building swaying under the stress of the winds after Hurricane Floyd.”

I had a hard time finding visual documentation of his sound installations besides a short video of a project called “Flutter“, which was a collaboration with Molly Berg at the World Financial Center in NY.

I really like the idea of using the vertical space and atmosphere of a building to create sound. I can think of at least one building at the University of Windsor with the height to accomodate a project such as this.