Statement:

Cultural Morphing is an experiment in creating a multi-perspective image of reality from the simultaneous experience of a geographic line by the individual expression of a perceived personal reality. Twelve invited artists traveled by train from Vienna to Shanghai, and selected stops along the route served as their workspace where they would meticulously work out an project that outlined various aspects of cultural transition experienced on the journey. Stopovers at Ulan-Ude, Ulan Bator, Beijing and Shanghai were used to exhibit the works that were created en route.

The broadcast for Radius will feature a score developed through filming a dinner at a Chinese rotating table. The images captured through filming from above the table during the course of the dinner were sonified with data and acoustic recordings collected along the journey. The artists involved created individual sound files based on a video score that were later combined into one stereo track.

Via Radius

Each month, the wonderful Domus Mixtape series brings together musicians, writers, artists and designers to create live sound-based portraits of cities around the world.

All text below comes from DOMUS MIXTAPE.

“For the first in our series of mixtapes on cities and their sounds, Domus travels to Mexico City, the sprawling Aztec metropolis that today is home to 20 million people. There, Daniel Perlin catches up with this month’s special guest, journalist and blogger Daniel Hernandez, to patch together an audible portrait of the Mexican capital’s underground music scene. The resulting mix is a mélange of Mexican cumbia, ska, rockabilly, hip-hop, tribal guarachero and white noise from the frenetic streets of the Distrito Federal. The mixtape includes tracks by Afrodita, Toy Selectah, Kumbia Queers, Sonido Sonoramico, Los Rebel Cats, Maldita Vecindad, as well as a segment by sound artist Rogelio Sosa and Hernandez reading an ode to the city’s noise from his upcoming book, Down and Delirious in Mexico City. Orale, chilangos!”

Tracklist

1. tepito-5may2010 – Daniel Goldaracena
2. Ni Negrita Si Baila – Sonido Sonoramico
3. Daniel Hernandez_1/Centro 11/27/10 – Daniel Hernandez and Daniel Perlin
4. El Obachere – (3Ball mix) – Erick Rincon & Alan Rosales
5. Quinto Patio Ska – Maldita Vecindad Y Los Hijos Del Quinto Patio
6. Daniel Hernandez_2/Centro 11/27/10 – Daniel Hernandez and Daniel Perlin
7. Chicalango – MC Luka
8. Rayo de Sol – Sonidero Nacional
9. GOTA (Hijo de la Cumbia Remix) – Sekreto feat Morenito de Fuego
10. Te quiero un chingo – Kumbia Queers
11. Daniel Hernandez_3/Centro 11/27/10 – Daniel Hernandez and Daniel Perlin
12. Chica Sensual – Sonido Espectral
13. No Hagas Caso A Tus Papas – Los Rebel Cats
13. Daniel Hernandez_4 – Daniel Hernandez
14. Vaiven No. 1 (Soundinstllation audio v2) – Rogelio Sosa
15. Daniel Hernandez_5/Centro 11/27/10 – Daniel Hernandez and Daniel Perlin
16. Welcome to the Witch House (†‡† Remix)/BESTIA (Toy Selectah Mex-More Remix ) – Mater Suspiria Vision/Helloseahorse
17. pasconcito (dj n-ron rico mix) – Afroditas

“Most Londoners will recognise that walking past four closed pubs on a Sunday lunchtime is a sure sign of impending apocalypse. So when I found myself walking through the antiseptic, empty, nerve-centre of banks and insurance brokers in London’s square mile one weekend, the sheer quantity of unlit supermarkets, shopping centres, clothes shops, cafes, salad bars and pubs was terrifying. The sound of this city was a deafening, noisy, silence.”

Tracklist

01 Softmain – Dream Crown
02 Scanner – Candles + Beatrice Galilee reading
03 We Are Grave – Permanent
04 Salwa Azar – Poseidon Sea
05 si-cut.db – Academic Hit
06 Scanner – Self Same Circuits
07 Bladzez Krome – Liquid
08 Neck Dust – Shrill
09 Brick Lane Buskers
10 Scanner – Night Haunts

“So let’s be clear. I am not from Rio de Janeiro. I am not a Carioca. Even after 18 years of coming and going, 5+ years lived and hours worked, partied, lost, found and wandered, I am not a Carioca. What I have is the serious problem so many gringos have. The idea of Rio has invaded me, left its mark, devoured me and consumed whatever thoughts and sounds resonate in my brain. “Tupi or not Tupi?” Goes the anthropohagic manifesto, and in writing, enunciating the multiplicity of times, spaces, sounds and feelings that is Rio. Rio, of course, does not exist, as no single city exists. It is instead a bricolage, defined geographically by divisions between its largely working-class Zona Norte, and its smaller, wealthier, iconic, Zona Sul. At first impression, its appearance from the ground is conflicted, agonistic, its favelas inescapable from view, requiring a double-consciousness and radical strategies of internal conflict negotiation. And now, annexing the often-gated zones of Barra de Tijuca, Jacaerepagua and on, any attempt to define a homogeneous sound of this city becomes even more remote, even more absurd.”

Tracklist

01. Natureza nº 1 em Mi Maior—Lucas Santtana
02. Eu Nasci Em Angola—Caxambu da Comunidade Sao Jose da Serra-
03. Dizem Que Sou Louco/Frogs, Pops, Rio, Nite —M.V. Bill
04. Orquestra Filarmônica da Favela—DJ Sany Pitbull
05. ta tomado (n-ron tamborclap riddim)—bonde nervoso
06. Alerte Limão—Chelpa Ferro
07. Pau de Arara. Baião de São Sebastião Baião—Luiz Gonzaga & Gonzaguinha
08. Crowd, Rio, Restaurant, Copa Cabana
09. Nao Foi Em Vão (Original Album Version)—Orquestra Imperial
10. Animais Sem Asas/papa capim—+2 Moreno, Domenico & Kassin, Meu Tambor—+2 Moreno, Domenico & Kassin
11. Fuego (Maga Bo Remix)—Bomba Estereo
12. Olha A Virada—Mocidade Independente, rap de felicidade accapella—Mcs Cidinho & Doca
13. Macumbinha/DJBR/toques para celular – abertura dos bailes funk
14. IDogBarks Constant 15. V.V.—B. Negão
16. Bells, Church, RioGloria Evening
17. embalaeu (N-RON and Reganomics mix)—Clementina de Jesus
18. rebichada (N-RON AMENMIX)—Chico Buarque e os trapalhões
19. Radio Samba—Nacão Zumbi
20. love banana—João Brasil
21. Shottas—Leo Justi
22. Angicos (paulo rafael mix)—Chico Science, Fred 04, Siba, Lucio Maia, Paulo Rafael
23. Crowd, Rio, Gávea
24. Vai Saudade—Velha Guarda da Portela

For Free Downloads and More Cities visit Domus Mixtapes

The contents of one of the most important and eclectic modern music collections in the world – John Peel’s personal record collection, is starting to be made public for the first time through an online archive.

John Peel’s personal record collection consists of over 26,000 LPs, 40,000 singles and many thousands of CDs.

Text and Images via JOHN PEEL’S RECORD ARCHIVE

That Other Word is a podcast run jointly by Daniel Medin (Center for Writers and Translators, Paris) and Scott Esposito (Center for the Art of Translation, San Francisco).

Each episode features a discussion between Daniel and Scott on recent noteworthy literature in translation, and then an in-depth interview with writers, translators, editors, and publishers. The podcast hopes to celebrate and explore various and under-appreciated aspects of translation, not only into and out of English, but other languages as well.

BMW Tate Live: Performance Room is an innovative series of performances broadcast viewable exclusively online around the globe, as they happen.

Five artists each present works for the BMW Tate Live Performance Room beginning with choreographer and dancer Jérôme Bel on 22 March 2012 and continuing monthly with Pablo Bronstein, Harrell Fletcher, Joan Jonas and Emily Roysdon. Audiences can pose questions to the artist and curators, and interact with other viewers via social media.

You are invited to enter the online BMW Tate Live Performance Room via Tate’s YouTube channel at 20.00 hrs in the UK and at exactly the same moment across the globe on the specified dates. So if you are on the East Coast of America, log on at 15.00 hrs for a mid-afternoon art break, if you are located in Europe then join us at 21.00 hrs for an evening performance and for those in Russia, needing some late night art at 23.00 hrs.

A second chance to watch Jerome Bell’s performance and see the conversation with the artist and curators captured live Thursday 22nd March 2012 at Tate Modern.

Text via TATE

See Pablo Bronstein on 26 April, Emily Roysdon on 31 May, Harrell Fletcher on 28 June and Joan Jonas later in the year.

Listen to the full interview at Design Matters. Via Design Observer.

Image above: Screenshot by Wanderlust from the Design Observer environment. Thanks to Maria Popova from Explore

Radio Boredcast is a 744-hour continuous online radio project, curated by artist Vicki Bennett (People Like Us) with AV Festival. In response to our ambiguous relationship with time – do we have too much or not enough? – Radio Boredcast celebrates the detail, complexity and depth of experience lost through our obsession with speed.

With over 100 participants Radio Boredcast includes new and unpublished works, freeform radio shows, field recordings, interviews, monologues and much, much more. Thematic playlists will run throughout from “Acconci” to “Zzz…”
You can listen continuously for a month, or for hours, minutes or seconds. Online 24 hours each day, at www.avfestival.co.uk or www.thepixelpalace.org.

Co-commissioned by AV Festival and Pixel Palace, hosted by BASIC.fm.

Look at the program and listen to Radio Boredcast HERE

Read Collateral Damage by Vicki Bennett at The WIRE

“In the early 2000s, increased bandwidth allowed recombinant artists to enter the gift economy. It’s a freedom we should defend at all costs, argues Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us.

In 1999 I bought my first fast computer – and although it was dying to do speedy things, I was on dial-up, reduced to a crawl when it came to information retrieval. Logged into file sharing communities, I’d sit in the chat and watch people posting files that would take me a day to download, so I’d just read about them. Then I’d go to the WFMU website and try to stream the station and just get blurts and gaping silences. Then I’d visit archive.org and look at all the wonderful synopses for Rick Prelinger’s films, which were too large to access. 
It wasn’t long, however, before affordable broadband reached my area of London. Then everything 
changed. Forever.”

What is the future of humanity? What limits should we impose on our biotechnological and other scientific developments – what will happen when we don’t? Grant Bartley from Philosophy Now asks Debra Shaw from the University of East London, Blay Whitby from the University of Sussex, and David Gamez from Imperial College London, for answers. With live music from Bucky Muttel on the Chapman Stick. First broadcast on 14 February 2012 on Resonance FM.

Via Philosophy Now Radio Show

CURATORIAL > INTERRUPTIONS

This section explores the complex map of sound art from a variety of points of view, structured into different series and curated programs. VARIATIONS, led by Jon Leidecker reconstructs the history of sound appropriationism by looking at examples from 20th century composition, popular art and commercial media, and the convergence of all these trends today. Meanwhile, LINES OF SIGHT, curated by Barbara Held and Pilar Subirà, explores different ideas linked to transmission as a means of creative expression and in PARASOL ELEKTRONICZNY. RUMOURS FROM THE EASTERN UNDERGROUND, Felix Kubin leads us on a tour of underground sound production in Eastern Europe. Finally, INTERRUPTIONS intermittently “interrupts”” the Curatorial series in order to explore the many possibilities of music-on-demand and mix formats.

Click for more INTERRUPTIONS

Radiolab: Stochasticity (a wonderfully slippery and smarty-pants word for randomness), may be at the very foundation of our lives. To understand how big a role it plays, we look at chance and patterns in sports, lottery tickets, and even the cells in our own body. Along the way, we talk to a woman suddenly consumed by a frenzied gambling addiction, meet two friends whose meeting seems to defy pure chance, and take a close look at some very noisy bacteria. Listen to podcast HERE

ZVO.ČI.TI. so.und.ing Collection is a podcast collection of Slovenian sound artists, composers of electroacoustic, experimental, algorithmic, electronic, improvised and composed works.

The DVD release of the ZVO.ČI.TI so.und.ing Collection represents the final part of the multi-year project devised to be a continuous production of thematic radio and podcast audio programmes about specific authors and works of theirs that were created in the studio or performed live.

The purpose of the project is to connect and highlight Slovenian authors who make contemporary music in the music performance, sound, intermedia, performing, online and other areas and to present them, using existing communication possibilities, into the wider arena of world contemporary sound creativity.

Researchers test a famous ethical dilemma called the “trolley problem” in a very real setting.

Christie Nicholson:

Would you kill one person to save five others?

Philosophers have posed this moral dilemma for decades. Typically they present the situation as a mental exercise. A runaway train is about to strike five people walking along the track. You can reroute the train and save the five people. But you will wind up killing one person walking on the other track.

Recently, researchers tried to make the dilemma feel much more real. They placed 147 subjects in a 3-D virtual environment where they are in front of a railroad switch controlling two tracks. They watch five people hike along a track bordered by a ravine. A single person hikes along the other track. Suddenly a train comes barreling toward the five people. The subject has the option to reroute the train using a joystick.

Ninety percent of the study subjects switched tracks, killing the lone hiker to save five. These findings match past studies that were only abstract thought experiments. The study is in the journal Emotion.

It appears that even in very realistic, action oriented situations, people will go through with a Sophie’s Choice, motivated by accomplishing the apparently greater good.

Via Scientifc American

Gregory Chatonsky
My Hard Drive Is Experiencing Some Strange Noises
33:35

Statement:

My Hard Drive Experiencing Some Strange Noises is the sound of a defective hard drive disk picked up by a contact microphone. The acoustic wave is instantly processed by software that repeats and amplifies the sounds creating a resounding echo.

Bio:

Gregory Chatonsky (b. Paris, living in Montreal and Paris) holds a multimedia advanced degree from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and a Masters in philosophy from the Sorbonne. Chatonsky’s body of work, including interactive installations, networked and urban devices, photographs and sculptures, speaks to the relationship between technologies and affectivity, flows that define our time to create new forms of fiction. In 1994, Chatonsky founded the net.art collective incident.net.

Via The Radius

Is consequentialism in ethics a form of moral opportunism? Is torture always wrong? What about punishing the innocent? Philip Pettit, who recently gave the 2011 Uehiro Lectures on ‘Robustly Demanding Values’, discusses some common criticisms of consequentialism in conversation with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. +++ HERE

In the second of a series of philosophy podcasts, Benjamen Walker and guests consider the impact and legacy of Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase.

Fifty years ago this week, on 14 August 1961, the world witnessed the end of the trial of Adolf Otto Eichmann, one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. Writing about his subsequent execution in the final chapter of her book Eichmann in Jerusalem (Penguin Classics), the philosopher Hannah Arendt coined a timeless phrase:

It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us – the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil

When we recently asked you to nominate intellectual cliches to examine in this series, “the banality of evil” came up repeatedly (props to bigOther, Eglantine and janeinalberta).

Listen to Podcast HERE