Posts Tagged ‘Sound’

In The Field

As part of b-side arts festival, where Variable 4 will be appearing in its fourth incarnation, we’ll be talking in conversation with Duncan Whitley on sound and site-responsive work, chaired by Cecilia Wee.

From the website:

In the Field features Artists Duncan Whitley, Daniel Jones and James Bulley in conversation with each other and the audience. Cecilia Wee (FRSA) will convene, focusing on the motivation, challenges and consequences of site-responsive audio work, where the Artist is engaged in an investigation of place, taking into account geography, locality, topography and community.

The event will take place in the stunning surrounds of St George’s Church, built in the 18th century from Portland stone: “a treasure trove of fabulous headstones and memorials that tell tales of murder, piracy and adventure in a gloriously atmospheric setting” (source).

St George's Church, exterior

St George’s Church, exterior

7th September 2014, 2:30pm – 3:30pm.

More: In The Field.

weather station (norbert schnell & robin minard, 1995) uses climate sensors and 310 piezos for weather-reactive sonics http://t.co/bJlglbBr


mark ballora discusses data and sonification, featuring a lovely audio rendition of weather parameters http://t.co/39cAstKQ


Daniela Cascella on sound art panel discussion

We’re very excited to have one last addition to the night we’re curating this Wednesday at The Book Club. Writer and curator Daniela Cascella will be joining us on our sound art panel, discussing sound-related practices from composition and storytelling to the issues involved in curating, presenting, documenting and archiving live sound works.

In her words:

“Not being a musicologist or a musician, I never seek to examine the construction of a sound piece per se – I am interested, rather, in what comes after the piece: in the space between the work and what occurs around it. Working in the realm of sound and all types of leakage, expansion and cross-border transitions of sound toward other art forms, I also had to search for new ways of presenting sound and discussing it.”

Alongside an extensive history of curation, Daniela has written for Frieze, The Wire, Sound and Music, Il Giornale della Musica, and many more. We’re delighted to have her along.

8tracks for Snape Maltings

anemometer-avatar-800 Before last year’s installation, we created an 8tracks mix which included a range of the musical influences behind the piece. We decided to keep with the tradition and repeat the process with a new mix for 2011.

8tracks Variable 4 Playlist II

This one is a fairly intimate selection, with piano pieces by György Ligeti, John Tilbury and Eddie Prévost, harmony-drenched electronica from Fennesz and Alva Noto, and a stunning 20-minute final piece which translates Sudoko boards into ethereal piano refrains.

on the blog: development trip, 3 may 2011. snape maltings r&d, field recordings, and digging holes. http://www.variable4.org.uk/news/322


The Freesound Project

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We’re big fans of the Freesound Project here at Variable 4. The project is run by the Music Technology Group of Pompeu Fabra University in Spain.

We’ve decided to share our current archive of field recordings that we created for the Dungeness installation on May 22nd 2010.

You can download and listen to the field recordings under Creative Commons license here.

We’ll be updating this page with more recordings as the research period for our next installation gets underway. More news about that coming shortly!

8tracks

8tracksWhilst taking a short break from the logistics of Variable 4, we decided to put together a playlist of some of the music we have been listening to over the last few months to share with you.

We’re big fans of the 8tracks aesthetic and idea, which picks up from where its sorely missed predecessor Muxtape left off.

Have a listen to our Variable 4 8track mix here and let us know what you think.

KEF tour

To Maidstone this morning, visiting the Kent Engineering Foundry – better known as KEF – who invited us down to discuss weatherproof speakers. As a top name amongst the audiophile community, we were looking forward to auditioning their Ventura outdoor range as a candidate for next month’s installation. What we hadn’t anticipated was a comprehensive tour of their facilities, encompassing a museum of KEF’s engineering achievements since the 1960s, plus their Acoustic Laboratory, featuring anechoic chamber and all manner of analysis equipment.

Aside from their plaudits in the engineering world, we’re really pleased to be able to work with local technology: KEF’s home is just 40 miles down the road from Dungeness, in Maidstone, Kent, where they’ve been located since their inception in 1961.

Shingle Street is a sound portrait of dungeness by the wonderful Chris Watson, not to be missed on r4 listen again: http://bit.ly/c2bjFU