Year: 2006

 Alkaline is a sound composition partly based upon the rhetorical clichés of pop music, partly placed into the milieu of ‘contemporary music’. A strong relation to punk attitude could be sensed through the energetic level as well as the D.I.Y (do-it-yourself). Sometimes software and hardware is constructed by myself to maximize the possibilities for manipulation and to research a new sonic milieu. Spatial condition has a big influence to the concept of the work, both in the virtual and illusive domain, as in the environment of the listener.The sounds are produced with custom made virtual generators, home made electronics and effects, toys and field-recordings. 

ABOUT PAUL DEVENS´ SOUNDWORKThe work of Paul Devens (Maastricht, 1965) oscillates in between installation, video, sound, performance and architecture.

"The main focus of my work is generally a questioning of seemingly naturalized conceptions of the reality surrounding us. My attempt is to offer alternative models in opposition to the preconstructed models of understanding originating from commercial interests. In all my work the feeling of uncertainty and surprise provided by the unexpectedness of the situation is always a central element.Relocating and reinterpreting objects from popular culture (see for instance Moped 2) or minimal, almost invisible gestures (see Sunday or Coffee), I try to focus on an everyday reality that surrounds us at all times and that we tend to take for granted. I am especially interested in how this reality is communicated and in the codes contained in the structures through which it is communicated. This same interest is at the basis of my sound art, which can roughly be divided into installations and performances. The performances are live acts or concerts made from computer generated sounds, recordings and improvisations. I base these compositions upon musical figures taken from commercial pop music. By reinventing the sounds and the aesthetics we are used to, my attempt is, once again, to remove them from the symbolical and rhetorical clichés they are normally associated with. Varying in expression from dance to pure noise, my music freely moves from one aesthetical expression to another. The installations are architectonical constructions especially designed for the physical experience of sound (see for example Serials or Stena). Each installation has a specific soundtrack or composition, and the presence of the audience is integrated as part of the work."

07sotc1451, 07sotb1436, 07sose1482

Year: 2006 / Format: CD Audio Stereo / MURCIÉLAGO’s studio production in Bogotá, Colombia

 Interwoven sonorous images between Madrid and Bogota, between Spain and Columbia: sonorous features of both cities: bells, sirens, voices, murmurs; the Madrid metro and the anachronistic and nostalgic train that crosses Bogota, the Retiro park and the Simón Bolívar park, the markets of El Rastro and El Pasaje La Macarena; urban music, Galician bagpipes played in Madrid and coastal papayera bands on Bogota’s seventh street; the ocean that joins us, the Atlantic Ocean in Cadiz and the plane journey to Europe; the water fountain in Plaza Colon and the Andine downpours and thunder in  Bogota, urban waters and wild waters; cattle bells of sheep crossing Madrid and a  combination of music for voice and régale organ played in the El Retiro’s metro station with Amazonian fauna, leaf hoppers, cicadas, frogs, parrots, spider monkeys and the song of the native birds of Madrid.

Madrid - Bogota is a hybrid sonorous landscape, interwoven and set in the radial scene, freed from its geography and causal events. Acousmatic and radiophonic listening of sonorous cultural images, of common geophonies. This phonographic and radiophonic piece conjures reflections on La Radia of the futurist poet Tomasso Marinetti, as a brief homage to the Drama of Distances.

07sotb1435, 07sotc1449, 07sose1481

CREDITS AND TECHNICAL DATASoundwork by: DAVID W. HALSELLTitle: FunkenspielFormat: stereoLength: 3:57, 3:41, 2:02 min Year: 1995

SOUNDWORK

DESCRIPTIONFunkenspiel is a noise/music composition consisting entirely of recordings of shortwave radio, spacecraft transmissions, and atmospheric phenomena. At times both ethereal and unsettling, Funkenspiel includes repetitive rhythms, bursts of noise, and undulating radio static. A prominent feature in the source material is the use of “number stations”– repetitious coded vocal messages of unidentified origin, transmitted via shortwave bands (see the Conet Project at http://www.irdial.com/conet.htm) These broadcasts are supposed covert transmissions by various state intelligence agencies to field operatives.

Natural and man-made radio waves envelope us constantly, generating variable definitions and meaning of what is signal and what is noise. Funkenspiel thematically considers the politics of control in information transmission, the interplay and significance of noise in a sonic environment, and the metaphorical implications of the body/voice being awash in a constant flow of encoded information in radio signals.

The title of the work is a variation on “funkspiel” (radio-play), a technique used in WWII by both German and Russian forces in which foreign agents and transmitters were manipulated into treasonous activities; “funkenspiel” can be translated literally as transmitter-play or spark-play.

07sotb1431, 07sotc1441, 07sose1475

Accompanying voices: Amaury Pacheco and David Escalona

Sonorous poem dedicated to Clara Gari, multidisciplinary artist and scholar of contemporary visual and sonorous art, established in Barcelona.

According to the different critics, it is a poem that falls within the tradition of Spanish, South American and Cuban Experimental Sonorous Poetry. It also merges the vocal interpretation of jazz with Cuban percussion and other rhythms. Beyond this, it is a poem that has been warmly accepted both inside and outside the circle of experts. It holds an international language and has been interpreted on stages with up to 3.000 spectators of different languages, always with much interaction from the public.

Jazz Poem is part of the experimental poetic-sonorous CD Alamar Express created by OMNI-ZONAFRANCA, of the Alamar City, Cuba and, financed by the Spanish Agency for International Co-operation.

Poema jazz (transcription)

Clara tacapuru tucuturu tacapazClara tacapuru tucuturu tacapazClaratacapurutucuturutacapaz                                           Claratacapuru-tucuturutacapazClaratacupuru-tu-cu-tu-ru-tacapazClaratacapurutucuturutacapazTacatatapusTacatatapusTaca ta ta pusTa ca ta ta pus pus pusssPuspurutucuturu         puspurutucuturuClaratacapus      claracatapusClaracatapus      claratacapus  pus  pus  pusPús/purutucuturu         pús/pusrutucutúPúspuru  púspuru   púspuru-tucuturuPuspurutucuturuPúspuru/tucuturuPúspuru/tucuturuPúspuru/tucuturu-tacapazPúspuru/tucuturu-tacapazTacapaz     catapazCatapaz      tacapaz-tacapuru                   Tacapaz-tacapuru                   Tacapaz-tacapuru                   Tacapaz-tacapuru                    Tacapaz-tacapuru-tacapazzzzzzz                    tacapurutacapaz                     taca-ta-ta-pus                    táca/tatátacapaz   tacapaz   tacapaz-tacapurutacapuru  tucuturu  tacapazta ca pu ru tu cu tu ru ta ca pazta ca pu rutucurutacapaztacapurutucuturutacapaz

clara tacapuru        clara tucaparuclara tacapuru        clara tucaparuclara tacapuru         tucuturutacapaz                                              tucuturutacapaz                                                            tucuturutacapaz

¡Clara!

07sotb1434, 07sotc1446, 07sose1480

Format: 2-channel binaural audio

A sound work made in the city-spaces of Melbourne, Australia. We follow a series of Africans who are now living in Melbourne, inhabiting their listening perspectives as they sing and move about the city. Our starting point is Elizabeth Street, a major transport node.

Reiterations was commissioned as part of +Plus Factors, a series of exhibitions curated by Australian Centre for Contemporary Art for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.

Reiterations are things that are said or done again - but not always in the same way, in the same place. A reiteration can be a repetition with difference.

Voices: Mmapelo Malatji (Botswana), Habib Chanzi (Tanzania), Zweli Tlhabane (Swaziland), Carlos Panguana (Mozambique), Francess Kalon (Sierra Leone), Valanga Khoza (South Africa), Prisca Cradick (Kenya)

The following is an extract from Juliana Engberg, Artistic Director, ACCA.

'My chicken is missing', essay for the +Plus Factors exhibition catalogue, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2006 (www.accaonline.org.au/plusfactors)

'Certain sounds are unique to places. However, world cities have increasingly become a medley of sounds. A sort of acoustic mélange of everywhere and nowhere: the ambient equivalent of Marc Agué’s non-places. The same hip-hop songs hurl themselves out at you from the same chain stores, whether you are in London or LA, Changi or Moscow. The same bing-bongs announce security alerts, hot specials and transit information...

Sonia Leber and David Chesworth use this urban polyphony of sounds as a membrane through which the singular sound of the embodied voice must push and pass its way; as a kind of landscape of the generic, surrounding the story of the specific.

Leber and Chesworth’s Reiterations (Elizabeth Street) is a sampled, then produced sound-space of recorded sounds that are unmistakably urban and general: loud speakers, train horns, guitar riffs, squeaky sounds, walking, hubbub, chatter (school girls, shop keepers…), voices, car horns, throaty motorbikes...

Leber and Chesworth’s sounds are grabbed from the urban bustle of Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, a typical ‘transit’ zone of the city, with its convenience stores and Chem-marts, take-outs and mobile outlets, luggage shops and bookstores, sports retailers, pubs and hair salons. Elizabeth Street is a place of particular intersection for inter-urban travellers who use the Western, and North Western tram lines that stretch out to, and bring people in from, the suburbs of Maribyrnong, Essendon, Coburg, and Airport West. Places which, over the past few years have become the cluster suburbs for immigrants, mostly refugees, from the African countries of Zambia, Nigeria, Botswana, Tanzania, Swaziland, Mozambique, Kenya, South Africa and Sierra Leone.

Into this hub of urban noise Leber and Chesworth have sent their individual travellers to walk and sing their way through the city. Songs that once described the pulverising of corn, or the happy return of mothers from the field, or the disappearance of a chicken from the village; lullabies, love songs and laments; songs of marriage and loss enter into the urban village of Melbourne through the power of voice and breath made round and cogent in the drum of the body.

Unlike the city’s urban sounds with their artificial veneer, these African voices seem authentic and exuberant – resonant and strong. The rhythm of the voice is matched to the tempo of the walking along the street, which makes the respiration of the singer seem percussive and urgent. This sense of urgency perhaps represents the larger struggle that accompanies the condition of those caught up in the diaspora, and the reserve of strength it takes to enter a new place and space while keeping a cultural memory and life intact...

These are grounded, earthy voices with feet and legs, and arms and bodies, and chests with air pumping. These are private voices made public. For most people music is generally internalised, either in their memory repertoire, or from their iPods, to assist them to individuate amidst the generalised, conglomerated experience of life in the fast lane.'

07sotb1437, 07sitc1452, 07sose1484

YEAR: 2007

 Reflexión Estética is a joint project between the hip hop artist Dano and the plastic artist Avelino Sala. It is a reflection on the world of contemporary art in the shape of a hip hop song – an association of two realities that coexist in the city-. The discourse is based on certain truths about the art establishment. The lyrics were written by both artists and Dano subsequently added the music. The structure of the song follows a classic hip hop theme. The lyrics are: Reflexión Estética¿Qué es el arte? ¿Alma e inspiración fluyendo por un río……en el jardín de un rico que parte y reparte?¿Y para el artista “(h)el-arte” es morirse de frío……y a veces de hambre?Pero espera, ¿qué es “artista”? ¿Lo sabes? Por supuesto…Cualquiera crea un “-ismo” de sí mismo y ya te ha expuesto,y se esconde tras su puesto para obviar lo pre-supuesto,dime qué queda de tu arte si le quito el presupuesto…Nada… No dispara tu Minolta,concepto negativo, sin luz, “gris” como Travolta…A la cola como miles de patéticos serviles,de esos mercenarios viles seudo-artistas son escoltas…Su alma por un precio módico;“revelación” por felación a crítico en periódico,y dime ¿duermes tranquilo? ¿Es puro el aire que respiras?Si eres reo de un museo que comercia con mentiras…

“Menos es más”, lo dijo Van Der Rohey no vemos la paz, el oro les corroey yo vengo de atrás a mantener la guardia;ricos neo-rebeldes no equivalen a vanguardias…Citas innecesarias, aluden a lo sacropara hacer de la nada un macro, es un simulacrode un mundo en tonos ocres: ¿”político de turnoe intelectual mediocre”? No me trago ese teatro…Fotos, fiestas y cócteles, ¿y tú crees que el importe lesimporta lo más mínimo si mínimo caen dos de tres?Vamos, haz las cuentas, socio,y dime si montar una bienal no es un negocio…Vampiros del sentido, actúan en sinestesia;al bolsillo por el ojo solo con “arte-anestesia”y la galería es su iglesia... Preguntas ¿por qué siguen?Si las putas que ahí exponen lloran, tragan y sonríen…

Dano… Avelino Sala… ¿Esto es Arte o no es Arte?

08sotb2069, 08sotc2081, 08sose2129

FORMAT: AIFFYEAR: 2007

 Using the city as the generation source of noises, I use contact microphones to record and document different sonorous surfaces and objects in the city. The sounds presented are recordings of different, ordinary urban objects – water fountains, pipes, sand, water and glass windows – where specific frequencies have been eliminated or intensified, emphasising those that would otherwise be hardly detectable.

This work offers the listener a different experience of the city and its everyday noises, as an auditory chaotic space, creating sounds that generate a space for greater contemplation.

08sotb2070, 08sotc2083, 08sose2130

FORMAT: MONO LENGTH: 7:25 MIN

 Exploring the myth of the Goddess Durga and the festival of Durga Puja, the most important Hindu festival for Bengalis, the 16 offerings are made makes use of the structure of the myth as recorded in the Hindu scriptures and the Hindu puja (prayer) ceremony to explore the nature of my heritage as a Bengali Canadian.

This piece was created while artist in residence at Toronto's Deep Wireless Festival of Radio Art (http://naisa.ca).  It was co-commissioned by and premiered on CBC Radio's documentary radio program Outfront (http://cbc.ca/outfront) and produced by Laurence Stevenson.  The artist would like to thank these institutions and individuals for making the creation of this piece possible.

08sotc2085, 08sotb2071, 08soe2131

 FORMAT: STEREO

 This piece is based on the situation of immigrants: how they feel when they arrive in a new country, their positive and/or negative experiences, their concerns, etc. There are references to emblematic places in Madrid where people of different nationalities coexist. The sound envelops different voices that appear and disappear, creating an atmosphere that reflects the rarefied atmosphere of cities, very often, mysterious and incomprehensible.

08sotb2072, 08sotc2087, 08sose2132

El material que da origen a la composición son grabaciones históricas realizadas en cilindros de cera (en alemán, “Walze”) procedentes del archivo del Museo Etnológico de Berlín. La grabación original se realizó a principios del pasado siglo.

Procesé los sonidos y los ruidos del cilindro de cera utilizando un ordenador y combinándolos para formar una nueva composición. Me interesaba la interacción de la “memoria” grabada, la imaginación (¿quién cantaba/interpretaba el qué, dónde y por qué?) y la desintegración de la información a causa del material (ruido de fondo, fallos técnicos, descomposición), el desvanecimiento de los contextos semióticos, y, por último, mi proceso electrónico. Mi método consistía en contrastar e integrar el sonido de los cilindros de cera y el contenido de audio que soportaban.

La grabación y el almacenamiento de “información de audio” irrelevante me hizo sentir curiosidad y me inspiró para trabajar con el material. Al igual que la viejas fotografías que pierden claridad lentamente, la “información de audio” desaparece o cambia, bien por la descomposición del medio o, en el nivel semiótico, por la ignorancia del oyente que, cuanto más viejo se hace el material, sólo puede imaginar cómo pensó o vivió la persona cuya canción o música se interpretan póstumamente.

En su ensayo Die helle Kammer (título inglés: Camera Lucida) Roland Barthes describe la situación paradójica que se da en la coincidencia del pasado y el presente, y que tiene lugar cuando se contemplan fotos antiguas. Un efecto similar se consigue a través de la reproducción sonora renovada de voces grabadas procedentes del pasado. Naturalmente, esto es cierto de cualquier grabación, pero se intensifica por la antigüedad de las grabaciones realizadas en cilindros de cera. Después de todo, es probable que todas las personas que crearon la música estén muertas. La impresión de una época pasada se ve incrementada por rastros técnicos como crujidos, susurros, etc., comparables al cambio de colores, los pliegues, los arañazos y las manchas de las viejas fotografías.

Acerca de la colección del Museo Etnológico:A finales del siglo XIX, Thomas Alva Edison patentó el fonógrafo e hizo posible por primera vez la grabación y la reproducción de sonidos. Utilizando un embudo, las ondas sonoras se recogían y – como en los discos de vinilo – quedaban grabadas en un cilindro giratorio de cera por medio de una aguja que estaba fija en una membrana.La colección del Museo Etnológico de Berlín comprende treinta mil cilindros de cera que se almacenan en el sótano del museo. Aquí pueden hallarse de nuevo desde 1993 ya que permanecieron perdidos durante casi cincuenta años en la URSS y en la República Democrática Alemana.Muchos de los cilindros se rompieron durante el transcurso del tiempo o se deformaron o, por otros motivos, resultaron irreproducibles, y en su mayor parte el índice de contenidos brinda escasa información.El museo ha publicado – por desgracia sólo unos pocos – discos compactos que contienen las grabaciones fonográficas, en las que, sin embargo, el ruido de fondo de los ruidosos cilindros se redujo cuanto fue posible. En mi labor de proceso, sólo utilicé grabaciones directas con todos los ruidos técnicos, errores, susurros, etc.

08sotb2073, 08sotc2088, 08sose2133

 The source material of the composition are historical recordings made on wax cylinders (German: “Walze”) from the archive of the Ethnologic Museum in Berlin. The original recording was made at the beginning of the last century.

I processed the sounds and noises of the wax cylinder using a computer and combining them to a new composition. I was interested in the interplay of recorded “memory”, imagination (who sang/played what where and why?) and the disintegration of the information by the material (background noise, technical faults, decay), the fading of semiotic contexts and lastly in my electronic processing. My method was to contrast and integrate the sound of the wax cylinders and the transported audio content.

The recording and storing of immaterial “audio information” made me curious and inspired me to work with the material. Like old photographs that slowly fade, the “audio information” disappears or changes either by decay of the medium or on the semiotic level by the ignorance of the listener who, the older the material becomes, only can imagine how the person whose song or music is played posthumously, thought or lived.

In his essay Die helle Kammer (English title: Camera Lucida) Roland Barthes describes the paradox situation in the coincidence of past and present which takes place when looking at old photos. A similar effect is achieved through the renewed sounding of recorded voices from the past. Of course this holds true with any recording, but is intensified by the old age of the wax cylinder recordings, after all it is likely that all the people that created the music are dead. The impression of times past is increased bytechnical traces crackling, rustling, etc. comparable to the changing of colours, folds, scratches and spots on old photographs.

About Ethnological Museum‘s collection:At the end of the 19th century Thomas Alva Edison patented the phonograph and for the first time, made it possible to record sounds and replay them. Using a funnel the sound waves were recorded and – like with vinyl records – engraved in a turning wax cylinder by a needle fastened on a membrane.The collection of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin encompasses 30 000 wax cylinders which are stored in the museum‘s cellar. They can be found here again since 1993 as they were lost for almost 50 years in the USSR and the German Democratic Republic.Many of the cylinders cracked during the course of time, or molded or became otherwise unplayable, and the table of contents mostly gives but sparse information.The museum released – unfortunately only few – CDs contains the phonograph recordings, on which however the background noise on loud cylinders was reduced as far as possible. For my processing I only used direct recordings with all the technical noises, mistakes, rustling, etc.

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FORMAT: : MULTI-CHANNEL SOUND INSTALLATION / NEW YORK (USA) YEAR: 2007 PARTICIPATING MUSICIANS: JOSHUA CAMP- ACCORDION, ANDY COTTON- UPRIGHT BASS KATHLEEN EDWARDS- VIOLIN BEN GERSTEIN- TROMBONE MICHAEL HEARST- THEREMIN, KURT HOFFMAN- CLARINET BEN HOLMES- TRUMPET, MEG REICHARDT- BANJO PEI-YAO WANG- PIANO

 Arnold Schoenberg famously quipped, "My music is not really modern, just badly played." My piece, The Broken Orchestra, metamorphoses his complaint into a guiding principle, imposing a musical procedure designed to reduce the proficiency of professional musicians to a primitive state, in the interests of effecting musical discoveries.

A group of musicians on various instruments are asked individually to recreate the sounds found on an old cassette recording of Bach's Ave Maria as performed by my brother on violin and me on piano when we were youngsters living in Taiwan.

The original recording is characterized by its youthful performers' wobbliness, and a significant about of extra-musical ambience: my 3 year-old sister's giggling, my scolding of her, and so on. The participating musicians' personal memories might be summoned by having to imitate the childish quality and recall the times where they were still fumbling the instruments and learning what music could possibly mean to them. Their musical sensibilities might be challenged by having to respond to this universally known tune in this imperfect and distorted form.  As each re-creation is made, the musical qualities translate through each participant's memories and their own interpretation of a form of musical simplicity.

The result of the experimentation was originally a multi-channel sound installation consisting of the original recording layered with each re-recreation in separate speakers played back in loop. For Madrid Abierto, I made a stereo mix from the original format.

08sotb2074,  08sotc2091, 08sose2134

FORMAT: CD / AIFFYEAR: 2003

Language is a stereophonic sound structure composed for seven vocalists (none of whom are using their vocal cords).

Josh Goldman is a composer / improviser / guitarist / educator who resides in the United States. He composes / improvises / performs music, using acoustic and electronic sources, for various ensembles and settings. Much of his music combines sound and visual elements (film / video / various installation spaces).

His compositions and performances have been heard and awarded internationally. Mr. Goldman holds degrees from New England Conservatory of Music (BM in music performance) and Brooklyn College, CUNY (MM in music composition). Currently, he is pursuing a doctoral degree in music composition at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

08sotb2075, 08sotc2093, 08sose2136

FORMAT: WAV 44.100 HZ. / 16 BITS

The timbre of the voice, its breaking, fragmentation, hidden melodies, internal life and, once again, the voice.

 Constructed using a recorded text, subsequently processed with proliferation and granular synthesis systems to obtain timbre textures and polyphonies.

All the sounds that intervene in the work have been obtained from processing the voice recording which, in turn, appears in the work as a linear discourse.

The tensions between the recited text and the manipulated text establish an agonising and direct relationship between the literary image, the verbal message and the timbre play that engulfs it. From a sonorous point of view, it is all destroyed and reconstructed, just as it happens in the textual message.

08sotb2076, 08sotc2095,  08sose2137

YEAR: 2007

Those who fail to re-read are obliged to read the same story everywhere. Roland Barthes, S/Z.

Rethe is a sonorous piece based on re-reading (in English and Portuguese) different poems by Vito Acconci giving shape to an interlacing of sounds. The base of the structure of the work is the poem RE: a poem that causes the spacialisation of the words on the page as well as the location of different verbal positions. Between the parentheses of this poem, inserted in the spaces, sections of other poems come into play in the composition, changing the intensity and deconstruction of the original linearity of the poems in the position of the audio output. These sections have been removed from the poems Contented, Four pages, Twelve minutes and two untitled others. The name rethe already reveals the game of the work: rethe can be read as read and it is also the inversion of the re. Rethe is a litany that envelops the listener and, without being able to clearly distinguish all the words and numbers, moments of overlap are created through which the sonorous space becomes quite dense.

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The railway station of the city of Utrecht, Netherland, is the most busy and central in the Netherlands.  

The railwaystation has 20 platforms, from 16 of these, passengertrains stop and leave at fixed times.

We have set out these 16 platforms on a card, used for composing for music boxes. (The instrument is played by turning a wheel, that pulls through the card. Holes cut in the card make the instrument play corresponding pitched notes). So every platform has its own fixed note. Then we punched the departure times for each platform out of the paper; one bar representing one hour. So 24 bars for one day.

The mp3-file attached is the result played by hand on the music box. Surprisingly, the squeeky sound of the instrument itself, and the resulting score, have very much the resemblance of a train leaving, accellerating, and stopping again.

08sotb2078, 08sotc2101, 08sose2141

FORMAT: AIFF

Electroschotis is an electro-acoustic remake of a Schotis with Flamenco elements. It was conceived – among other acousmatic uses – for being amplified through loudspeakers in minaret style in strategic points of the city at dawn, nightfall and midday Fridays. It represents an alternative call (although not exclusive) to the religious call (traditionally in the form of a bell or Adhan) as an invocation to social and racial integration, as well as to civic mindedness and lost hope.

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 Inspired by being present in the moment, the sound around us and intrinsic sound within us, the essence of immateriality and reality is brought together to express that the immaterial is creation of reality and that reality is creation of the immaterial.

The titel expresses T’ai Chi: opposites come from unity and merge as one, something of the one is hidden in the other. Therefore the rotation symmetry and the dynamic interaction of polarities implies continuous cyclic movement and transformation.

The Soundscape composition is made by working with ‘real’ environmental sounds to create a new acoustic ‘virtual’ world. The concept of movement and transformation is expressed through the use of motion related and transit related sounds.

By taking environmental sounds from the natural and the mechanical world out of their context, a new unique space that exists only in sound is created. Immatereality is about the stages, motions and transformations in the realization of creation.

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HAMBURG, 1972 LIVES AND WORKS IN HAMBURG WWW.GREGORYBUETTNER.DEWORK EXPOSED IN MADRID ABIERTO: WALZE 1

2007·    Participation at the project “Microton - Science und Sounds“ new sounds for historic science movies. Special programm at the Kurzfilmfestivals Hamburg

2006-2007·    Participation at the project “Reise ins 21 Jahrhundert”, Composers in the Schools! A Project of Landesmusikrats Hamburg in cooperation with the Hochschule für Musik und Theater

2005 ·    Co-organizer (together with Sebastian Reier) of a series of movie events around the topic “sound and picture“ www.bildundton.tk·    Videoscreenings at: 2:13 festival [athen], metropolis, b-movie, infernale, s.k.a.m. kurzfilmfunk

2004 ·    Launch of the label 1000füssler which releases experimental music and video www.1000fussler.com·    Co-founder of the musician-organisation verband für aktuelle musik Hamburg, www.vamh.de·    Member of the musician-association hörbar e.v. www.hoerbar-ev.de

2000-2004 ·    Specialization in audiovisual work: sound, video, photography

1997-2004 ·    Communication design studies at the university for applied sciences, Hamburg

RELEASES·    nil_audio, 3”cd-r /AIC ·    23 ZOOMS, dvd-r + cd-r /1000füssler ·    every, 3”cd-r /1000füssler ·    3”/1, 3”cd-r /1000füssler ·    heiz, track on the cd “heizung raum 318“ with S.Funck, A.Tietchens, N.Stephan /1000füssler ·    domichel, contribution to the compilation “Der Michel und der Dom”, CD / Grünrekorder ·    tischbrunnen, contribution to the compilation “Verfassung”, LP / Hamburger Hörbar e.v. ·    alugeige, mp3-single www.plakatif.net   ·    Soon: walze 1-8, cd /fireworks edition records·    tba, cd / collaboration with Rhodri Davies / con-v

WITH FÜR DIESEN ABEND·    Since 2001 exist the audio duo “für diesen abend“ (engl: for this evening) with Stefan Funck. Partly in co-operation with the artist Katrin Bethge, who uses overhead projectors to convert the sounds of the duo to visuals and vice versa.

Performances ·    in Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Nijmegen, Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Dresden, Erlangen, Detmold, Stralsund.

Festivals·    International Filmfestival Rotterdam 2007, 8. Festival Garage 2004 (Stralsund/Germany), The Art of Overhead 2005 (Copenhagen / Denmark), Blurred Edges 2006 -12 Tage aktuelle Musik (Hamburg)·    PlacardClubTransmediale (Berlin), Hafensafari.

Releases·    self titled, cd-r / 1000füssler·    Live, cd-r + video/Alulatonserien·    verbiegung der normallinie, contribution to the compilation “prosit zur letzten tide“, 2cd-r / Hörbar·    Soundtrack for the shortfilms Ellipse (2003 / 10 min / 35mm ) and Innen (2004 / 20 min / 35mm) by Martin Kaatz

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 Madrid breathing is a pulsatile composition entirely based on the sound of her breath, which has been digitally modified and arranged like a piece of music.She has conceived of the project for the radio. Her aim is to have it played in as many cities worldwide as possible.

The 'breathing' project is the idea of a collective, large-scale happening, in which all inhabitants of Madrid can participate. Right before transmission, the radio-audience should be asked to open their windows and project the sound onto the street. Passing pedestrians will perceive the sound emerging from the surrounding buildings as if the architecture itself reflected the rhythm of life.

At night, acoustic signals seem louder than during daytime. Nocturnal temperature inversions make sound travel further as it is reflected off the upper inversion layer. Also, general noise emission decreases and single sounds can be more easily distinguished. Late at night, as traffic slows down and most birds hushed, we perceive the nightly-active animals and the human society with its nocturnal noises: a single car passing by, music pouring out of bars and clubs, dialogue-bits, sounds of radio and TV, someone snoring or the neighbours making love.At other times or places, there are detonations – flight-bombers tend to circulate by night. Windows are broken, books or religious centres burned. With the help of fire and electricity the humans have become horribly inventive concerning their nocturnal activities.

Sometimes, the air finally seems still – and the individual finds himself alone.Now imagine, you were walking through Madrid at night and the buildings started to breath softly.

The composition was created in collaboration with sound engineer Eric B. Barr.

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Format: Acusmática

 This piece was created in 2008 by field recordings made in the cities of Morelia and Mexico DF, recordings that took place in the sonic environment of the composer and that, at the same time, were registered in a logbook with the date and place of each recording. In a similar process to that of using a diary but instead of writing down the events, here they appear in a sound format.

Diario Sonoro recollects sounds from open and intimate spaces that the composer inhabits, listening situations that submerge us in different environments through fragments of sound, natural and processed, in a discourse that does not have a determined order. It simply opens up small windows of sound mixed in such a way that they offer a structure in which the piece is moving from one atmosphere to another. From calm to tense, in which metallic sounds mixed together offer a new dimension and color to the textures of sound.

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 This piece is made of two individual sounds .The squeaking sound of the hinge of a door when closing slowly and the metallic sound of a Phillip Stark lemon squeezer being hit with a spoon. Thanks to possibilities enabled by software (fundamentally by Ableton Live 6.0) these two sounds have been processed with effects, loops, editions and partitions, until musical elements have been extracted: rhythms, melodies, bass lines, cushions, etc.

The inspiration for this piece is inevitably provided by the two Pierres, pioneers of concrete music: Schaeffer and Henry, but also keepers of this musical legacy such as Luc Ferrari or Francisco López, from these saviours of concrete music to more hedonistic results such as Matmos or Herbert and, of course, masters of modern electronic as Autreche or Pan sonic. The final aspiration of this piece is the sublimation of concrete music towards a more enjoyable result from a musical and melodious point of view, without having to bear in mind the conceptual element of the work, this is, the concrete origin of sounds.

To sum up; this piece may be enjoyed in two different ways: praising its essence as concrete music (lets not forget that the only sources of sound are a door and a squeezer) or, passing this by and concentrating only on the final result, enjoying what is heard by the ear and, not as much, what is suggested to the informed intellect, this is, a musical piece which is constructed with shocking textures, having an electronic aroma and with a relevant danceable element to it.

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 The sounds of a tramway, the calls of the night watchman, the sound of music in the public space, bells, cars, these are some of the sounds that build up the aural memory of the Lavapiés neighborhood. A series of interviews arranged with people that were born or have lived in the neighborhood for a long period of time where the stepping stone to develop Lavapiés Chipén: Sonic memory of a neighborhood.

The field work that we have referred to above was intermingled with audio recordings, when possible, of the concrete sounds, events and/or places mentioned by those interviewed as well as others which were detected by the composers themselves (to these recordings, others, belonging to the www.madridsoundscape.org online project were added).

This current project was conceived while considering environmental sounds and the aural element as a highly valuable mode of representation and means to obtain knowledge.

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 The recording is based on a quote written by avant-garde composer Erik Satie, taken from his collection of writings titled Memoirs of an Amnesiac. The full quote describes a typical day in his somewhat eccentric lifestyle. The text, spoken by the artist, is repeated eight times with every second word removed from each reading. This applies a reductive strategy to the text, where it gets progressively shortened until eventually only the first sentence remains. A feeling of dissonance is created, where the logical expression of language is disrupted, resulting in a mixture of sense and nonsense, seriousness and humour. The seemingly disconnected words are read at a steady pace in a monotone voice, where they function like the beat of a metronome, a device used to regulate the pace of music.

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 This audio collage mixes printing press rhythms and spoken word with interview scraps that would usually be edited out of a journalistic radio segment, including material that draws attention to the technical and interpersonal machinations of reporting. It's a behind-the-scenes view of journalism, which is a process of editing and selecting, rather than transmitting a complete record to the public.

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Format: AIFF 16 bits

 In early July, the saxophonist Stéphan Rives came from his home in Beirut to record with the artists at his studio in Madrid. When they were about to listen to the result, a truck stopped in front of his window and its occupants started to open up the street with a pneumatic hammer. It was impossible to listen to the music, so he took his portable recording system and went out in the street to record the roar of something that has become distinctive of this town and court: the public works.

In one occasion, Leo Steinberg talked about Robert Rauschenberg saying that he had “invented, most of all… a pictorial landscape that opened up, once again, the doors of the world, not those of the Renaissance man that tries to find out the weather by peeping out the window, but the world of men who turn buttons around to listen to a recorded message, “ten per cent of probability of rainfall tonight”, an electronic transmission coming out of some cabin without windows”.

In this present piece, a product of so much peeping out the window and turning buttons around, the artist exclusively work with the sounds I recorded on that hot day of July in front of his studio, manipulating them, altering them, rearranging them, putting them out of their original context, and, in general, exposing them to a series of techniques to create a work made out of sounds of work. It is a “piece conceived as the image of an image”, as Steinberg said about Warhol’s work. Because the sounds assume their identity not only as the noises of public works, but as recorded sounds, used in a “manner that will assure it won’t just be the direct presentation of a world space, but will admit any experience as material for representation”.

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Format: WAV.-FILE (stereo, 44kHZ) / Year: 2005 / Place of audio recording: Ghent and BrusselsVoiceovers: Tourists: American, British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch (Belgium + Holland), Danish, Swedish, Russian, Slovenian, Japanese, Chinese, German, Italian, etc...

 These days, reflections on the future generally dwell on a commercial or global economic context. The extent to which various cities present themselves, on an innovative and globally competitive scale, on the Internet via PowerPoint presentations serves to illustrate this statement.

The starting point in Insert the name of the city (here) is the fact that each of these PowerPoint presentations consists of the same topics and structure (slogan + standard background + logo). The tourism and city marketing sector uses the same worn-out phrases all over the world to speak about the qualities and advantages of cities.

In the sound work the apparently naive and utmost dogmatic technique becomes even more dubious as the catch phrases of the compiled PowerPoint presentation are being read aloud by a series of tourists. As the pages of this compiled presentation stay behind, this sound work also focuses on the feeling of doubt and uncertainty that surrounds these ‘interpreting’ voices.

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 Year: 2005 / Format:  CD audio

My sonorous work is called Am I walking. The idea is simple. I took an md-player and a stereo microphone with me to have a walk. For about 45 minutes, I wandered around the city of Tampere and recorded everything. Afterwards, I listened to my trip and was amazed how many unidentifiable and obscure sounds there were. Removing a sound or an ambience from its context is revealing: even sounds that are perceived as routine or even banal have a surprising and an interesting side. When I listened to the recording, I noticed lots of interesting sounds, almost like drum beats and instruments playing, so I decided to make music with those sounds (cars, people, sliding doors etc.). The main idea was to create scenarios where everyday sounds begin to turn into music. Street beats. I came up with three beats and put them together. So every sound that you hear on Am I walking are from that 45 minute walkabout, from the moment I shut my door to the moment I came back.

I used a minidisc recorder and a stereo microphone to record the whole thing. After that I used Boss br-1180 ten track hard disc recorder and a Boss sp 505 sampler to bring the whole thing together. I tried to keep the sounds quite original and avoided unnecessary effects and processing. Am I walking is a very interesting description of everyday sounds when they start taking over your brains!

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FORMAT: LOOP/ CD I YEAR: 2005-2007

 ‘"The end result of complete cellular representation is cancer"William S. Burroughs Naked Lunch 134

hair+spit v1.0 is a war broadcast. It is first piece taken from over 17 hours of actual sound recordings of chemotherapy treatment. The sound of the drugs, blood transfusions, hydration treatments and food supplements entering the body.

In the summer of 2005, I sat beside my son, Piers, in Ward 10. He had cancer. These are moments of complete helplessness; you are not part of the rest of the world. You feel lonely in the realisation he is lonely; you are always alone in great pain wherever that pain originates and for nearly two months he hardly spoke or smiled. He has now fully recovered.

Chemotherapy is a form of warfare; a well planned and sustained war of attrition against any abnormal and uncontrolled cell division causing cancerous tumours. Like any successful battle plan it requires meticulous planning, execution and of course, luck. Like any war, there are many casualties suffered other than intended targets. Collateral damage within the body is widespread. Severely reduced is the hair and saliva production within the body due to the destruction of those dividing cells; it decimates the immune system.

In a small totally blacked out space, an immersive sonic environment, I want to put the audience somewhere in the position I was; in a children’s oncology ward in the dead of night with the faint sound of the infusion pump which had the unsettling psychological effect of slowly increasing in volume until it was all I could hear. This is, in media terms, within the realm of a war broadcast, a ‘scaling up’ as opposed to obvious ‘scaling down’ effect we normally experience.

hair+spit v1.0 is both a real document and an artistic corporeal investigation through a lonely virulent sound of mutation and war.

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