The MorphWiz in action
Experience the darker side of the sonic potential iWIthin MorphWiz.
I like 
Paint the sound of the 808 drum computer
Installations don’t have to be complicated to be fun. Color a Sound is more like an instrument, and it is not very difficult to operate: you use a colored marker to draw lines or shapes and you will hear the result immediately.
To keep things simple and easy to operate, also for a untrained musician, only the major scale is used. Blue dots can be drawn to trigger the sounds of a vintage 808 drum computer, although this does not seem to work very well because it is impossible to keep it running at a constant speed.
Beware of the drum machine – on the move
As part of a project for a promotional contest to Audiofile Engineering, Frits Lyneborg from Copenhagen, Denmark created a DIY robot that runs around looking for things to drum on, then samples an plays back its beats.
The robot searches around it’s surroundings until it finds an object that is “worth playing on” (a single isolated object or a wide flat surface that it can find an angle onto). It then plays a beat on the object with it’s 2 drumsticks (and “bass drum” stick underneath) and records what it plays. If it decides that it sounds good, it’ll loop this sample and play along with it.
Another cool feature is that it can detect when you are clapping your hands or stomping your feet, and play along in time to your beat. It’ll also sample your shouting or other noises and incorporate that into the beat as well.
At the top there is another speaker, which plays the loop, along with an LED that flashes to the beat when it’s recording.
Thanks to SG
Space storms – the sun synth
Space Storms can sometimes go a bit crazy, and can cause all sorts of havoc on earth, like destroying electronics, killing power grids and wrecking satellites. NASA claims that we should experience such a storm sometime around 2013.
The scientists translated measurements the vibrations into sound (as the sound itself cannot travel through the near-vacuum of space), and sped up the resulting waveforms to put them into the range of human hearing. Other than just producing some pretty amazing sounds, “sun music” has other uses as well. Professor Robertus von Fáy-Siebenbürgen, head of the solar physics research group at Sheffield University, said:
Studying the “music of the sun” would provide new ways of understanding and predicting solar flares before they happen.
Here’s a sample of what the SunSynth sounds like:
Multi-user sound sculpture – Sonomateria
SONOMATERIA is a multi-user sound sculpture, installation, tangible sound interface and intersensory composition. The work aims to explore the mutual reinforcing effect that the manipulation of tactile and auditory perceptions can have on each other in the context of art and design.
SONOMATERIA takes the form of a tangible interface that allows spectators to manipulate digital sound via tactile interaction with a selection of physical objects made of 16 distinct materials: Polystyrene, Coal, Cork, Wood, Industrial Rubber, Clay, Sponge, Stone (Granite), Coal, Wax, Synthetic Leather, Vinyl, Iron, Gaffer tape, and Plasticine. It is a tactile composition interconnected with a dynamic sound palette, inviting multiple spectators to navigate through, re-arrange, deform and manipulate a pre-existing sound composition.
The interface responds with tactile and sound feedback, attempting to position the spectator in a loop of intersensory synesthesia. The work draws upon and extends surrealist cut-up techniques popularized in the late 1950s by writer Willam S. Burroughs. The cut-up technique is an aleatory literary technique in which a text (or multiple texts) is cut up into smaller portion at random, and rearranged to create a new text. In SONOMATERIA, this technique is extended from the literary domain to the musical domain, and instead of words, big portions of sound are cut down to small fragments. The audience is invited to interact with the fragments via a tangible interface that invokes tactile sensations, and thereby access an intersensory composition coded into a hybrid of touch and sound.
Body speak – tuned to your frequency
The device draws the wearer below the surface of his own skin and allows them to investigate and remix the various sounds of his bodily functions.
The project is a commentary and criticism of the use of invasive technologies, such as X-rays and small cameras used to observe internal organs, by the medical industry to probe the human body.
For me, this project suggests a certain spirituality that requests the user to listen and “tune” the frequency of his own body. It’s almost a metaphor for meditation.
http://vimeo.com/12593222
Karina van Heck transforms the intimate sounds of our body into an esoteric remix of heart beats and gurgles with her latest project “Body Speaker.”
“Body Speaker” consists of a number of sound capturing wearables that amplify and capture the mysterious internal sounds of a body. The device draws the wearer below the surface of his own skin and allows them to investigate and remix the various sounds of his bodily functions.
The project is a commentary and criticism of the use of invasive technologies, such as X-rays and small cameras used to observe internal organs, by the medical industry to probe the human body.
Dataflux
Dataflux, created by Kit Webster is a wonderful installation with synchronized sound and images. The visuals are projected on seven pillars, and the sound greatly enhances the experience of movement. Dataflux has some resemblance to Minus 60° by Karl Kliem. Again I cannot help thinking of Ryoji Ikeda’s work when watching this video, also because of the name, as it’s very similar to Ikeda’s Dataplex. For Dataflux Webster created software that renders the visuals live.
Kit Webster will be one of the artists at this year’s Liquid Architecture festival in Australia taking place in June and July.
For those of you who missed this morning’s post
Listen to the entire album here
Sun audio experimenting
Sun Boxes is a sound installation consisting of 20 speakers, independently operating. For those of you who have not seen it on the many other sites who showed this: each speaker has a built-in solar panel and contains a guitar sample.
The speakers are spread around so visitors can enter the installation to enjoy the ever changing composition from various sides. The installation, created by Craig Colorusso is completely solar powered and the music stops when the sun sets. A great way of showing we can create beautiful things only using natural resources.
Listen to it here:
New album from highly acclaimed Zoo System
Finally the new album from Zoo System is released on Stereoklang.
Zoo System is an experimental electro act founded in 2006. Exploring the boarders between ambient and electro the band has successfully released songs that triggers your dreams of space, remote and dark places. Subtle and playful rhythms of voices, machines, noise and metallic beats has become the trademark of this underground band.
All songs are equipped with “Song imaginations” like these ones:
Endless Dimensions
Lone man sitting by fire
Staring at the logs burning
Eyes gets filled of tears
Seeing beyond the hot flames
Where endless dimensions start
Black Pentagram
The fire burns down
Coldness reaching for his heart
A spark burns the hand
Looking for fuel in the woods
Pagans dancing on a hill
DATAMASKIN
