soundscapes
from the EMST library
Duration: 12/6/2009-30/9/2009
MEDIA LOUNGE - PATIO
In the framework of the exhibition heart in heart the tribute soundscapes is organized in the media lounge and the patio of the museum with sound works by some of the most important contemporary representatives of sound art (electronic, environmental, etc) among which are: Erik Belgum, Jürgen Bräuninger, Steven Feld, Bill Fontana, Thomas Gerwin, Bob Gluck, Υael Kanarek, Daniel Lentz, Steve Roden, Mario Verandi, Nils Vigeland, Hildegard Westerkamp`s Trevor Wishart.
TRACK LIST
1. Mario Verandi - Orillas Distantes / Distant Shores
Mario Verandi`s music goes beyond music. It`s electronic. It`s also theatre, dance, sound art, film, radio. It is so evocative, that you`ll find yourself in a musical theatre. You`ll hear percussion instruments from Brazil, the sounds of Barcelona, with its street bustle, guitars, and rhythms, in your living room. He evokes a kind of flamenco that you`ll rarely hear, with suggestions of guitars, the dancing and tapping of many shoes, the chanting and singing ... and uses it to set his musical stage for Lorca`s `Blood Wedding`. And there`s a playful side to his music as he plays with the sounds of paper and cloth, glass, leaves, plastic bottles. The compositions are `Evil Fruit` (2000), `Fréquences de Barcelone` (1997), `Figuras Flamencas` (1995), `Heartbreaker` (1996), `Faces and Intensities` (1996), and `Plastic Water` (2000).
2. Electric Songs: Bob Gluck
On his second CD, Bob Gluck brings together the complex overlaying of his previous work with his passion for live electronic performance. He performs on traditional instruments from the Mideast, a Turkish lute, the saz and the Jewish shofar, which have been expanded with sensors and custom designed software interfaces. The sounds are lush and evocative and the musical forms draw from traditional Jewish sources. The CD closes with a surprising early work of musique concrete, anticipating by two decades Gluck`s interest in soundscape composition.
3. Bad Marriage Mantra: Erik Belgum
This is Erik Belgum`s stylized realization of a marital quarrel that he heard one night in a Toronto hotel through the walls of an adjoining room. As Kenneth Goldsmith wrote in New York Press, "At first it`s shocking, then it`s funny. After a while, it`s really annoying. But finally, however, about a half hour into the disc, you start paying less attention to the words themselves and begin hearing the `music` in the midst of this hysterical onslaught ..."
4. Red Bird/Anticredos: Trevor Wishart
Trevor Wishart asked: "Why work with computers?" And answered: "Why, to make sounds that no one has heard before." `Red Bird` (1980), Wishart`s classic electronic work, is all about sound and transformations. Vocal sounds are changed into metallic hammers, a book slammed closed becomes a slammed door ... A vast array of recorded sounds shift and slowly morph into other sounds, and the effect is magical. `Anticredos` (1980) is a vocal transformation of the word "Credos". The superb performance by the ensemble Singcircle creates a new sound world bearing little resemblance to the original sounds. We are reminded that the voice is the ideal synthesizer and that Wishart is one of the essential composers in the history of computer music.
5. Voiceprints: Trevor Wishart
In `Two Women` (1998), he uses the voice of Margaret Thatcher to create a political cartoon and presents a personal portrait and touching documentary from the voice of Princess Diana. In `American Triptych` (1999), the words of Martin Luther King, the crackly quality of the radio transmission through space of Neil Armstrong`s voice, and the zany musicality of Elvis Presley`s singing comprise a vast sonic portrait of the 20th century American dream of "liberty, technological progress, and the pursuit of pleasure". In `Anna`s Magic Garden` (1982), he transforms his young daughter`s voice, along with the sounds of pipes, elastic bands, food, and footsteps, in a playful view of the world through a child`s ears. In `Blue Tulips` (1994), an eighty year-old woman describes her dream about blue tulips she saw in the house of a friend. `Tongues of Fire` (1995) represents an important moment in the history of electronic music. It is a complex extended composition that explores the human condition through the transformation of the human voice.
6. Jane Eyre: Nils Vigeland
This collection of Nils Vigeland`s music is dramatic and elegant! `False Love True Love` is a chamber opera in two acts based on two scenes from Charlotte Brontë`s Jane Eyre. The work has two characters, and consists of two pivotal scenes: the meeting between them immediately following their unfulfilled marriage ceremony, and their first meeting after many years of separation. The musical inspirations for his Five Nocturnes are diverse: Ives, Gershwin, Chopin and the environmental sounds of last call at an Irish pub. `Two Days`, written two days after September 11th, 2001, is Vigeland`s musical reaction to the attack on the World Trade Center.
7. Steve Roden
Oder delias or butterflies, 2005
label: non visual objects / nvo 001
cd in paper folder / edition: 300
1. oder delias or butterflies 40:31
4/8/05 from a dream, nyc - i tried to order "oder delias" in a restaurant, which i remember as rice forms floating in broth. the phrase "oder delias" running thorugh my head over and over throughout the dream, even as i awoke it was with me for awhile. (also in the dream, the waitress i was talking to said not to order the "oder delias" because it was too expensive. i remember now it was $9.)
when i wrote to heribert that i wanted to title my cd "oder delias", he replied with "how is the title to understand?, oder = is a german word (engl. or?), delias - are these kind of butterflies? " as i have worked on many projects translating languages that i don`t understand into english through sounds or spellings of foreign words; i thought heribert`s meanings of my dream words seemed perfect - thus the title "oder delias or butterfiles".
the main source material for the sound was a beautiful bamboo flute made for me by bernhard gunter that arrived in the mail around the time of heribert`s invitation to make this cd. i`ve also added a few other sounds which are not from my dreams, nor rice forms, and most likely not butterflies....”
Schindler House , 2001
label: new plastic music / mak center for art & architecture
printed folder with 3 color postcards and cd in printed sleeve.
edition: 1000
1. garden (man trembles facing the universe) 12:21
2. a quiet flexible background for a harmonious life 17:30
3. pathway (it was a lovely sight against the sky) + 4` 33" 36:30
“this cd documents a series of 3 sound installations originally presented at the schindler house / MAK center for art and architecture los angeles in 2001. garden was placed near the back of the lot facing the house in a bamboo grove via 8 small speakers. a quiet flexible background for a harmonious life was placed in a small hallway of the house on headphones. pathway was placed along the front path to the house on 4 larger speakers. the outdoor works were set to relatively low volume levels for listeners to discover. the indoor work was set on headphones so that it would not disturb the natural sound space of the house. i spent an evening in the house making field recordings which i used as the main sources for the compositions. i also used my own voice, flowerpots from Richard neutra`s studio, and bamboo field recordings from Japan and France.”
Resonant Cities (As She Gently Floats Away), 2002 I started this project many times in my mind. it began with the idea of recordings based on the perimeter of the block i live on in los angeles -but i was in vancouover at the time. it moved on to include the architectural landmarks of los angeles that i remember from childhood, recording the sites where these things used to exist - but this thought came to me while in miami. i then decided on a long conceptual process oriented work for a city i was visiting for the first time - but by the time i began the recordings i had to leave miami for nyc - a place i had been many times before. by this point i had also completely given up on the idea of using my own city - my "home".
this entire work is made up from the following processed, fragmented, and `pure` field recordings:
traffic from a window in athems
child kicking a tin can as he walks by me in cannakale
voice reading the koran in istanbul
voices on train from slovenia to vienna
coat hangers in motel 6 in gallup new mexico
woolen scarf tapping on window due to wind in kobe japan
the ocean in mykonos
towel rack in motel 6 in scottsdale arizona
bathroom fan in hotel room in brasilia brasil
birds in birdcages in market in sao paolo brasil
glass door and wind at the pompidou center in paris
metal coat hangers in hotel room in paris
unknown location paris
radiator in hotel room in berlin
flagpole outside the museum of contemporary art miami florida
piano and voices at tonic in new york
light post and wind in cabazon california
fish seller in kobe japan
no other sounds or sound sources were used. resonant cities is dedicated to ruth steiner
8. Yoav Gal, Yael Kanarek: Bit by Bit, Cell by Cell
1. Grid 6:28
2. Extreme Beauty 3:13
3. Eep 3:07
4. Yours Forever 11:57
5. Toolbox 4:23 6. Resolution 3:43 7. Portal 2:06 8. Bit by Bit, Cell by Cell 14:49 9. Sugar High 5:11 10. Window 2:17 11. Vanishing Point 4:39
9. Daniel Lentz, On The Leopard Altar
Out of print for more than two decades, Daniel Lentz`s 1984 album On the Leopard Altar is back on the Cold Blue label. With its multiple vocal, keyboard and wineglass parts, haunting neo-romantic melodies, sparkling timbres, and unusual additive and subtractive structures, it is a remarkable collection. Compositions are `Is It Love?`, `Lascaux`, `On the Leopard Altar`, `Wolf is Dead`, and `Requiem`.
10. Steven Feld, The Time Of Bells
This CD, produced by Steven Feld with an ear to the bells of Italy, Finland, Greece, and France, is the first in a series of four bell-centric CDs. Feld writes: "After twenty-five years of recording rainforest soundscapes in Papua new Guinea, I`ve started to listen to Europe. I`m struck by a sonic resemblance: bells stand to European time as birds do to rainforest time. Daily time, seasonal time, work time, ritual time, social time, collective time, cosmological time - all have their parallels, with rainforest birds sounding..."
11. Steven Feld, The Time Of Bells 2
In the second CD of the series it`s not only bells you hear. It`s the whole environment in which the bells exist! Feld writes: "Listen to city church and village carnival bells sound the time of day and season, the time of prayer and festival. Birds, choirs, protesters, parades, brass, bands, bagpipes, and sound systems join to ring European histories of authority and disruption."
12. Steven Feld, The Time Of Bells 3
In the third CD, with an ear to the bells and other instrumental sounds of Accra, Ghana, you hear the whole environment in which the bells exist! Feld writes: "Listen as hand bells of different sizes, pitches, and timbres interact with voices, wind, string, percussion and reed instruments - including car horns and jazz saxophone - in a sampling of today`s vibrant music in Ghana."
13. Jürgen Bräuninger, Durban Noise And Scraps Works
Living in South Africa, Jürgen Bräuninger uses sound and music to portray the reality of the world around him. This CD is a model of urban soundscape! It`s about people, traditions, nature, work, cities, children, music, speaking voices ... There`s South African poetry, texts, traditional and contemporary instruments and rhythms, songs, and clips from European classical music. And the result is a portrait of a place in sound that conveys its human complexity.
14. Thomas Gerwin, Fluss Durchs Ohr: Klangbilder Vom Neckar
Thomas Gerwin follows the Neckar river, which flows from Baden-Wuerttemberg to the Rhine at Mannheim, and records `sound-pictures` (`klangbilder`), not only of the water, but also of the people and nature surrounding the river. This is a particular type of global documentation, a kind of aural photographic art.
15. Bill Fontana, Australian Sound Sculptures
Two works composed many years apart by Bill Fontana. In `Kirribilli Wharf` (1976), his goal was to capture the sounds of a water environment from multiple acoustical perspectives, and to accomplish that he placed microphones in eight holes in the dock. `Acoustical Views` (1988) was a sound sculpture realized on the facade of the Art Gallery of New South Wales during the 1988 Syndney Biennale. His idea was to associate sounds with the distant places that could be viewed from the art gallery.
SonicTime
Collection project in progress, featuring video and audio works from the EMST collection
Duration: 30/9/2008-
A study of the role of sound in contemporary art, which will evolve in multiple cycles. The first cycle of the exhibition, titled SonicTime, around John Cage, focuses on the early experimental audio and video works of the 1950s and 1960s. Works by the Fluxus movement as well as Nam June Paik’s works referencing the oeuvre of John Cage are presented.
Tribute to Iannis Xenakis
The National Museum of Contemporary Art in collaboration with the Institute of Research on Music and Acoustics (IEMA) organises an hommage on Iannis Xenakis.
The hommage is presented in the Media Lounge of EMST and will last from the 26/2/2009 until the 22/6/2009.
In the framework of the hommage there are permanently installed:
• Stations of hearing (audio lounge) with work of I.Xenakis
•Reading room,
•Video Projections video with polytechna works and documentaries
•Installation with the interactive system of musical composition UPIC of Xenakis (in new digital concretisation)
• Showcase with music score and drawings of composer.
The videos currently presented in the media lounge are:
John Cage
Catch 44, 1971
39’15’’, color, sound
©Photo:Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
Nam June Paik
A Tribute to John Cage, 1973-1976,
29`02``, color, sound
©Photo:Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
Camera Three
The Strange Music of Nam June Paik, 1975
27’, color, sound
©Photo:Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
Lars Movin
The Misfits - 30 Years of Fluxus, 1993
80’, color, sound
©Photo:Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
Also presented in the audio lounge is a selection of John Cage and Steve Roden audio works.
John Cage
Music for Marcel Duchamp, 1947
In a Landscape, 1948
Suite for Toy Piano, 1948
Music of Changes. Buch I-Buch IV, 1951
4`33", 1952
Winter Music, 1952
34`46.776" For a Pianist, 1954
31`57.9864" For a Pianist, 1954
34`46.776" For a Pianist, 1954
31`57.9864" For a Pianist, 1954
26`1.1499" For a String Player, 1955
27`10.554" For a Percussionist, 1956
Sixty-Eight, 1956
26`1.1499" For a String Player, 1955
27`10.554" For a Percussionist, 1956
Indeterminacy: New Aspect Of Form In Instrumental And Electronic Music, 1959