Unidentified Sound Object @ the 2020 NAMM Show

Save 30% on our sound effects libraries to celebrate NAMM 2020 using the exclusive promo code "namm2020" - let's meet up at the Anaheim Convention Center (January 16-19)!

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From Organs to Organs — KISS2014: Organic Sound

From organs (biological) to organs (musical), this year’s Kyma International Sound Symposium (#KISS2014), to be held in Lübeck Germany on 25-28 September 2014, will explore multiple meanings of the phrase “organic sound” through technical talks, live performances, and hands-on workshops. 

Events will kick off with the unveiling of a major new release of the Kyma software and feature technical/philosophical sessions on topics ranging from voice processing, to sonification of organic chemicals and the Internet, to organic growth and decay, to how to build your own performance controller and use it to control Kyma via OSC, to presentations by individual composer/performers detailing how they utilize Kyma in their live performances and installations. 

The full program is online at: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com/detailed-program 

Check out the lineup of presenters, composers, performers and Kyma experts here: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com/presenters-and-performers 

Registration is now open: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com/kiss2014-registration

Discounts are available for students and for anyone registering before 1 August 2014. 

For travel and lodging information, please visit: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com/travel-and-lodging 

More information 

KISS2014 Site: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kyma-International-Sound-Symposium/241910735840451 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/KymaSymposium

Sonic Screens 2012 - full lineup

 

Electroacoustic music concert 
an event by U.S.O. Project (Matteo Milani, Federico Placidi) in collaboration with O’ and Die Schachtel 

Premieres: 
Agostino Di Scipio
"Two Sound Pieces with Repertoire String Music"
for any number of bowed string instruments and live electronics

Andrea Valle
"Dispacci dal fronte interno"
for Violin, Cello, spatialized electronics and printers

Federico Placidi
"TimeCapsule"
for Violin, Cello and live electronics

Performed by: 
Èdua Amarilla Zádory - Violin
Ana Topalovic - Violoncello

Sound Direction: 
Matteo Milani

Live Sets: 
Thoranna Bjornsdottir aka Trouble
Massimiliano Viel

O’ | via pastrengo 12 Milan | Italy
Saturday, December 1st - from 8:00 to 22:30 p.m. 

Door 5 euro

Mirror_Mirror | Sound Installation

Concept and software design by Federico Placidi
Hardware design by Matteo Milani
Woodworker: Fabio Testa
Produced by U.S.O.Project, 2012

Where: [.BOX] Videoart project space, Via Federico Confalonieri 11, Milan
When: Thursday, September 27, 2012 | 6:30 until 21:30 PM
Free admission

The concept of multiverse was first introduced in the so-called “many-worlds interpretation” (MWI) of quantum mechanics by Hugh Everett III in his PHD thesis, "The Theory of the Universal Wavefunction". His model was thought as an alternative to the renowned theory called “Copenaghen interpretation”, developed by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.

The MWI interpretation postulates that every quantum measurement process (at Planck’s scale) creates, as a consequence, a division of the observed Universe into multiple parallel universes - as many as the possible outcomes of the measurements are.

In different formulations of this concept, all the universes - which form the Multiverse - are structurally identical, and they can coexist at different states even if they possess the same physical laws and fundamental constants.

We need to take into account that those universes are non-communicating (there cannot be any information exchange between them).

In an episode of the famous TV series “Doctor Who” - the episode was Doomsday, written by Russell T. Davies - the Doctor finds himself in the situation to make a difficult and dramatic choice: separating from the person who probably loved him the most, by “exiling” her in a parallel universe to guarantee her safety and survival.

It is worth mentioning some parts of the dialogue from the original script of the episode:

Rose comes to a halt in the middle of the beach and stands there, waiting. A short way to her left, the Doctor fades out of thin air. Rose turns to him. He's slightly translucent.

ROSE

Where are you?

THE DOCTOR

(his voice sounds distant)

Inside the TARDIS.

INT. TARDIS

The Doctor is, in reality, standing by the TARDIS console facing straight ahead.

THE DOCTOR (CONT'D)

There's one tiny little gap in the universe left, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection, I'm in orbit around a super nova.

(laughs softly)

I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye.

Sure enough, the TARDIS is spinning around a beautiful super nova.

EXT. BAD WOLF BAY

ROSE

(shaking her head)

You look like a ghost.

THE DOCTOR

Hold on...

He takes his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket.

INT. TARDIS

He points the sonic screwdriver at the console and somehow this strengthens his projection.

EXT. BAD WOLF BAY

The Doctor now looks as solid as if he were really there. Rose walks over to him and raises a hand to touch his face.

ROSE

Can I t--?

THE DOCTOR

(regretfully)

I'm still just an image. No touch.

ROSE

(voice trembling)

Can't you come through properly?

THE DOCTOR

The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse.

The scene partially violates the no-information-transit prohibition between the two universes, but the subterfuge used in the story (the two characters cannot touch, only see each other), somehow preserves the assumption presented by the MWI, only conceding a small but necessary poetic licence.

In the same episode, there is a very touching scene, where the two characters (Rose and the Doctor), right after their isolation in two different universes, are in front of one another separated only by a simple white wall.

This border, imaginary and symbolic, which divides not only two places in the same space-time continuum, rather two whole universes, gave us an idea.

We wanted to offer that experience as an installation. We wanted to allow the audience to listen to whatever is “on the other side”, beyond that wall, and we wanted all this to happen in real time.

That’s how Mirror_Mirror was born.

The installation is organized inside a space.

What does this mean?

The space in itself, when it isn’t filled with matter (empty), is in reality permeated by low energy levels continually fluctuating.

These fluctuations in the void, have a particular significance on a quantistic level (we refer to the Planck scale, so at infinitesimally small dimensions).

In quantum mechanics, these fluctuations represent temporary shifts in the energy state of the void space, according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

This means that the Conservation of energy principle can be violated for very brief periods of time (the lower the energy, the longer the fluctuation can persist.)

This energy can decade and take the shape of pairs of particles and antiparticles (which then annihilate each other).

In substance, the amount of average energy on a larger scale remains constant. Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed.

“There is a fact, or if you wish, a law, governing all natural phenomena that are known to date. There is no known exception to this law—it is exact so far as we know. The law is called the conservation of energy. It states that there is a certain quantity, which we call energy, that does not change in the manifold changes which nature undergoes. That is a most abstract idea, because it is a mathematical principle; it says that there is a numerical quantity which does not change when something happens. It is not a description of a mechanism, or anything concrete; it is just a strange fact that we can calculate some number and when we finish watching nature go through her tricks and calculate the number again, it is the same.” - R.Feynman

It was in our interest to draw an analogy in the sound domain, allowing the audience to directly experience this phenomenon.

As a consequence, we created an application able to “sonify” ideal energetic fluctuations (generating pressure waves, structures and emerging behaviours), starting from the lower energy level available, which is the background noise.

Thanks to the Kyma software implementation, and the use of microphones, it was possible to “measure” background noise and , through a series of negative feedback operations, enable the instrument to create “something”, using all the information available in our space/universe to create temporary energetic fluctuations (statistic variations of the density of sonic quantums’ “packets”), without violating the Conservation of energy principle - in fact, the average energy quantity, altogether, remains the same.

We’ve thus arrived to the gravitational center (here we have no more fluctuations, only numerous certainties, due to the dimensions and mass of the object) of the opera, which is represented by a wooden artifact, symbolically revisiting the white wall we came across in Doctor Who, which divides our universe from another possible universe.

Which one it is, the visitor will have to find out for himself.

By placing a stethoscope on the wooden surface. the observer will be able to “measure”, with various levels of definition, the sounds coming from another probable universe out of phase with ours.

In fact, as identical as it will seem, it strangely does not share the same temporal parameter.

From quantum mechanic and its Multi-Worlds interpretation, we know that every measurement operation will produce a further division of the universe.

So, it is possible that in the end, there will be as many universes as the present observers.

And, paying a little attention, it will be possible once again to listen to the voices of Rose and the Doctor, as if they are suspended in a temporal loop, to remind us that maybe, the current physics laws, could not be the same in every place and every time.

Federico Placidi, Matteo Milani
>>U.S.O.Project

News: Sonic Screens 2012

U.S.O. Project is happy to announce the selected artists for the 2012 edition of Sonic Screens, which will take place in Milan on November 2012 @ O’.
Here they are:

Andrea Valle
Dispacci dal fronte interno
for Violin and Cello, spatialized electronics and printers 

Agostino Di Scipio
Two Sound Pieces with Repertoire String Music
for any number of bowed string instruments and live electronics

 [photo courtesy of Franz Rosati]

The two works will be performed live by Ana Topalovic & Èdua Amarilla Zádory and will later be released (in the first months of 2013) as a digital download by Synesthesia Recordings.

"Digital Re-Working / Re-Appropriation of Electro-Acoustic Music"

What is DREAM

DREAM is a EU funded project, aimed at preserving, reconstructing, and exhibiting the devices and the music of the Studio di Fonologia Musicale della Rai di Milano. During the 1950s and 1960s, this was one of the leading places in Europe for the production of electroacustic music, together with Paris and Cologne.

During the project, part of the equipment of the Studio (oscillators and non-linear filters) has been virtually reconstructed and will become part of the permanent exhibit at the Museum of Musical Instruments in Milan.

The aim of this one-day symposium is to present to the public the main results of the DREAM project, including the installation that recreates part of the original devices of the Studio di Fonologia di Milano della Rai, as well as the book “The Studio di Fonologia – A musical journey”, edited by Maria Maddalena Novati and John Dack, and published by Ricordi.

The event is comprised of two parts.

The morning will be devoted to the workshop Conservare, mostrare, interagire: per un museo da toccare [Preserve, exhibit, interact: for a tangible museum]. During the workshop, DREAM researchers and invited speakers will discuss applications of novel interactive technologies to museum exhibits, with particular reference to music and musical instruments museums.

The afternoon session will present to the large public the results of the DREAM project, through the movie Avevamo 9 oscillatori [We used to have 9 oscillators], additional talks by DREAM researchers, and two musical performances that make use of sonic materials produced at the Studio di Fonologia.

Program

[http://dream.dei.unipd.it/?page_id=645]

Friday, June 15, 2012
Castello Sforzesco, Museo degli Strumenti Musicali, Sala della Balla Milano 
Free of charge, limited places available

Introducing: Ana Topalovic & Èdua Amarilla Zádory

U.S.O. Project is pleased to announce its collaboration for Sonic Screens 2012 with Ana Topalovic & Èdua Amarilla Zádory. 

They will be also involved by playing the two selected scores during the evening Concert that will take place in Milan later this November. 

Ana Topalovic 

As an all-around cellist, Ana is an active member of the musical scene, performing as a soloist, chamber and crossover musician. Besides standard cello repertoire Ana’s concert programs also include less known works which she is very fond of promoting as well as her own arrangements and transcriptions for solo cello and other formations. A very important part of her artistic work is the engagement with the modern music. Ana performed throughout Europe, Americas and Asia as a soloist and with various ensembles (Oltenia Filharmonic Orchestra, Vienna String Duo, Trio Incognito, Ensemble Hombroich, Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien, Burst Trio, Vienna Celloduo, Palestra Trio a. o.). She recorded and broadcasted solo works, chamber music and musicals for RBB, ORF, RTS, TVR and TV Metropolis. Ana Topalovic plays on cello made by R. and A. Gagliano in 1815. She lives and teaches in Vienna, Austria.

Èdua Amarilla Zádory

“Édua Amarilla” Zádory, which means „glistening moonrise“ in Hungarian, was born in 1974, in the southern Hungarian town of Kecskemét. Her professional life in Vienna has been marked by numerous concert engagements. Whether performing solos in the Golden Hall of the Wiener Musikverein, serving as lead chair of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, or playing alongside the other members of her „young“ Hungaria Piano Trio, Édua’s expressive and beautiful music expertly fuses Hungarian soul with the traditional Viennese sound. As of September 2012, Edua holds the status of Guest professor at the All-Quds University college of Music in Jerusalem. Édua Amarilla Zádory plays a masterpiece of a violin dating from 1801 and crafted by Joseph and Antonio Gagliano.

[www.anatopalovic.com]
[www.eduazadory.net]

Call for Works: Sonic Screens 2012

 

U.S.O. Project is pleased to announce that the 2012 edition of Sonic Screens will be focused entirely to the electro-acoustic music praxis.

Specifically, candidates should produce a composition for instruments and real-time signal processing (live electronics).

Two works will be selected to be played during the concert.

The requirements are as follows:

1. The piece must be composed for Violin and Cello as a duo. Scores for solo violin or cello will not be taken into account. 
2.  The Score (in .pdf format) must be graphical and not in traditional notation. 
3. The interpretational and playing instructions should be made ​​clear, in order for the players to follow them even without the presence of the composer. 
4. The electronic processing must be developed and implemented using Max/MSP or Kyma (*). The multichannel format for the spatial diffusion must be up to 6.0 (2.0 and 4.0 works are still eligible). 
5. The type of interaction should follow the "ecosystemic" paradigm and should be as autonomous as possible (no pedals or sensors are allowed). 
6. The work should not exceed a total duration of 12 minutes. 

The evaluation criteria will focus on originality and effectiveness of the interplay between the electronic and instrumental parts.

The deadline for all submissions is set for 30th June, 2012.

Interested composers and sound artists should send the material (Score + Patch) within this date.

The two selected works will be presented during the evening of Sonic Screens in Milan.

The event will be recorded for digital distribution (on Synesthesia Recordings netlabel).

The names of the musicians who will perform the selected scores will be announced in March.

U.S.O. Project, composer Daniele Corsi and the musicians chosen to perform during the concert will form the reading panel which will evaluate the submitted works.

The selected works will be announced in September 2012.

For more information or clarifications, please contact us at our e-mail:

submissions at synesthesiarecordings dot com

(*) Clarification:

We can only accepts patches made with Kyma or Max/MSP due to the fact that we are not able to provide financial support for the two selected composers. To avoid any technical issues, we had chosen the platforms we already use in our daily work, with which we are very familiar. If the selected composers can confirm their presence for the evening concert at their own expenses, then any piece of software/hardware can be used to perform live electronics. Thank you for your comprehension. 

Pixar Animation Master Class at 66th Venice Festival

On Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009 George Lucas presented John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, Pete Docter and Lee Unkrich with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at Venice Film Festival. This is the first time in the Festival’s history that the Lifetime Achievement award has gone not to an individual filmmaker, but to a team of filmmakers. The next day, the Festival hosted a Pixar Animation Master Class on storytelling: during this rare and exciting panel dedicated to the Pixar filmmaking process, the directors discussed the various aspects of bringing their stories to life.

 

[Photo credit: graphicalSound]  

John Lasseter 

Animation is the most collaborative among art forms; one of the things that is very special about Pixar is the collaboration, never has a studio been so collaborative.
At Pixar we make films to entertain our audiences, all across the world, both children and adults. We make movies for ourselves, the kind of movies we would like to watch. We all have kids, we all love movies and we all love animation and this is what we wanted to do from the beginning as filmmakers. We (the creative Brain Trust) get together to help each director to make the movie the best it can be, and the director knows that. And so he takes the notes that make the movie better.
One of the things I remember more clearly of when I was a very new animator at Walt Disney, is a great professional called Ollie Johnston, a fabulous animator. I was not a great drawing person, my students were a lot better than me. At that time, when I was struggling drawing in a scene, he took my stack of papers and started flipping it. And I thought he was going to start talking about the drawing. But he turned to me and he simply asked: “What is the character thinking”? That simple statement from this guy hit me so strongly, that it became kind of a foundation of everything I have done after that point.
When you look for “animation” into the dictionary, one of the definitions is “to give life to”. The thing that I have always loved about animation is creating life. In our films the animator and the animation are the act. An animator must animate a character so that every single movement appears driven by that character thought process. That is when it becomes a thinking character.
You are moved by these characters, you believe in these characters. All the meticulous and hard work should be completely invisible. We wanted the audience to be involved in the scene and not to think that Nemo is a bunch of computer layouts. We do not want you to think about the many hours that took to create that scene. You are just carried away by the scene and every focus in every step of the production that we do at Pixar is about the story. It is about entertaining the audience.
We are constantly changing and growing, trying to make things differently. One of the things I stress in animation, is that you have to show your stuff really early: every single morning each animator shows his stuff so we can be sure they are on the right track. I also get inspired by what the animators do without telling them to. In Pixar we have a room with a video camera and mirrors so they can actually try out the acting of the character.
Walt Disney once said: “for every laugh there should be a tear.” This is the foundation of every Pixar film. This is not about animation, it’s about making films. I say something to my sons: “I want you to choose a profession that you love, because if you do you’ll never lose a day in your life.” And this is true for everybody, we work so hard, many long hours, but we so dearly love what we do.
Now we are going step by step through the entire process on how we make a movie, on how we develop stories and on how we can tell a story visually. 

Andrew Stanton 

In Pixar there is no politics, we are all employees, we do not have agents, no creative executives, no deal-making. We are very similar to the old studio systems where the artists work under one group on multiple projects: I’d like to call it a film school without the teacher. It’s a filmmaker driven studio, we invest in people. As John has previously described, we have a creative Brain Trust where the directors get together sort or like doctors conferring on another doctor’s operation. And we also have in-house original ideas, based either on ideas that the directors had, or stories the directors like or want to invest in. We pick one idea and we hammer on it. Again and again, until it finally is good enough to show other people.
First of all it is not just for kids: basically we make the movies we would like to see, we are film-goers first and filmmakers second.
We work hard on making movies as original as we can, in other words we think more like our own audience, what I’d like to see if I were the audience who wants to enjoy themselves as much as they did on the last film, but every time in a new way.
Being stupid is only possible if you are in a creative estate environment. So the truth is that we are not good at getting it right at Pixar, but we are really good at getting it together when we are getting it wrong in fixing our mistakes. And I think that’s really where our specialty lies. And the variable is that we have discovered something fresh from having made those mistakes. So we don’t try to avoid it, we embrace the idea to make mistakes.
The script is not the end of developing a story, it is the beginning of it: to me screenwriting is not writing, it is an intermediary form, it’s a way of passing all the ideas in your head to the screen. It’s also what I’d like to call cinematic dictation. You’re just basically notating what you have seen in your head, when you are trying to catch the visual aspect of something.
We just wanna tell 2 + 2 and let the audience decide on what 4 is. And that’s really the way to construct anything. The way dialogue is done, the way actors act. The way scenes are put together. I think you can apply it to any aspect of film-making. It is all about audience participation. Movie-making is all about manipulation, but it is only truly successful if your audience has no idea that they-re being manipulated. In most cases 2 + 2 gives you a greater sum than 4.
How you tell the story becomes as much important as the story itself. Even a great joke can be murdered by a bad joke teller. So the joke and the joke telling are equally important.
Personally I think you have to develop both characters and plot simultaneously. Plotting to me is your means of discovering the character. Then once you have found what that character is, you have to link them together, one begets the other.

Brad Bird 

If we are going to talk about breaking the rules, we have to know what the rules are. And this is what storyboarding was traditionally used for, it was used to work out business for the characters, what the characters were doing.
I got my first opportunity to do my first feature film, it was Iron Giant. I had a third of the money and a third of the time I had for the other animated films of our competitors. So I dealt with something unfamiliar with animation, this was Warner Brothers, not Disney. They had limited power with visual imagination, so we had to find a quick and relatively cheap way of getting closer to what we were envisioning. We spent a larger percentage of our budget on storyboarding, because it was the cheapest place to make the stage. We couldn’t afford to do anything else, we got to look and know exactly what we were doing before we did it.
When I came on to Pixar to do The Incredibles, we had a different sort of problem. It was to enlarge the scope without enlarging the resources. I had way more resources than I had for Iron Giant, but the scope of the film was so huge.
The Incredibles was a fast cutting film, large location to a large shot camera, the only way to wrap our heads around it was to figure it out early. The downside of that is that you’re kind of locked in. The upside of it is that you know much more about the rhythm of the film and the specific needs of each shot.
Film is alive, it is a medium, it is a dream medium and dreams are unpredictable. There is a difference between sleeping and dreaming. One is active and one is throwing yourself off balance. Don’t take anything for granted: it’s a way to keep your company, your movies and yourself alive.

Pete Docter 

Everything you see on the screen has an emotional charge. Characters, locations and the props in there exist for very specific story reasons. This is the primary job of the set designer. The first question a production designer should ask himself is: “what is the story about emotionally”? Designing for computer animation has no accidents, everything you see has to be intentionally designed, built, shaded and lighted.
Film-making is discovery. We do not just start drawing, we do a lot of research. The sense of authenticity really helped us capture an emotion. We wanted to look authentic.
The primary job of the lighting is to direct the eye. There is a whole lot of tricks to make sure people are looking where we want. The second job of lighting is emotion. And John (Lasseter) says that light is much like music and can really emotionally affect the eye. We are all trying to get inside the head of the character. Use light to represent how that character is feeling.
Lighting really works the same way it does in live action, so you have lights everywhere to get the final shot. Lighting is not left to chance, everything is planned for an impact. The quality of work is due to the fact that we are working with some of the best professionals in the world. The ultimate goal of lighting is to make the audience feel something.

Related Post:

• Lee Unkrich on editing animated film

Pixar: 25 Years of Animation Exhibition

The Pixar exhibit that was originally displayed in 2005-2006 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City has been touring the world. Now, it's running from November 23rd 2011 to February 14th, 2012 at PAC (Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea), Milan (Italy).

 [www.mostrapixarmilano.it]

[follow @leeunkrich, @andrewstanton, @Pixar_Mi on Twitter]

Sonic Screens 2011

Electroacoustic music concert

an event by U.S.O. Project | Matteo Milani & Federico Placidi
in collaboration with O’ and DieSchachtel

Sound direction: Matteo Milani
Max/MSP programming: Federico Placidi
Visuals: Franz Rosati

O’ | via pastrengo 12 Milan | Italy

Saturday, November 26th - from 7 to 9 p-m.


Free admission

Sonic Screens aims to render the endless possibilities of life and its surroundings experienceable in our conscious activity, trying to deal with the possible infinites of the listening experience, both in their objective and manufactured dimensions. This journey related to the pure immersive listening will take advantage of Ambisonics sound diffusion practice, creating an immersive sound flow between different electroacoustic works by these selected international artists:

1. Benjamin Taylor - Keen Awareness
2. Daniel Blinkhorn - anthozoa
3. Daniel Courville - Variations on Vater unser im Himmelreich
4. Diana Salazar - Spindlesong
5. Jon Christopher Nelson - Just After The Rain
6. Josh Goldman - Hexagonal (Facets 1-6)
7. Kotoka Suzuki - Automata
8. Panayiotis Kokoras - Anechoic Pulse
9. Tae Hong Park - 48 13 N, 16 20 O

At the end of the evening, a/v live-set:

Franz Rosati - Theory of Vortex Sound [OUTFLUX]
PATHLINE #1

Matteo Milani & Federico Placidi

Milan/Rome based Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi (aka U.S.O. Project - Unidentified Sound Object) are sound artists whose work spans from digital music to electroacoustic improvisation. Unidentified Sound Object was born from the desire to discover new paths and non-linear narrative strategies in both aural and visual domains. The project includes several collaborations with visual artists and performers. Milani and Placidi are the co-founders of the label "Synesthesia Recordings", a repository of electroacoustic works. U.S.O. Project is a continuing evolving organism.

www.synesthesiarecordings.com


Franz Rosati

Franz Rosati is a sound and media artist, focusing his research on real-time A/V, Visual Music projects and installations following an aesthetic idea based on discontinuity of aural and visual patterns avoiding any kind of repetition through the use of chaos mathematics, generative and stochastic processes. He uses his own custom made software for real-time micro-montage and sound elaboration in the microscopic time scale to realize compositions and performances based on aural and visual matter’s costant metamorphosis. During the years, Franz Rosati has played in a large number of electroacoustic projects such as Franco Ferguson improvisors collective, Meccanica Ferma, Solderwire, GRIDSHAPE, developing his own approach to electroacoustic improvisation. In 2007 founded Nephogram [contemporary documents] collectives with Stefano Pala a.k.a. UKQWJB. He also teaches MaxMSP/Jitter for sound design, interactivity and multimedia, focusing in computer vision techniques in several Workshops and Art/Design Institutes, and developed Interactive Examples for Electronic Music and Sound Design, a book about sound theory and practice in MaxMSP.

www.franzrosati.com

Rome Calling – The Audio and Loudness Seminar of 2011

In June 2011, some of the most respected audio authorities – including George Massenburg, Bob Katz, Florian Camerer and Thomas Lund – gathered in Rome, Italy, to share their thoughts and experiences on loudness measurement in connection with recording, mixing, mastering and broadcasting. The speakers at the seminar in Rome included such capacities as Simone Corelli, Alessandro Travaglini, Richard van Everdingen, among the others.

The first day of the seminar focused on post-production, while the second day concentrated on professional broadcasting and particularly the radical changes happening in production and distribution of broadcast, film and music as a consequence of new ITU and EBU standards.

The groundbreaking and comprehensive EBU R128 loudness recommendation was investigated from a multitude of angles, as was the just updated ITU-R BS.1770-2 broadcast standard.

Tc Electronic documented the event and on this page they have gathered some of the footage form the seminar. First up are Florian Camerer and Richard van Everdingen from EBU’s PLOUD Group.

Florian provides a general overview of EBU’s R128 broadcast standard presented with great enthusiasm and a twist of humor. New videos will be available soon!

[tcelectronic.com/rome]

[tech.ebu.ch/loudness]

Sonic Screens - call for multichannel works

Sonic Screens – environmental music listening sessions

Live mixing and spatialization by U.S.O. Project (Matteo Milani & Federico Placidi)


Call for multichannel works

U.S.O. Project is pleased to invite submissions of fixed media sound works for the second edition of “Sonic Screens”, a journey among different electroacoustic Soundscape compositions.

Sonic Screens is an annual event that will take place during two acousmatic evenings in Milan during Fall 2011.

Sonic Screens aims to render the endless possibilities of life and its surroundings experienceable in our conscious activity, trying to deal with the possible infinites of the listening experience, both in their objective and manufactured dimensions.

“Listening to the environment, contextualizing it objectively and creatively has always been a priority of the work of U.S.O. Project.

Free from any pseudo-environmental or socio-political implication, the continuous work on sampling, processing and transfiguration of found sound and carefully preserved in memory of a digital recorder, has always played a central role in our compositional practices.

U.S.O. defines Soundscape as the expressive and narrative richness that comes from the reciprocal and continuous interaction of multiple sound sources from the real world, and other phenomena which are perceptible and measurable only through proper and adequate transduction (electromagnetic signals, for example).

A Soundscape is also an opportunity for reflection and imagination that has little to share with the real world.

A Soundscape can be a place of the mind, a reminiscence of a future experienced in dreams, lands far away in space and time.” – Matteo Milani & Federico Placidi

Composers and sound artists are invited to submit multichannel works, up to 8 channels. The assignment of channels to speakers must be clearly indicated in the submission. Works of any duration will be considered although pieces of under 16 minutes will be given preference.

The performance will take advantage of Ambisonics sound diffusion practice, creating an immersive and uninterrupted sound flow between different works from selected international artists.

The material will be transcoded in real time to 2nd Order B-Format (via ICST Ambisonics Externals for MaxMSP).

The recordings of the concerts will be available for streaming and released in binaural format for headphone use. The ownership of the tracks remains to the authors.

Submissions need to include:

• a stereo version of the piece
• individual mono files for each channel
• channel configuration
• sample rate
• program notes
• brief biography

While the composers of the selected works are encouraged to attend the event, attendance is not required for a work to be presented.

There is no registration fee.

The deadline for submission of works is October 31st, 2011.

Material Submissions

Please send download links to your work using one of the many file delivery services (yousendit.com, sendspace.com, gigasize.com, wetransfer.com, etc) in .zip or .rar format. Please do not email file attachments.

Electronic submissions should be sent to:

[submissions at synesthesiarecordings dot com]

For more information, email contact:

[info at usoproject dot com]

Terms and Conditions

Each participant may submit up to two works.

[Date and Venue To Be Announced]

[SchermiSonori2011-CallForWorks.pdf]

“The essential difference between an electroacoustic composition that uses pre-recorded environmental sound as its source material, and a work that can be called a soundscape composition, is that in the former, the sound loses all or most of its environmental context. In fact, even its original identity is frequently lost through the extensive manipulation it has undergone, and the listener may not recognise the source unless so informed by the composer. In the soundscape composition, on the other hand, it is precisely the environmental context that is preserved, enhanced and exploited by the composer.” – Barry Truax

Now online on SoundCloud:

Sonic Screens - pt.1 (binaural) by usoproject

Sonic Screens - pt.2 (binaural) by usoproject

Recorded 29th October, 2010 @ O' - no profit organization, during Live!iXem 2010 - Edition VII
International festival of music, mixed media and experimental electronic art - Milan

KISS2011 Call for Proposals

The third annual Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS2011) will take place from 16-18 September 2011 at Casa Da Musica, architect Rem Koolhaas' dramatic new music venue in Porto, Portugal.

Inspired by Portugal's proud history of navigators who set out to explore beyond the known and visible horizon, the theme of this year's symposium is "Explorando o espaço do som" (Exploring Sound Space) in honor of those who are exploring new methods, concepts, and ideas, beyond the familiar horizons in sound and music.

Call for Proposals

Universidade do Porto and Symbolic Sound invite you to share your ideas, experiences and results with fellow practitioners by submitting a proposal related to this year's theme, including topics ranging from the most literal to the most abstract definitions of sound, space, and exploration.

The KISS2011 program will also include master classes on sound design, CapyTalk, and other Kyma topics, plus the annual demonstration of what's new in Kyma this year.

[more info about the Call for Proposal here]

Questions? Please send email to: info.kiss2011@gmail.com

U.S.O. Project @ Digital Experience Festival

Listening Points - Punti di Ascolto

This panel discussion will present a selection of sound professionals with different paths and specializations.

The exchange of experiences, procedures and areas of action, will draw lines and perspectives on possible developments of the work on sound.

From sonic branding to custom software coding, through the most advanced and immersive forms of sound and music creation, these "listening points" are starting points to think and talk together about the craft of sound design nowadays, in relation to different media and the current technological/cultural communication system.

Guests:
Massimiliano Viel - composer and live media artist (Otolab / Sincronie)
Matteo Milani - sound designer and sound artist (Unidentified Sound Object / Green Movie)
Stefano Fontana - music producer, DJ and sound designer (Sound Identity)
Guido Smider - software developer and multimedia artist (Noiseplug / Smidernoise)

Moderator: Sergio Messina - musician, sound designer, journalist and teacher @ Ied Sound Design
Chairman: Painé Cuadrelli - sound designer, musician, coordinator @ Ied Sound Design

[www.digitalfestival.net]
[event page - ita]
[ustream.tv]

"Empty Rooms", audio-visual self-organized performance space

(Mixed Media Installation)

Premiered on 29th - 30th October 2010 @ [BOX] Videoart Project Space in Milan, during the Live!iXem Festival 2010 (thanks to VisualContainer)


A Movie made of algorithmically generated "inactive spaces” is projected on a screen.

An overlapped stream of pre-recorded “sound activities” is then diffused from a record player and from 4 different iPods running in shuffle mode, creating recombinant “invisible actions” to fit into the Movie.

A self organizing link between sound and visuals is established via cybernetic procedures defined as interconnected spin networks, produced by a video camera “observing” the movie and by one microphone “listening” to the space placed inside the performance Locus.

The Kyma sound design environment (accelerated by the Pacarana sound computation engine) is then engaged in order to compute the data and perform real-time evaluations between the different types of numerical information (audio-video), producing a “sonorous response” to the asynchronous stream of audio-visual contents.

The synthesized information is then diffused in the performance space again through 4 loudspeakers.

Various types of feedback will take place during this highly dynamic process implying a self regulating behavior that will establish new connections between the pacing of the movie locations and the “sonorous” content produced by the processing of the iPod sound streams.

The Observer will then experience the following layers of information:

- a Real-Time recombinant Movie made of “inactive” locations.

- an Overlapped Stream of “possible actions” diffused by the iPods that fits into the Movie.

- a Sonorous link between the above domains of activities via 4 full range loudspeakers.

The Observer can take into account one or more layers of information (even all of them) in order to create himself a cinematic experience via a correlation process.

More info here:
[Empty_Rooms_eng_booklet.pdf]
[Empty_Rooms_Technical_Rider.pdf]

artists contact: unidentified.sound.object (at) gmail (dot) com
booking: booking (at) usoproject (dot) com
promotion: press (at) usoproject (dot) com

Live!iXem 2010 - Edition VII

International festival of music, mixed media and experimental electronic art

[a project by AntiTesi (Domenico Sciajno) and U.S.O. Project in collaboration with O' and Die Schachtel]

Live!iXem is a well established event that explores the relationship among sound, music, electronic arts and new technologies. iXem is a project conceived and produced since 2003 by AntiTesi, an organization founded and directed by Domenico Sciajno based in Palermo. Center for self-documentation, research and interdisciplinary development for new forms of Arts, Antitesi focuses on contemporary arts in its diverse expressions, coordinates and organizes cultural events, festivals and exhibitions in music and art.

Festival Live!iXem in October 2010 is divided into two events, a 'preview' in Turin on October 8th, organized with Hiroshima Mon Amour, and the main festival in Milan including live performances, installations and  a workshop, organized in conjunction with O' and Die Schachtel.

The field is transverse. The common denominator is not the genre but the experimentation and research to innovation, helping to explore the variety of approaches to aesthetic guidelines, tools and technological solutions adopted by selected international artists and involved in the contemporary music scene.

After the introductory event in Turin, October 8th - with Live! IXem Preview - the festival appointment in Milan will take place in the Isola area, between the spaces of O', Medionauta and VisualContainer on Friday 29th and Saturday 30th October, from morning until late at night, offering a busy schedule of events.

Among these, the workshop 'Movement of acoustic images' - whose theme is the field recording, its transformations and its reproduction in acousmatic space - will consist of three different phases: the first by a technical approach, the second one by listening to environmental sound sources chosen as points of a hypothetical ideal sound map and the third one with 'on-site' recording of sound events.

This year Live!iXem, is also characterized by a partnership with 'Ear to the Earth 2010 - Water and the World', Festival produced by Electronic Music Foundation/Joel Chadabe, which will take place simultaneously in NYC.

PARTNERS: Roland Italy, SMAP (San Marino Audio Project), MIC (Music Information Centre Norway), Sound Corporation

WHERE: O 'via Pastrengo 12; Medionauta via Confalonieri 2; VisualContainer via Confalonieri 11, Milano | Isola Passante Ferroviario/M2 Garibaldi, M3 Zara, tram 2, 4, 7, 31, bus 82, 70, 43

HOW: All events are free except for the workshop (for which there is a fee of 60 euros) - and for the evenings at Medionauta (5 euro membership card).

INFO:

Antitesi www.antitesi.org 

iXem www.ixem.it

Full program here: iXem Press ENG (pdf)

Field Recording Workshop: "Movement of acoustic images"

October 29th, 30th | Milan @ Live!iXem 2010 - Edition VII
International festival of music, mixed media and experimental electronic art

 

Aims of laboratory

• Explore through the knowledge of digital recording techniques the universe sound belonging to the "places";
• Discuss some aspects of the use of specific material in electronic and instrumental composition.

Localization of sound in the environment focuses on the theme "sound mapping" as a social and cultural identity and, at the same time, an expression of conscience and personal feelings, whereas its use in music opens important interdisciplinary horizons.

The workshop's aim is to provide an introduction to theory and practice of the main mobile sound recording techniques and the use of sound sources in different fields, from sound design to cinema, from digital editing to the use of digital sources in instrumental composition, electronic music and live electronics. Music compositions and musical excerpts from field recordings will also be introduced, listened and discussed. All members are invited to participate in the soundwalk along the neighborhood "Isola" in Milan and thus contribute during the workshop to the creation of a small sound map of the place. The pieces obtained at the end of the workshop will be diffused through a multi-channel audio speakers setup and then available to the public in the form of soundscape composition.

Speakers: Alessandro Massobrio (ITA), Fabio Orsi (ITA), Natasha Barrett (ENG)
Curated by Matteo Milani, Federico Placidi (U.S.O. Project) and Domenico Sciajno


Documents available online

[Live_iXem_2010_Workshop_ITA.pdf]
[Live_iXem_2010_Workshop_ENG.pdf]


Costs and subscription

To participate in the workshop you must register (spaces are limited) no later than 23/10/2010 and pay the fee (€ 60.00).

For more information about the workshop and registration, please write to workshop [at] antitesi [dot] org or visit the Facebook and Twitter page.

Payment methods

• PayPal
• Money transfer

Level

All subjects and activities of the workshop/laboratory are addressed at the introductory and preliminary level, combining theory and practice with some helpful audiovisual material. Members are encouraged to get involved actively, having discussion and bringing in their experience. Participants will be guided, if weather conditions permit, in a short sound-geo path through the "Isola" neighborhood in Milan and invited to contribute to the creation of a work of the soundwalk. It does not require any special technical knowledge and/or music. However, the knowledge of digital audio recording/editing basics can be an advantage.

Recipients

The workshop is devoted for those sound designers, musicians, composers, sound engineers and experts who would consolidate and compare their experience in an environment of exchange and sharing, to all the "listening lovers" and those who have interest and curiosity about soundscape and electronic compositions.

Entry requirements

There are no special requirements. The workshop is open to all without any age limit. Entries remain open until all available seats have been booked.

Devices

• Mac/PC laptop (useful but not essential during the editing and sound processing sessions)
• owners of a portable recorder are asked to take it for the soundwalk in the neighborhood "Isola"
• Roland Italy will provide participants two digital recorders - R-09HR and R-05

www.roland.it

Location

The workshop will be held at:

O' | residences | photography | sound | performance
non-profit association | via Pastrengo 12, 20159 Milan (Italy)
tel +39 02 6682 3357
website: www.o-artoteca.org

O 'is a non profit organization for the promotion of artistic research, founded in May 2001 by Sara Serighelli and Angelo Colombo as O'artoteca (O' since 2008). Its activity is divided into a large exhibition space, an area of consultation and archive, and an outside lab, L.A.B.-LaboratorioArtibovisa for the production related to photography and printing. It developes exhibition projects and discussions, performances, concerts, lectures, publications; it's a place where artists can experiment, test and compete with their work.

Ben Burtt to present "Emma's Time Machine: Adventures in Time and Space"

While reading this article by Paul Liberatore (via Marin History Museum), we discovered that our hero Ben Burtt just finished editing "Red Tails", the upcoming movie about the Tuskegee Airmen - the African-American pilots who fought in World War II (produced by Lucasfilm). And he's about to start sound work on the first live-action film by Andrew Stanton, "John Carter of Mars".

Ben will join his daughter Emma Burtt for the premiere of Adventures in Time and Space, the latest chapter of Emma's Time Machine, a 90-minute documentary on the history of Marin County. Narrated by Emma, the film also takes a look back at the early days of Lucasfilm in San Anselmo and includes clips of the Marin County locations used for motion pictures, from the days of silent movies until Indiana Jones.

"This film is really the result of a lot of little stories," Ben Burtt said. "I decided that we'd try to connect them all together in a kind of walking tour idea that juxtaposes the past and the present. It's nostalgia. I've always had a great interest in finding some way to connect with the past."

[Dad-daughter film team makes time to go back in time]
[Emma's Time Machine: Adventures in Time and Space - via California Film Institute]

Does Sound Have Meaning?

Sound Researchers and Practitioners Convene to Discuss 'symbolic sounds' at #KISS10

Can music and sound-effects be symbolic?

Sound designers, composers, sound artists, film makers, researchers and others sharing an intense interest in sound will be convening in Vienna (Austria) from the 24th through 26th of September to discuss this and other, similarly controversial, issues at the annual Kyma International Sound Symposium (#KISS10).

Lively discussions, electronic/computer music performances, interactive installations, demos, workshops, and paper sessions will be held in the newly renovated Casino Baumgarten, a spectacular ballroom built in 1890, and the Rhiz Bar Modern, a showcase for experimental media in Vienna.

[view from the Stage at Casino Baumgarten]

Join in the free on-line discussion

Anyone having an intense interest in sound is invited to join in the free on-line discussion at pphilosophyofsound.ning.com. Sign in and introduce yourself by sharing your earliest sonic memory. Discussions on sound, symbol, and meaning have already begun and will continue during and after the symposium. You can participate on line whether or not you are able to attend the symposium in Vienna.

To register for #KISS10:

The registration deadline for participating in #KISS10 is 13 September 2010. The participation fee of € 90 (€ 40 for students) includes the 3-day symposium, morning/afternoon refreshments, and 2 evening concerts.

Background

The Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS) is an annual conclave of current and potential Kyma practitioners who come together to learn, to share, to meet, to discuss, and to enjoy a lively exchange of ideas, sounds, and music! Kyma is a sound design environment created by Symbolic Sound Corporation. This year, the KISS symposium is being organized by Wiener Klangwerkstatt in cooperation with Symbolic Sound and with the support of Analog Audio Association Austria, Preiser Records, and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research.

[Focus on Kyma International Sound Symposium - KISS09]

Conference Contact Information:
Barbara Kopf
KISS 2010 Conference office
Email: office.KISS2010@tonsalon.at
Telephone: +43 (0)650 212 1646
[tonsalon.at/KISS2010]

Audioscan: the alchemy of noise transmuted into music

audioscan is an artistic project conceived by Giorgio Sancristoforo, produced by AGON in collaboration with basemental. The project consists of a multimedia interactive installation and of a live performance combining music and video. Both are based on the sound mapping of Milan.

At the basis of audioscan there are 1.580 recordings and phonometric surveys gathered within the perimeter contained in the main ring road of Milan.
A process of meeting and exchange between contemporary art, music and environmental themes, a meditation on soundscape and the auditive dimension of human experience, both on an aesthetic and a social perspective.

An ambitious cataloguing work and an environmental awakening project through the transformation of a waste product of technological society – noise – into an artwork.

" [...] Essentially, noise is an ambiguous entity, setting up in a fluctuating reality, whose definition changes according to the coordinate system used to measure it.

Sounds can be sculpted. We can use noise as raw material to start with. Noise is at the same time “no sound” and all the possible sounds. Just as white light contains all the colours, noise contains countless sounds.

Therefore, instead of using musical instruments we have ground and crumbled noise in very fine components, building from these elements orchestras made up of roads and airplanes, people and cars. We have created music from a scrap of our society.

Everything is transformed. Nothing resembles anymore its former essence. Airplanes become microscopic percussions, cars are turned into metallic pianos and rubbery basses, hollow murmurs and waterish illusions.

Braking and tailpipes screeches become tides of the thinnest strings.

We have animated a deep transformation, resembling closely the alchemic processes: actually, we have performed the alchemy of noise transmuted into music.

The city, unaware of the transformations undergone, perpetuates its rhythms and mood intact. This is why those sounds, even if unrecognizable, still describe Milan, with its chaotic passages and deep breaths, with its syncopated rhythms and the feeling, peculiar to an ocean, of being constantly wound by countless mutations."

Audioscan (#1) MILANO - FULL by Giorgio Sancristoforo

"I listen to the music of Audioscan again, and I realize how much it’s melancholic.

Milan is melancholic. Not sad. A gloom which could belong to Calvino works, a blues pervading the streets, in the morning, creeping like a cat between porches and boulevards, between old mansions and post-war eyesores. The same melancholy that smoothes the cold when I stroll around, ravished by the decadence of Civic Aquarium or sitting on the lawns of San Lorenzo Basilica, while besides me the city keeps darting in sound tidal waves." - Giorgio Sancristoforo

[audioscan.it]