Ongoing exhibition project Sonic Tresholds in the student club Gallery FF UK K4 in Celetná ulice is tributed to aural experiential qualities of Prague. It explores subjective sonic maps of Prague and is based on the international project Favourite sounds of Prague, created in the framework of rádio d-cz, a project by Zipp - German-Czech Cultural projects, an initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation in 2009.
The program features different projects in the genres of phonography, fieldrecording, and experimental sound in Europe.
Program
Julia Eckhardt, Q-O2 Brussels: Project ʻSounds of Europe’ (platform for field recording)
‘Sounds of Europe’ is a project that acknowledges and follows the increase of field recording activity in music, art and sciences in recent years. By field recording activity we mean an artistic practice working with the accidental sounds of our environment. Our aim is to draw up an overall picture of the many different ways of using field recordings, and to explore their signification and effect.
The project has been initiated by Q-O2 workspace (Brussels), MTG (Music Technology Group/University Barcelona), IRZU (Institute for sonic Arts Research/Ljubljana) and CRISAP (Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice /University London). Together with associated partners, we’ll set up activities and artistic projects which explore the sounds of the world, thereby stimulating an exchange of experiences, results, and understandings of sound and listening.
The objective of the project is to create a platform for sound oriented organizations based in Europe, and sound artists working with field recordings. The platform will be developed during this two-year project with the intention of it continuing to function afterwards. By ‘platform’ we mean a place and opportunity for collaboration, expression and exchange of ideas.
The project aims to stimulate a collaborative creation and exploration of the European soundscape, which can contribute to an enhancement of public imagination and sensitivity to sound, and an openness to their own and others’ environments and cultures.
Udo Noll: aporee.org maps
The project platform radio aporee has started around 1999/2000, based on former artistic research on mapping, spatial conditions and the means of navigation between the real and the virtual. It develops from the insight, that it is basically impossible to map the complexity of today's public & private spaces. Against the background of an increasing awareness of spatial aspects in media and the popularity and presence of visual geographies (like google maps), the idea was to connect sound and space in flexible configurations, to create a sonic cartography which focusses solely on sound, and open it to the public as a collaborative project. Meanwhile, the project radio aporee ::: maps contains many thousands of recordings from numerous urban, rural and natural environments, showing the audible complexity of our living spaces, as well as the different perceptions and artistic perspectives related to sound, space and places.
In addition, the project invokes contemporary developments in mobile computing and so- called locative media which presume to be crucial to the way we experience our momentary daily life, where media and markets merge at the momentary location of our body, creating a mixed-reality space of social (inter)action. radio aporee addresses the question of how we might autonomously create and subsequently occupy these hybrid social spaces, against the functions and fictions of solely market-driven forces.
Udo Noll explains the background, concepts and recent developments of radio aporee and introduces to the new project miniatures for mobiles, a platform for the creation of space- based sound works
Udo Noll, born 1966 in Hadamar/ Germany, lives in Berlin and Cologne. He graduated as applied scientist for film, photography and media technology at the university of Cologne. Since then he works as an artist and media professional in numerous international projects and exhibitions. He's the founder of radio aporee, an open and collaborative platform for the research about sound, art and space in today's mixed realities. More info at http://aporee.org/aporee.html.
Matthew Sansom - Mêtis, city soundscapes for four channel system
Mêtis is a project that interprets the experiential qualities of the soundscape of specific locations. It is a durational and performance-based work that emphasizes sustained and expansive listening through subtle alteration of familiar and recognizable sound worlds using repetition, slight sonic modifications, and enveloping stillness. It is an exploration into the deeper significance of sound and of our connection with it and seeks to raise questions about the way sound is experienced in the world and its aesthetic basis. It is a meditation on the nature of the sharawadji effect and an exploration of the possibilities of its role within phonographic arts practice.
For this performance, recordings of the Prague soundscape were made over a two-day period and combined with recordings by Milos Vojtechovsky and Peter Cusack.
Matthew Sansom is a sound-artist and composer/performer based in the UK. Working exclusively with field recordings and found sounds, his site-specific installations and performances explore the qualities of experienced sound and its metaphysical connotations. His work has been exhibited and performed internationally, including the USA, South Korea, Germany and Spain. He has received commissions for sound-based sculptural installations from the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the River Colne Sculpture Trail, and Liverpool City Council. Drawing inspiration from soundwalking, these and other commissions are intimately connected with and work in sympathy with the soundscapes they are designed for and from. He has been involved in improvised music since his doctoral work on the subject from the early 1990s and has performed with a number of artists including harpist Rhodri Davies.
