tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663Sun, 28 Apr 2013 03:54:50 +0000moroccosculpturenoise-cancellationjoachim schmidgoodlightfranceurbanexplorationsoundskatesoundfishingtanksanechoicanalog-digitalborderwaracoustic wayfindingsan josevirginiapost-militaryitalyburning manokinawamilitary baseathensdesertgermanyangel islandmachinesbaggagescreeningtaxonomydo the right thingjetsydneytaco trucksan franciscopanamajohn cagecubaaustraliatexassoundmarksound installationfield recordingbinauralsoundwalkcalifornianew zealandnoisehawthorneberlinOccupy Wall Streetspacemilitary urbanismwashington d.c.lo-fikorea#demilitradio raheemamplificationmemorialmarfamexicosoundwallsignal v. noisemuseumspatializationbunkerfriezeZizeksoundscapearchiveenglandObscura Daybell labsforestundergroundnetherlandsambisonicsnavyecologycircuit bendinglunchwalkplacestranslationphotographyatlantikwalstreetstourismmissilesmushroomsair-conditionerpre-militaryalvin lucierhi-fikitchenlisteningpennsylvaniahyperacusisislandsf baysupercolliderdoug aitkenguamdan flavinno-fijapanmicrophonefilmrevolutionharvard acoustics research laboratorylost boysnew mexicolandscapemilitary landscapegafftahydrophoneconstructing space with soundhttp://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Nick Sowers)Blogger71125Creative Commons licensemilitary,architecture,travelArts/Designnicolassowers@yahoo.comNick SowersNick Sowersnomilitary,architecture,travelA sonic slice through the global military atmosphere.This podcast charts my path around the globe as I explore US military bases and post-military spaces.tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-2006292648725974492Fri, 05 Apr 2013 07:38:00 +00002013-04-24T15:00:18.903-07:00 Over the last six months I've been making things behind the scenes, from bits to books to buildings. A sorry excuse for not posting anything on the blog, really. But there is a lot of process here that I am excited to share. From On the Making of Islands, 2012 I am making things at all scales. Small to Large. Architecture teaches us that the parts must relate to the whole, and that the http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2013/04/bits-books-buildings.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-864365986577803696Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:19:00 +00002012-12-28T20:12:53.998-08:00  "Rolling ruler used by the architect Cedric Price"; Image courtesy of Geoff Manaugh & CCA A few years ago, Geoff Manaugh of BLDG BLOG shared this photo while he was blogging from the archives of the Canadian Centre for Architecture. It is a rolling ruler used by the late British architect Cedric Price. This pocket tool undoubtedly aided the architect in his sketches, speculations, andhttp://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/11/roll-align-cut-record.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-8278572235288267348Mon, 10 Sep 2012 06:29:00 +00002012-09-10T08:46:17.618-07:00marfatexassculpturedan flavinlight I visited Dan Flavin's Untitled Marfa Project in 2009 on a fellowship studying the spectrum of new uses on former military bases. One such base, decommissioned shortly after WWII ended, is Fort D.A. Russell in Marfa, TX.  The property is home to the Chinati Foundation and contains ammunition sheds, old barracks, and various other military structures. Some buildings are vacant and some are http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/09/dan-flavin.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-4587488038044641047Wed, 05 Sep 2012 07:32:00 +00002012-09-05T00:40:38.638-07:00soundfishingsf baysan franciscohydrophone"the most important thing to understand with regards to human underwater listening is that our ears are mostly useless" via Introducing Soundfishing, the latest sporting activity in the great outdoors of the San Francisco Bay Area.  In a city that is all about recreation, water activities, fitness, etc., what is there to do for the non-sporty among us? To prove my credentials (in being un-sportyhttp://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/09/soundfishing.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-100668776559777445Fri, 24 Aug 2012 05:50:00 +00002012-08-26T20:08:41.959-07:00field recordingmoroccolisteningjohn cage Fes, Morocco, on a scrubby hill overlooking/over-listening the city. Like the view, the image in sound is dense in detail. Tiny spikes of contrast: a distant horn, sparrows flittering in the foreground, the sharper cry of a child nearby. Emerging from a grey droning sea: scooters, voices, air conditioners, idling buses, the overlapping calls to prayer. Altogether these sounds form the http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/08/afternoon-prayer-in-fes.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-4119286733100182850Sun, 08 Apr 2012 19:31:00 +00002012-04-08T12:56:05.351-07:00san franciscosoundscapepost-military#demilit As mentioned here from time to time, I represent one third of the experimental collective DEMILIT. We are a group taking walks, recording sounds, and making connections between militarized spaces and the everyday landscape. Last year we were commissioned by Deutchlandradio Kultur to produce a radio piece on their "Newcomer Werkstatt" program, which aired in Berlin at midnight, June 24, 2011.http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/04/sf-gravelator-91l.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-7929275151549943747Thu, 22 Mar 2012 06:36:00 +00002012-03-24T22:53:01.656-07:00 Four Recent Lunchwalks Attack and Decay are technical terms known to sound editors and synth musicians, but the concept is also intrinsic to urban walking.  "Attack" is the initial rise of a particular sound and "Decay" is the falling away of the sound from its peak to a normal or "sustained" volume.   Doors open and the clamor of a restaurant rushes out (attack); someone walks in, shutting thehttp://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/03/sf-lunchwalk-attack-and-decay.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-6005481498256813039Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:40:00 +00002012-03-07T00:42:39.831-08:00san franciscolunchwalk Walking every week, with every chance I get.  My feet vault me out of a sedentary habit (we are what we repeatedly do) into the unique opportunity of an urban walk, latent with unexpected encounters.  Encounters, such as the sight of this smokestack somewhere north of the lunch hour ground zero.  I marvel at its unlikely location, amid the housing and workplaces.  Surely it cannot still be in http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/03/sf-lunchwalk-smokestack.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-3616421545759010472Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:48:00 +00002012-02-03T22:54:54.058-08:00streetssan franciscofield recordingtaxonomylunchwalk Why even bother with the names of streets?  In a world of sound, the names of streets ring silent.  They are dwarfed by the din of traffic, overwhelmed by thousands of diffuse sounds from the city hulking above.  Market Street, for instance, beckons to be renamed every time I walk out onto it.  My feet are willing to forget, but my head still wants to know: where am I going today? East.  The http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/01/sf-lunchwalk-forty-three-ambient-slices.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-7591900144568706232Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:55:00 +00002012-01-16T17:42:59.927-08:00taco trucksoundwalksan franciscolunchwalk On this fifth lunchwalk, where I take a walk instead of eating lunch, I broke the only rule: I ate lunch.  Two shrimp tacos, to be exact.  I also did not walk alone but wandered out with a friend, Marc Wiedenbaum of disquiet  fame.  Our walking discussion ranged across current projects of his, on the reasons we walk and listen, and, as we descended upon a taco truck, the sound of food.  So, http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/01/sf-lunchwalk-taco-truck.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-5064076472630169680Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:54:00 +00002012-01-16T17:43:28.549-08:00san franciscofield recordinglunchwalk Market, the street I always begin on because my office's front door faces it, is a long street.  It is the only street which bisects the entire island--the island defined by an hour round-trip walk on my lunch break.  At the northeast edge, there is water.  So to the water's edge I aimed my stride, and off I went. Down the canyon called Market, sirens wail and horns resonate.  The canyon is thehttp://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/01/lunchwalk-north-northeast.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-9097744403153134233Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:18:00 +00002012-01-16T17:46:39.321-08:00bunkerhawthornedesertmilitary landscapelandscapemuseum1.  I took an overnight trip to Nevada with my brother about two weeks ago.  I was a city dweller in need of a desert fix, an injection of sand, a shower of still air.  My brother had never been to the desert.  So, I picked a spot about six hours by car from San Francisco—a small town that nobody makes a destination of: Hawthorne, Nevada. 2.  To travel to Hawthorne in the winter, when the roadhttp://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2012/01/notes-from-desert.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-1531035152583056107Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:29:00 +00002011-12-09T10:28:25.742-08:00san franciscomachinesfield recordinglunchwalk SF Lunchwalk: North, third in a series exploring the city instead of eating lunch. I am exploring north along streets mechanized from below. Gears, pulleys, and cables live under the street, humming and clapping, droning and singing, partaking in the communion of automata. I would begin not listening to machines, but to the bells of the Salvation Army. Passing a giant tree which these http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/12/sf-lunchwalk-north.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-7070940194959807579Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:09:00 +00002011-12-03T21:13:33.654-08:00san franciscofield recordinglunchwalk A traveler on this new island, my first forays radiate out from the center.  At 12:36 pm, I start walking due west. Not a few moments pass before I am pressed up against fellow travelers, compressed in the space of the city, stacked like the bricks around us.  A clicking signal indicates to the blind, such as yourself, that a street crossing is permitted by the local authorities.  Let loose http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/11/sf-lunchwalk-west.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-3261656652284506475Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:37:00 +00002011-11-22T20:33:23.909-08:00soundwalksan franciscofield recordinglunchwalkLunch break. Got an hour? Take a walk. Inside of a thirty-minute radius, an infinitely detailed (though finitely bound) landscape is within reach. SF Lunchwalks: Morsel of San Francisco which I can reach in a one-hour roundtrip from my office. SF Lunchwalk 01 : Cracks is the first in a series of soundwalks, where I take a walk for an hour instead of eating lunch (or eat lunch while walking). http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/11/sf-lunchwalks.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-1411589096853547597Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:50:00 +00002011-10-19T14:36:23.035-07:00lost boys Edgar Frog: I think I should warn you all, when a vampire bites it, it's never a pretty sight. No two blood suckers go out the same way. Some yell and scream, some go quietly, some explode, some implode. But, all will try and take you with them.http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/10/death-by-stereo.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-3123816418793192699Fri, 14 Oct 2011 07:04:00 +00002011-10-19T10:44:28.622-07:00Zizekacoustic wayfindingamplificationrevolutionOccupy Wall Streetmicrophone A mobile loudspeaker array Something like what you see above will not be found around the #occupy movements growing in cities around the globe.  An amplified platform, broadcasting a clear and distinct message, is fittingly absent.  It is not permissible by many of the occupied downtown neighborhoods, nor is it even necessary as a technology for these groups to express themselves. The NYPD http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/10/revolution-will-not-be-amplified.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-3890317644484952168Sat, 08 Oct 2011 23:25:00 +00002011-10-19T10:27:21.088-07:00harvard acoustics research laboratorydoug aitkenlisteningjohn cageanechoic Horn Antenna, Holmdel, New Jersey, circa 1960 (via) I came across this image by chance, just flipping through images of Bell Laboratories.  The image itself speaks of a colossal effort to listen to something.  Was it a particular sound that was sought out here?  Not sound, but another kind of wave energy would be collected in this ear in the landscape.  This ear with its ability to rotate and http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/10/listening-prostheses.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-1539781011876046996Thu, 29 Sep 2011 07:57:00 +00002011-10-14T00:20:40.817-07:00no-filo-fihi-ficircuit bending Hi-fi architecture: a concert hall, a lecture room, a sound stage.  A great deal of acoustic engineering and formal design decisions goes into the production of these spaces. The remaining spaces we inhabit, the everyday architecture of hallways, kitchens, lobbies, and public streets--these are largely not designed from an acoustic standpoint.  Less than lo-fi, which would suggest some sort of http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/09/lo-fi-architecture.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-1060171487029279605Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:23:00 +00002011-10-19T10:27:46.531-07:00radio raheemfilmdo the right thing Give me 20 D Energizers. 20 C Energizers? Not C, D.  C Energizers? D, motherfucker, D. Learn to speak English first, all right? How many you say? 20, motherfucker, 20. Motherfuck you. Motherfuck you? You, you all right, man. http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/09/story-of-life-is-this-static.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-8480539665095244002Wed, 24 Aug 2011 06:23:00 +00002011-10-19T10:28:28.748-07:00pre-militarymilitary landscapepost-military#demilit A definite sonic quality to this 1932 aerial view of San Francisco Bay.  Found via. Much has been made of exploring post-military landscapes, but what is to be said of the pre-military landscape? For instance, survey the busy San Francisco Bay in the photo above, just a handful of years before the military began its massive transformation of the watery edge.  It is worth observing how well http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/08/traces-of-pre-military-landscape.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-6196779223752853014Fri, 03 Jun 2011 04:27:00 +00002011-10-19T10:29:11.046-07:00placesbunkeratlantikwalpost-militaryfriezeangel islandBusy times offline here at Soundscrapers. Found in print only, on a newsstand somewhere, is an essay and set of drawings titled "Military Pastoral" in issue 138 of Frieze magazine.  In the article I write about two military landscapes with vastly divergent post-military paths:  Gettysburg, memorialized ad infinitum, and Palmanova, finding new life in its eroding geometries. The Entropic http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/06/military-pastoral.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-845762170091823790Tue, 29 Mar 2011 07:26:00 +00002011-10-19T10:31:54.458-07:00goodkitchenmushrooms A misty morel wall Soundscrapers continues the assault on the kitchen over at GOOD.What would make a good sonic kitchen?Hit me up over @twitter.http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/03/misty-morel-wall-soundscrapers.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-7502218653051164997Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:53:00 +00002011-10-19T10:29:48.606-07:00placesburning mansoundscapejohn cageIn case you missed it, I have a soundscape for your listening pleasure over at Design Observer's Places.  The recordings are of the temporary city called Burning Man which appears annually in the Nevada Desert. I was out there for the full seven days, recorder in hand... As a trained architect who is familiar with listening to cities composed largely of hard walls, I found myself out of my http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/01/wwjcd.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3963234605591141663.post-5368333728108314009Fri, 14 Jan 2011 06:35:00 +00002011-10-19T10:30:27.964-07:00listeningbell labsanechoicThe following question comes from a study guide for one of the seven exams required to get an architecture license: When I saw the question, after getting over my disbelief that this sort of subjective nonsense could even be found on the exam, I put down (D) as my answer. I flipped to the back. WRONG. The answer is (A). Are you kidding me!? It was as though the architecture gods-that-be http://soundscrapers.blogspot.com/2011/01/no-contest.htmlnicolassowers@yahoo.com (Nick Sowers)en-usCreative Commons licenseNick SowersnonadultA sonic slice through the global military atmosphere.