This week’s transmission is an excerpt from our archive of field recordings done in Hong Kong in 2008. Though recent, many sounds captured in these few minutes reflect a Hong Kong of the past: due to development, the sound landscape of the city has changed drastically within the past few years, as Chinese institutions like the open-air food markets, or dai pai dong, disappear from the streets. This clip echoes the sounds of a Hong Kong that can no longer be accessed.

We hope you enjoy this third installment of transmissions.

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As we mentioned briefly in our last post, Kill the Ego will be screened on September 4, 2010, at the prestigious Circuito Off Venice International Short Film Festival in Venice. The festival program describes the film thus: “This film is the encounter between the work of American painter Rostarr and sound recordings that Soundwalk did in New York between 1998 and 2008. Rostarr captured the sound material and placed in matter in motion and color the words of fragmented memories, poets and prophets, visionaries and lost children. A story, a tribute to the city, is emerging in the assembly of these micro-narratives.”

Head here for a preview of the film.

PRACTICAL INFO
Screening: 5:30 P.M., 4 September, 2010 | Auditorium Santa Margherita Venezia
Click here to find the auditorium on the map.

For more information about the Circuito Festival, check them out on Twitter and Facebook.

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Having already been shown in New York and Paris, our sound and visual art film Kill the Ego will next screen in Sao Paulo, Brazil, before its scheduled projection in Venice in September 2010. The film has been chosen to appear at the Rojo-Nova art and film festival, held at Sao Paulo’s Museu da Imagem e do Som on Saturday, August 7, at 6:30 pm.

Head here for more info about the Rojo-Nova festival.

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This week’s transmission is an extract from Death Must Die, which, like La Brulure, is one in a series of limited-edition Soundwalk releases with custom-designed letterpress packaging.

“Death Must Die is a sound piece that begins before the rising of the sun and reproduces the cycle of a day in Varanasi… Benares, Kashi; a sacred city, where death is everywhere, bathed in light. It is here that the Hindus come to die and burn their dead. It is here, on the river’s edges, that the wrath and the grace of Shiva are expressed.

The sound intoxicating as death itself, it is a hammering song of the dead, playing until one is transfixed. It’s the murmuring of the Ganges… the power of silence.

[Death Must Die] revisits the cycles between life and death, using sound as a metaphor: the laughter of children playing, dogs barking – it contrasts the extreme accumulation of bells, the infernal trance of religious songs, the peculiar sound of bodies burning upon wood… the voice of a young nun coming from an ashram in the silence of the night.”

We hope you enjoy this second installment in the summer Transmissions series.

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In light of Soundwalk’s various site-specific projects in the works to be featured in China, Europe, and the United States, we’d like to send word of our travels in the form of weekly installments of sound recordings from the Soundwalk archives, made around the world by our sound artists over the past few years, and the accompanying photography.

We’ll begin with an excerpt from our new sound project, La Brulure, which evokes the heat of summer at its most basic and primal. La Brulure is the first in a series of limited-edition Soundwalk releases with custom-designed letterpress packaging.

“In a solitary trek along the Mediterranean coasts from Spain to Greece, along the south of France, through Italy, Montenegro, and Albania… Stephan Crasneanscki of Soundwalk records the sulfurous fury of summer. It all begins with sound.

It is that of a cricket in the heart of summer, which, in the intoxication of a lovesong, perishes, sucked dry, burnt by the rays of the sun.

It is the memory of childhood under the sky of vacation, always denser and more blue. The memories of adolescence which burn our skin. Bodily desire, sensual pleasure, betrayal.

The encounters of one night, of one day, the fever of a summer without sleeping. When the spirit is consumed and the passion does not rest.

The trance of cicadas, the music and the songs collected in villages, which like ripples of heat in the air rise to the surface.”

We hope you enjoy the summer’s first installment of recordings from the archives.

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Business of Fashion has spoken highly of the collaborative Soundwalks with Louis Vuitton within the framework of an article discussing the ways in which fashion brands can learn from Nike’s move towards integrating cutting-edge technology with their classic product line. “Integrated digital technology will become what people expect,” predicts Nike President Mark Parker, and BoF goes on to describe this aspect of the Louis Vuitton Soundwalks:

“In the fashion industry, Louis Vuitton made an interesting move into digital products, back in 2008, with Louis Vuitton Soundwalk, a unique experience that activated the brand’s heritage and dedication to ‘the art of travel.’ Designed to be played on Apple’s popular iPod and launched just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Vuitton’s Soundwalk was a perfectly synchronised audio journey through the physical streets of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, narrated by three icons of Chinese cinema.”

The article concludes with the following observation about the direction it might be wise for luxury brands of the twenty-first century to take:

“In the market for luxury fashion, the dream is most important. But today’s affluent consumers live active and digitally-enabled lives. Increasingly, there is an important opportunity for forward-thinking luxury brands to leverage integrated digital technology to help their clients experience things, not just dream them.”

Interesting thoughts on making digital technology not only useful, but creative, enjoyable, and ultimately liberating.

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Many thanks to Blast Magazine for its piece on Ulysses’ Syndrome at Voix Vives festival this week! Blast announced the installation by saying, “[Stephan Crasneanscki, photographer and invited Editor in Chief of Blast magazine #30, presents his installation Ulysses' Syndrome at the contemporary poetry festival Voix Vives, taking place in Sète for the first time this summer.]” In the past, Blast has mentioned Ulysses’ here and Stephan Crasneanscki here. Thanks for the continuous coverage, Blast!

Voix Vives festival is still in full swing! For more info, head here.

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Soundwalk is pleased to announce the installation of our sound piece, Ulysses’ Syndrome, at the Voix Vives Mediterranean poetry festival in Sete, France. Visitors will be able to enter the ancient seaside chapel to experience Soundwalk’s 24-hour audio voyage retracing the travels of Ulysses along the coasts of the Mediterranean.

To learn more about Ulysses’ Syndrome and to listen to audio samples, head to our website.

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DATES: July 23-31

INFO: Voix Vives Festival | Sete, France | www.voixvivesmediterranee.com | Reservation Tel. 04 99 04 72 51

DOWNLOAD:  Voix Vives’ full 2010 event program here.

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The Creators Project is a new network dedicated to the celebration of creativity and culture across media around the world, gathering “the world’s most creative minds”, in partnership with Intel and Vice Magazine.

“At a time in the history of the arts where digital technologies have revolutionized distribution, democratized access, and completely re-imagined the scope and scale with which an artist can create a vision and reach an audience, The Creators Project is a completely new kind of arts and culture channel for a completely new kind of world”

This week, The Creators Project features a series of projects initiated by Dalbin, and among others the movie “Kill The Ego” realised by Soundwalk in collaboration with Rostarr.

Check out Kill the Ego’s page on The Creators Project’s website

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KILL THE EGO ON COLLECTORSERIE

“Kill the Ego” is available for purchase through the Collectorserie iPhone/iPad application. Collectorserie is a visual and musical works of art collection that was developped by Dalbin in collaboration with mobile agency Clicmobile, with the objective of placing contemporary video and sound creation at the collector’s fingertips.

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“Soundwalk is a really unique experience, a way of looking at the city and travelling in just one hour, but also a way to learn things and get away from everything. My advice : do it together with someone else, it gives the impression to be plugged into a secret frequency and to escape from the nervous spin of the everyday city life.”

Read Camille Kiejman’s article on Le Nouvel Observateur’s blog (in French)

More info about the tours on Soundwalk’s website

Have a look at Soundwalk’s tours catalogue in the Soundwalk iPhone App

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