Sound artist and composer Agostino Di Scipio discusses his compositions with Federico Placidi at usoproject.com. He imagines a possible life cycle of electronic/electric music:

FP: What would happen to your works if one day there were no more possibility to perform it in a socially shared space? Where could it migrate, and how could it reconfigure itself?

AdS: If one day there were no more transducers (I mean microphones, loudspeakers, the tympanic membrane of human ear, even the skin maybe…) acting as interfaces between air pressure waves and nervous-electrical measures, my work and the work of a lot of other people would stop existing, it would cease. Fine so! It happened so many times in history. The music of the British virginalists, a few centuries ago, disappeared because of the extinction of their very instrument (the virginale, existing in several fashions across Europe). Then, just like it happens today with Renaissance music, at some point so-called ‘philologically informed’ interpretative approaches would be proposed, and these older technologies would be revived and again built.

[via disquiet.com]

InharmoniCity (SYN-002)

Unidentified Sound Object (SYN-001)

[synesthesiarecordings.bandcamp.com]

ART STAYS, International festival of Contemporary Art, is with ART PTUJ the main annual visual art event in the region of Ptuj (Slovenia). It started in 2003 as a visual art workshop for young European artists. This year’s programme includes 10-day residency working sessions and several four-week-long exhibitions (20th July – 30th August 2010).

The 8th edition of ART STAYS 2010 will host over 50 artists from 15 different countries: Italy, Slovenia, Germany, Spain, Slovakia, Hungary, Switzerland, USA, Bulgary, Great Britain, Austria, Singapore, Australia, Finland and Ireland and 4 continents: Europe, Asia, North America and Australia.

The forthcoming edition will feature a total of 40 artists including painters, video artists, performers, graphic designers, sculptors, media and sound artists that will be present in 5 European national pavilions: Italy, Germany, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia and in 5 additional international projects: Video art, New media exchange Main USA, Performing art, Site specific projects, Art Factory.

[artstays.si]

Chosen by curators:

Raphel Di Luzio, Dušan Fišer, Jernej Forbici, Vladimir Forbici, Manuel Frara, Gabriela Kisová, Patrik Loschert, Omar Mirza, Domenico Papa, Laszlo Laszlo Revesz, Marika Vicari.

CONTACT-S - multimedia and multisensory language of contemporary art

Opening from May 29th to June 18th, 2010, from Monday to Saturday from 10.00 to 16.30
@ Liceo Artistico Giorgio de Chirico, Torre Annunziata, NA

“Schermi Sensibili”, an event showing the evolution and dynamics of the visual language associated with experimental “moving images”.

The exhibition is organized in partnership with Visualcontainer, Media archive (Milan).

[isadechirico.it]
[Press Release - pdf]

DENTRO !
“Arti in scena dal vivo”
A festival which focuses on atypical forms related to the world of performing arts.
8-18 April 2010

Featuring U.S.O. Project+Selfish
Screenings: Girl Running / Invisible Words

Presented by:
[florenceartfactory.com]
[laboratorionove.it]

Girl Running, an excerpt from InharmoniCity, has been selected for presentation at the VII edition of SoundImageSound.

The screening is scheduled for Friday, March 26th at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.

3:00 – 11:00 PM
Conservatory of Music
University of the Pacific
3601 Pacific Avenue, Stockton

In its seventh season SoundImageSound presents work that is created through technology and can only be experienced in a unique performance setting, blending sound and visual image in an experience often described as intermedia. Through video and multi-channel audio, SoundImageSound VII envelopes the audience in unimagined sounds and moving images.

Events:
The Installation – with long format works by Ge-Suk Yeo and Wil Bolton

The Concert – featuring works by:
Betsy Kopmar, Bill Alves, Alan Callander, U.S.O. – Unidentified Sound Object/Selfish, Tara Cooper, Rodney Waschka/Zlatko Cosic, Debashis Sinha, and Daniel Blinkhorn

Late Night at the Lair – works by Jeffrey Hass, Henry Gwiazda, Betsy Kopmar, and more

[Details: www.pacific.edu]

[For information about previous events: ~rcoburn]

How Much
International Contemporary Art Exhibition
Nicosia – Cyprus
17th March – 3rd April 2010

c/o
Cyprus International University
Faculty of Fine Arts
Nicosia, North Cyprus
www.ciu.edu.tr

This project questions the change in the process of modernization and the mood of thinking and the daily life. In the meantime, it creates play areas for human.

Curator: Nail Ozlusoylu
Supported by the Department of Culture (North Cyprus) and Cyprus International University.

Artists:

Elena Arzuffi
Domestic parkour
04′ 32″
2007

Maria Korporal
Passing by
7′39″
2008

Pietro Mele
Ottana
11′46″
2008

Patrizia Monzani
Stadt-Fisch
05′ 00″
2006

U.S.O. + Selfish
Girl Running
9′ 00″
2009

Visualcontainer Italian videoart Distributor and promotion
Curator: Giorgio Fedeli
www.visualcontainer.org
www.visualcontainer.tv

[Photo Courtesy of fiftyfootshadows]

Here are the winners (works for recorded media alone):

Volker Hennes – “eromenoi erastai”
Chris Mercer – “deification”
Jeroen Visser – “The Spanning”
Ian Helliwell – “Convergence”

In the coming weeks we will keep you informed about the album’s production status.

Matteo Milani & Federico Placidi

Sound Proector is an experimental music webzine.

[soundproector.com]

The Streaming Festival focuses on artistic and innovative audio visual art and film. This event takes place on the internet, where films are broadcast full screen with high image quality. It’s organized by the isfth foundation, a non-profit foundation based in The Hague (The Netherlands) that provides support for projects that encourage the understanding of audiovisual art.

Anyone with an internet connection can plug into a festival stream from any location, at any given time and start watching contemporary art and films.

Streaming Festival: InharmoniCity

FAQ: Technical and Viewing

Streaming Festival Videoplayer

Federico Placidi’s (U.S.O. Project – Unidentified Sound Object) new work “… Solo…” for Clarinet in B flat, Cello and Live Electronics will be performed on December 3rd  at Teatro Vittoria. The concert will also feature prèmieres by Andrea Valle (Detti del Tuono), Domenico Sciajno (Terfly), Joshua Parmenter (Corpi sonori), Krzysztof Gawlas (AI Riff) and Donald Craig (Sediment).

“… Solo…” for Clarinet in B flat, Cello and Live Electronics.

The title encapsulates the idea of a “single ideal instrument” made up of two “registers”, that of the Cello and the Clarinet.
The electronics in “real-time” defines” the “connective tissue”or Lattice.
The music that flows it is the product of dynamic interaction between the two domains (instrumental and digital).
“Clouds of high density burning plasma, corrugated structures are organizing in space and time, relaxing and cooling down a little at a time.
“Strings” of energy exhibit elementary modes of vibration and structure themself harmonically and temporally to flow in a “statistical field” of morphologically recombinant micro-events that estabilish hierarchies of similarities and differences.
Gradually the sound material is concentrating in a continuous and polarized stream, then shrink into a high energy “singularity”.

Sound director: Matteo Milani
Live Electronics: Federico Placidi

FIARÌ ENSEMBLE
Luciano Condina, Flute
Gianluca Calonghi, Clarinet
Massimo Barrera, Cello
Gilbert Impérial, Electric Guitar
Riccardo Balbinutti, Percussions

Marilena Solavagione, Director

Submissions for the ‘Call for electroacoustic works – 2009‘ are now closed.
Thanks to everyone who sent us their works.
Winners will be announced in December 2009.
The selected works will be published by Synesthesia Recordings during the first quarter of 2010.

Jury

Federico Placidi, Matteo Milani (aka U.S.O. Project – Unidentified Sound Object)
Eduardo Carlo Natoli, composer
Daniele Corsi, composer

For any more questions contact us at submissions at synesthesiarecordings dot com

RADIO FREE RADIO–SATURDAY, 6:00-9:00 PM EST; 1800-2100h UTC–WRCT, 88.3 FM, PITTSBURGH, PA

[17th October 2009 - view Playlist]

Track: Part I
Artist: U.S.O. Project – Unidentified Sound Object
CD: Nachtmusik aus 01
Author: Matteo Milani, Federico Placidi
Duration: 12:09
Label: Synesthesia Recordings
CD No.: SYN 004

[Stream online - MP3 Hi]

Steve Lacy–Straws–The Rise
Teiji Ito–Tenno–#5
Various Artists–Anthology of Dutch Electronic Tape Music Volume 1 1955-1966–Rudolph Escher: “The Long Christmas Dinner”
Various Artists–Anthology of Chinese Experimental Music 1992-2008–Yan Jun: “It’s More Than Enough”
***U.S.O. Project–”Nachtmusik Aus 01″–#1***
David Mooney–Facts About Air–What’s Absent is Present
Ju Suk Reet Meate, Oblivia, and John Wiese –Inside and Out–A Cooling Thought
Stephan Moore–to build a field–Comae
Lapslap–ITCH–not cheddar but
Andrew Graydon–At Bay–lossless
Nurse with Wound–The Surveillance Lounge–Close To You
Charles Hayward–Switch On War–Never Before
Christian Marclay–Record Without A Cover–excerpt
Peter Kowald Ort Ensemble Wuppertal–Cuts–#’s 17-20
Michael Johnsen–Patience Tryouts–#5
Charles Dodge–Cascando
Phaeton Derniere Danse/Le Syndicat–Theopanie a Visu–La Dernière Lumière
Phauss-Karkowski-Bilting–s/t–Immortals By My Side
Onomatopoeia–A Marble Holder from Andover
Various Artists–Recommended Records Quarterly Vol. 2 No. 2–Jocelyn Robert: “Christi crucifixi ultima verba”
Carrier Band–Voice Coil–Frozen Speaker
Keith Rowe & Sachiko M–contact–rectangle; oval

[wrct.org]
[Steve Boyle, presenter of Radio Free Radio @ MySpace]

[sendandreceive.org]

Listen to 60-second excerpts: (.m3u)

U.S.O. Project – “Nachtmusik Aus 01″ [Synesthesia Recordings]
A Machine’s dream out of human memories.

Performed and produced by Matteo Milani, Federico Placidi.
SYN-004 © 2009 Synesthesia Recordings. All rights reserved.

TRACKLIST:

1) Part I (12.09)
2) Part II (5.28)
3) Part III (5.37)
4) Part IV (17.48)

RELEASE INFO:

Artist:  U.S.O. Project – Unidentified Sound Object
Title:  Nachtmusik aus 01
Cat.No:  SYN-004
File under:  Experimental/Electronic
Format:  Digital
Release date:  7.2009

Artwork by Jorinde Voigt [www.jorindevoigt.com]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Diptychon VII
VII/1 + VII/2 (Deklination Rotation Doppelte Akustische Impulse, Standpunktwechsel / Richtungsansammlungen,
Richtungs-Loops / Deklinationsablauf)

Jorinde Voigt
Berlin 2007
Ink, graphite on paper
114,4 x 30 cm + 114,5 x 210 cm (total 114,5 x 240 cm)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

[crosstalk.hu]

Blow Up is a monthly Italian magazine about “rock & other contaminations”: out rock, electronica, techno, house, experimental, industrial, improv/jazz, traditional.

[blowupmagazine.com]

[subscriptions]

Works should be produced using any conceivable analog device processing tools (pedals, no input mixers, analog synthesizers, custom built devices).

A description of the composition poetics and aesthetic goals should be included for release purposes as well.

The score should be submitted together with the recording in one of the following formats: .sib or PDF.
If the soloist is not available at the moment of the recording session, a quick render via a virtual instrument is allowed and welcome.

Synesthesia Recordings will provide the required soloist for the final Recording, Mix, and Mastering sessions.

A personal BIO of around 100 words is requested as well.

Winners will be announced in December 2009. The selected works will be published by Synesthesia Recordings during the first quarter of 2010.

For any more questions contact us at submissions at synesthesiarecordings dot com

[Download PDF version]

Jury

Federico Placidi, Matteo Milani (aka U.S.O. Project – Unidentified Sound Object)
Eduardo Carlo Natoli, composer
Daniele Corsi, composer

(update) IMPORTANT:

PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR AUDIO FILES USING OUR DROPBOX ONLINE SERVICE.
SCORES CAN BE SEND AS ATTACHMENT VIA EMAIL TO OUR SUBMISSION ADDRESS.

Electroacoustic works HAVE to be realized with ANALOG DEVICES, which means:

1. use of Filters, Ring Modulators, Oscillators, Frequency Shifters, Piezoelectric microphones, modified Speakers and so on.
2. CUSTOM build instruments or HACKED ones are welcomed.
3. Live electronics is fine but only by mean of ANALOG DEVICES.

Please you have to document how did you make your tape-music. This step is important to us.

DO NOT SEND works made as follows:

1. CD tracks with pre-rendered DIGITALLY PROCESSED material using any plug-in.
2. COMPUTER MUSIC works, tapes.
3. No Computer, no Max/MSP or PD patches, no SuperCollider.

Please refer to the technology which was available between the 50’s -70’s in most of the electronic studios around the world.

CENTQUATRE 104, rue d’Aubervilliers ou 5, rue Curial – Paris, 19e

[download the press release - pdf | FR]
[104.fr]
[ina.fr]

See you in Paris! M&F

Track: First Contact
Artist: graphicalSound
CD: Shapes
Author: Matteo Milani
Duration: 8:05
Label: Synesthesia Recordings
CD No.: SYN 003
Time: 40:09 – 47:30

[8th March 2009 - view Playlist]

[LISTEN NOW - Real Player/Windows Media]

Quiet Space is a place where the music will let you free your mind from the everyday. The music is the narrative, it explains itself while letting you put it in a place.

It is music to help you concentrate; music to accompany your meditations; music that can focus you on the details of the sound; music that you can be absorbed by or have it wash past you. It will take you beyond the normal notion of what people call “ambient” music.

Incorporating 20th century composition, blissful pop and ethereal drones, the Quiet Space offers a chance to reflect and and relax, a soundscape to in which to lose yourself.

Paul Gough, presenter of Quiet Space.

GRAPHICALSOUND – SHAPES (Synesthesia Recordings)

Behind graphicalSound is Matteo Milani, whom we recently heard for the first time in Vital Weekly 644 as one half of the U.S.O. Project. Milani started at the end of the 80s, splicing tape at radio stations. These days its all about the computer, ‘blending synthetic and organic sound material, sharing the Pierre Schaeffer ‘audio vision’ of musique concrete’. The four pieces on this release are nice, but hardly musique concrete, unless of course the sounds have been altered to such an extent that we don’t recognize the original input – that might very well be possible. Only in ‘Water Emotions’ we do recognize the water sounds and it seems that Milani here tries to play a cover of ‘Blanket Level Approach’ by The Hafler Trio. Its more ambient music of a highly digital kind, time stretched sounds, filtered with tons of granulating sound effects. Flowing like the best Hypnos release, but less based on analogue synthesizers and more computers. A minor difference, and probably not a very important one. Milani plays his music with great skill and this is a very nice ambient work. (Frans de Waard)

tracklist for Vital Weekly 663:

0000 Tune
0014 Baja – Deleth
0313 Lars Myvrell – The Gleaming Water (Monaco)
0615 Chas Smith – Nakadai
0918 Anna Zaradny – Mauve 1
1222 Ferran Fages – Desfer La Pausa
1535 Gianluca Becuzzi & Fabio Orsi – Snow Palace Hotel (C)
1837 graphicalSound – Water Emotions
2139 Alva Noto – Xerrox Sora
2442 Thomas Bel – Die Linien Des Herbstes
2743 Evapori – Rehearsal II
3046 Undo – Des Tournages
3352 James Whitehead – 4′33” As A Determined Object
3654 Antn Hrkwk – Infinite Juice Parade
3956 Simon Brown/Dylan Crichton – Stupid Desert
4037 Luca Mauri – A Quiet Storm
4341 Philipm Halke – A Place That I Said Goodbye To
4641 PM – Electronic Church 17.9.08
4943 Richard Ramirez
5252 Tune

listen to 663

Read the current issue here

[the complete archive of Vital Weekly including search possibilities:
http://www.vitalweekly.net]

RAPPORTO CONFIDENZIALE (2009)

U.S.O. PROJECT+SELFISH – INHARMONICITY (Dvd-Video)

C’è poco di armonico in questa seconda release della videolabel Zerofeedback. Scorbutico è il termine che mi sono ritrovato fra le mani più spesso. Intanto la genesi.
Il progetto nasce dalla collaborazione fra Matteo Milani e Federico Placidi, in arte U.S.O. Project – Unidentified Sound Object, e Giovanni Artignano – in arte Selfish. Entrambe le polarità di questo progetto si occupano di arte digitale, i primi di musica il secondo di immagine in movimento. L’operazione messa in piedi è assai particolare perché racchiude in circa sessanta minuti, suddivisi in tre tracce, quella che sarei portato a chiamare performance – o liveset. La colonna audio fa da struttura portante all’opera attorno alla quale vengono campionate immagini che rispondono sincronicamente alle frequenze sonore. Il dato reale dal quale attinge Antignano è lo spazio visivo della città, il paesaggio urbano d’un agglomerato di indefinibile collocazione geografica, le sue immagini danno forma al paesaggio sonoro generato dalla colonna audio di Milani e Placidi.
Lo spazio urbano emerge da un magma sonoro e visivo fatto d’un numero sempre crescente di linee orizzontali che lascia intravedere appena immagini scorrevoli da destra a sinistra di scheletri architettonici. La prima traccia Girl Running (8’43”) sembra volerci raccontare un prologo dello spazio che andremo a visitare nei capitoli successivi, un’origine spettrale dello spazio urbano che verrà, narrata in scala di grigi ad alto contrasto. Invisible Words (12’41”) ci catapulta, fra distorsioni sonore, entro un punto di vista elettronico su d’una città fatta di grattacieli, una specie di occhio meccanico incapace di cogliere un’immagine chiara e definita. L’instabilità del quadro è frenetica.
Le interferenze incessanti sono praticamente invisibili per l’occhio, ben oltre il percepibile, ed è in questa meticolosa maniacalità della ricerca dell’imperfezione che risiede una delle caratteristiche peculiari di questo InharmoniCity. Una ricerca perseguita ostinatamente per tutta la durata del lavoro che rappresenta la concretizzazione dello sforzo individuale tipica dell’artista sperimentale, ovvero colui per il quale il film può esistere solamente entro determinate condizioni d’autarchia estetica; è entro questa modalità produttiva che da sempre il cinema sperimentale produce le proprie opere e proprio per questo è considerato difficile da vedere o, se si preferisce, scorbutico.
Il valore della sperimentazione non è mai fine a se stesso, è una traiettoria da percorrere per allargare i confini di quel che è noto, spesso attraverso l’eccesso ma invariabilmente andando nella direzione opposta al flusso della norma e dei codici preconfezionati. Jack Smith, John Mekas, Stan Brakhage, Len Lye, Paolo Gioli, Alberto Grifi, Walter Ruttmann e Takahiko Iimura sono solo alcuni dei cineasti che pur avendo realizzato dei film che solitamente si è portati a nominare come inguardabili hanno lasciato un segno indelebile nella storia del cinema e, molto probabilmente, se fossero ancora a noi contemporanei utilizzerebbero proprio il linguaggio della performance o del liveset per dare forma al proprio istinto.
Dunque InharmonyCity è sperimentazione audiovisiva che sfocia nella terza traccia …From the Past…Out of the Future (41’04”) che a voler essere sbrigativi si potrebbe raccontare come un Koyaanisqatsi anfetaminico.

InharmonyCity è un’opera coraggiosa, che travalica molti generi dell’audiovideo contemporaneo, vicina a molte produzioni internazionali, una su tutte: lo splendido Kuvaputki diretto da Edward Quist sulle musiche dei Pan Sonic.

A questo punto perché non chiamarsi registi? (Alessio Galbiati)

[confidenziale.wordpress.com]

[myspace.com/rapportoconfidenziale]

excerpt from the liveset @ ZAUM – January 14, 2009 – Cantieri Culturali Ex Macelli, Prato (IT)

Introducing the new DVD “InharmoniCity” by Zerofeedback/Synesthesia Recordings © 2009

An excerpt from the dvd  ‘InharmoniCity’:

Girl Running – U.S.O. Project + Selfish on Vimeo.

Best played at high volume in the dark.