Synesthesia Recordings

U.S.O. Project + Selfish @ CALLING IZMIR

U.S.O. Project — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:11:54 +0000

The Urban Renewal Project

Guest Artists from Italy

A project of: Nail Ozlüsoylu

c/o
Izmir University of Economics
Gallery 20/20
IZMIR, Turkey

9/14 January 2012

Video selection:
By Visualcontainer (Giorgio Fedeli)

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

Sinopsys
In the track Girl Running, a dialogue is established between the sounds synthesized with Xenakis’ UPIC and the sound outputs of invisible electronic objects. By carrying these magnetic fields into the audible range, the sounds have been suspended, intimately researched, orchestrated, in order to cross the physical borders of aural perception.

Elena Arzuffi
Domestic parkour
04′ 32″
2007

Maria Korporal
Passing by
07′ 39″
2008

Pietro Mele
Ottana
11′ 46″
2008

Patrizia Monzani
Stadt-Fisch
05′ 00″
2006

Call for Works: Sonic Screens 2012

U.S.O. Project — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:56:40 +0000

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:

The piece must be composed for Violin and Cello as a duo. Scores for solo violin or cello will not be taken into account.
The Score (in .pdf format) must be graphical and not in traditional notation. The interpretational and playing instructions should be made clear, in order for the players to follow them even without the presence of the composer.
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).
The type of interaction should follow the “ecosystemic” paradigm and should be as autonomous as possible (no pedals or sensors are allowed).
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.

Sonic Screens 2011

U.S.O. Project — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 20:08:06 +0000

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

U.S.O. Project @ Headscape 2011 (binaural)

U.S.O. Project — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:47:05 +0000

U.S.O. Project @ Headscape 2011 (binaural) by synesthesiarecs

HEADSCAPE is an immersive concert that exploits the peculiarities of listening through headphones to present performances otherwise impossible to achieve.

Recorded 23rd June, 2011 @ O’ – no profit organization.
The concert has been broadcasted over the Internet in real time.

Live mixing and spatialization by Matteo Milani (U.S.O. Project).
The actual distributed version is rendered using U.S.O. Project’s custom binaural techniques for headphone listening only.

www.sincronie.org
www.on-o.org

Augmented Music: A case study

U.S.O. Project — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 07:06:44 +0000

by Tue Haste Andersen

The music industry is in trouble. Sales are falling despite innovations such as digital music stores and direct streaming solutions. Technical Architect Tue Haste Andersen introduces a new approach to music recording and distribution, merging Augmented Reality with music distribution. He presents an overview of existing mobile solutions in this space and a case study, an iPhone app designed in collaboration with U.S.O. Project (Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi).

The application combines traditional music playback with augmented reality through audio. The idea is to explore the mobile app as a new media for music distribution, a media that can blend traditional music playback with interaction by allowing the user to choose between passive listening and an active composition. The approach has great potential for making mobile software applications become a key in the digital music economy.

[Better Software 2011]

Sonic Screens – Call For Multichannel Works

U.S.O. Project — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:04:37 +0000

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

Out now: U.S.O. Project – Functions (binaural)

U.S.O. Project — Mon, 09 May 2011 10:18:27 +0000

Functions (binaural) by Synesthesia Recordings
[Free Download]

Between 1967 and 1969 Gottfried Michael Koenig devoted himself to compose electronic music, producing a series of works entitled Funktionen.

The instrument that inspired and made possible these compositions was the Variable Function Generator, designed by Stan Tempelaars at the Institute of Sonology, Utrecht.

Koenig used the VFG not only to produce the basic sounds (waveforms), but employed it as a modulator and control instrument in order to dynamically manipulate the elaboration processes which were carried out on materials (ring modulation, volume curves, filtering and reverberation).

The idea behind the experiment was to entirely produce the sound material and its structural implementation using only the VFG (this led to the creation of Funktion Grün, Funktion Gelb, Funktion Orange, Funktion Rot).

For a detailed analysis of Gottfried Michael Koenig’s Funktionen, please see the document on his official website:

Analytical Descriptions (1971) [Download]

The works presented in U.S.O. Project’s Functions explicitly refer to a series of works that with an extraordinary vision Koenig realized in those years.

The main challenge was both philological and aesthetical. The idea was to create an automated composition by exploiting the computing power of modern computers and by a sufficiently widespread and flexible software in order to re-program the original algorithms.

The Patches used in the prototyping of the generative software environment were assembled using a specially written program that provided in text format – using serial procedures – how the various modules should be combined with each other – i.e.:

Mel / empty / reverb
Basis / ring+mod / Empty
Pulses / empty / reverb
Basis / mod / filter-reverb
Mel / ring / filter
Pulses / ring+mod / reverb
Basis / empty / filter
Mel / ring / filter-reverb
Pulses / mod / Empty
Basis / ring+mod / Empty
Mel / ring / filter-reverb
Pulses / mod / reverb
Mel / empty / filter

Once we had identified the blocks, they were displayed in the form of flow charts – i.e.:

The various Patches were then implemented as Abstraction in Max/MSP:

In order to manage all the modules in parallel, plus the sends to the reverberation units and so forth, we constructed a matrix, that automatically reconfigures itself according to strict procedures based on serial techniques:

The implemented automata procedures have in fact “created” the composition itself.
In the end, the multichannel final master was obtained with Kyma/Pacarana’s surround Objects.

As you can deduce from a listening comparing the work of Koenig and U.S.O. Project, there are many differences, both in the aesthetic and formal domain.

It was clear to us since the beginning that we didn’t want to repeat Koenig’s compositional experiment in every detail, but to build – and then understand – something new produced using the same modus operandi that convinced him to make those works. At the same time we wanted to preserve an historical legacy with those works (something that is easily recognizable especially in the first piece). It was also interesting to us to empirically verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the procedures in terms of timbre and formal development using the serial approach.

The actual distributed version is rendered using U.S.O. Project’s custom binaural techniques for headphone listening only.

Beyond any reference to Koenig’s original works, Functions is a spontaneous self-reflection about the different states of sound matter and the exploitation of its possible configurations, shaped and imagined through a dialogical process between the machine and its operator.

Matteo Milani, Federico Placidi

[Functions Press Release - pdf]

Out now: “hiSS [Synesthesia Sampler] vol.1″

U.S.O. Project — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 15:33:46 +0000

The works included in ‘hiSS [Synesthesia Sampler] vol.1′ have been produced using only analogue devices and processing tools – such as no input mixers, analogue synthesizers and custom-built or hacked/reconfigured instruments.

Without the use of computers or digital devices, the 4 pieces recall an era from the 1950s-70s, when most of the electronic music makers around the world had limited resources and quite primitive equipment.

The compositional techniques are available in the following document:

[hiSS_vol-1_Press_Release.pdf]

Produced by Matteo Milani, Federico Placidi
Artwork by Kirjava [kirjava.deviantart.com]
SYN-005 | 2011 Synesthesia Recordings
Artists retain copyright to their respective works

RELEASE INFO:

Title: ‘hiSS vol.1′
Cat.No: SYN-005
File under: Experimental/Electronic
Format: Digital/Compact Cassette
Release date: 4.2011

Limited edition compact cassettes coming soon! Contact us for more info:

write [at] synesthesiarecordings [dot] com

Digital album available ($ 5, mp3 @ 320 kbps) [here]
Pick other formats (FLAC, AAC, Ogg Vorbis) on BandCamp [here]

ALBUM ARTISTS:

Volker Hennes (GER)

Title of the piece: eromenoi erastai
Duration: 12′ 16”

Volker Hennes (b. 1976) is a sound artist and composer. He studied at the Academy Of Media Arts Cologne from 2000 till 2005 – mainly at the Sound Laboratory, at which he was employed as assistant for two years. Focuses on live-electronics, acousmatic and electroacoustic music, computer music, field recordings, multichannel and interactives works, and installations. Works have been performed and presented internationally; e.g. Metamorphoses / Belgium, ICMC / Copenhagen, Concordia University/ Montreal, Música Viva / Portugal, MANTIS Festival / Manchester, Festival Internacional de Música Electroacústica Ai-Maako / Chile, A & A Elektrokonzert / Argentina, Digital Art Weeks / Zürich, SMC, Inventionen / Berlin. In 2003 he founded All Of Orlov with Robert Vater, since then performing duets and duels. Member of the audiovisual performance and improvisation group Frequenzwechsel.

[www.earesistible.de]

Chris Mercer (USA)

Title of the piece: Deification | for 2‐channel tape
Duration: 13′ 14”

Chris Mercer received a B.M. in Composition at the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1995, and a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of California, San Diego in 2003. His principal teachers were Chaya Czernowin and Chinary Ung – instrumental music; and Peter Otto and Roger Reynolds – electronic music. He has held artist residencies at Experimentalstudio SWR, Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, and Sound Traffic Control in San Francisco. His music has been performed by The Nonsense Company, Ensemble Ascolta, Ensemble SurPlus, SONOR Ensemble, and Schlagquartett Köln. His most recent electroacoustic music and research have focused on animal communication, especially non-human primate vocalization, with research residencies at the Duke University Lemur Center, the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, and the Brookfield Zoo.

His instrumental music involves modified conventional instruments, found objects, and instruments of the composer’s own design, in combination with amplification, live electronics, and spatialization. He has taught electronic music at UC San Diego, UC Irvine, and CalArts, and is currently coordinator of the Music Technology program at Northwestern University.

[musictechnology.northwestern.edu/Mercer]

Ian Helliwell (UK)
Title of the piece: Convergence
Duration: 14′ 02”

Since the start of the 1990s Ian Helliwell has been making films and building and modifying 9v circuitry, developing his unique series of Hellitron tone generators, which are used for live performance and for the soundtracks to over 50 of his experimental super 8 shorts. In 2007 he designed and built an analogue synth, the Hellisizer 2000, and since 2008 he has been producing The Tone Generation, his ongoing radio series which explores the early development of electronic music. In 2010 several of his abstract super 8 films have been included in a major retrospective of direct animation – Celluloid: The Cameraless Film at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt.

[ianhelliwell.co.uk]

Jeroen Visser (CH)
Title of the piece: The Spanning
Duration: 13′ 41”

Jeroen Visser (1961) is a musician and a composer living in Zürich, Switzerland. His primary instrument is classical piano, and he is also a self-taught woodwinds player. After his study of Sonology in Utrecht, being taught by a.o. G.M. Koenig, J. Vink, and S. Tempelaars, he worked as musician and sound engineer. From 1988-1992 he worked as music technologist at the Sweelinck Electronic Studio in Amsterdam, NL.

After his relocation to Zürich in 1993, he has been composing music for groups and theatre, where he was also responsible, as musical director, for productions, and making musical or sound installations. Recent musical activities, apart from electro-acoustic compositions, include studying ethiopian music, and playing music which investigates the combination of improvisation and musique concrete.

[121234.net]

Product pages:
[synesthesiarecordings.com]
[synesthesiarecordings.bandcamp.com]

‘hiSS vol.1′ by Synesthesia Recordings

Empty Rooms (binaural)

U.S.O. Project — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:01:05 +0000

Recorded @ VisualContainer [.BOX] during Live!iXem 2010 (www.ixem.it). The piece is specifically intended for headphone listening.

Video excerpt: vimeo.com/14430545

usoproject.com/video/Empty_Rooms_eng_booklet.pdf
usoproject.com/video/Empty_Rooms_Technical_Rider.pdf

Kyma Studies on SoundCloud

U.S.O. Project — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:15:47 +0000

Kyma Studies by synesthesiarecs

U.S.O. Project @ NoiseFloor Festival 2011

U.S.O. Project — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:55:37 +0000

The intention of the NoiseFloor festival is to draw together forms of exploratory electronic music from a range of disciplines and place them together in one single event. The festival will include music which has been composed as an outcome of academic research, as well as music which has been created for commercial release or performance. Visitors will be able to explore both the multi-channel Electroacoustic concert situation, as well as the two channel club setting. By maintaining the individual identities and qualities of both of these listening environments, the festival aims to entice people to investigate music which might sit outside of their current area of interest.

The festival will be constructed from a series of concerts, papers and installations between 12th and 14th of January 2011. The concerts which will present Electroacoustic works in an 8 channel diffusion setting. Other forms of electronic music will be showcased in a less formal two channel setting. Installations and papers will be running throughout the festival.

Friday 14th January 2011
17:00 Concert 8 – Fixed Media

Andrew Dolphin (Mint Cascade)
Ben Ramsay (Low-bypass)
Erik Nyström (Far from equilibrium)
Guillaume Côté (Static)
Jason Bolte (change in the summation)
Lee Fraser (Narrows)
U.S.O. Project (Adaptive SCALAR Morphologies)
Sarah Mackenzie (The Burrow)
Sarah O’Halloran (Like No Other Birds)
Sébastien Béranger (Schizo à 120)

U.S.O. Project – ASM__//Adaptive_SCALAR_Morphologies (excerpt) by synesthesiarecs

[read more: 2011 programme]

U.S.O. Project + Selfish @ Legami di Sangue

U.S.O. Project — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 10:28:13 +0000

“Legami di sangue” is an exhibition taking place at the Contemporary Art Museum in Nocciano (PE) as a way to investigate what can tie the Abruzzi Region to the Lombardy Region in Italy.
‘Legami di sangue’ aims to underline the connection of old between North and South, but also becomes a way for the Museum in Nocciano to celebrate the oncoming 150th anniversary of Italy union.

The exhibition compares 5 artists from Lombardy to 5 from the Abruzzi and hosts art professionals from both Regions, wishing to find new solutions and ties that would hopefully be beneficial to either parts. VisualContainer has been invited by Ivan d’Alberto, the Museum director, to join the exhibition programme and the talk, and will present a two-video selection investigating such connection between North and South Italy and questioning contemporarity.

Iginio De Luca: L’urdemo emigrante (2008)
U.S.O. Project + Selfish: Girl Running (2009)

Chosen artists are as it follows:

for the Abruzzi – Andrea Berardinucci, Igor Cascella, Carlo Federico, Alessandro Rietti ande Giacomo Sabatini;
for Lombardy – Lisa Dalfino, Igino De Luca, Luigi D’Eugenio, Valentina Garbagnati and U.S.O. Project + Selfish (Matteo Milani, Federico Placidi e Giovanni Antignano). Each artist will present a work that best esemplifies his/her creative language with respect to the exhibition’s theme.

Live!iXem 2010 – Schermi Sonori – (excerpt)

U.S.O. Project — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 12:59:39 +0000

Schermi Sonori – selection of environmental electroacoustic music

Live mixing and spatialization by U.S.O. Project
Video / Lights: Selfish (Giovanni Antignano)

U.S.O. Project, thanks to the collaboration of Electronic Music Foundation, accompanies the listener through a journey among different sound environments, characterized by an objective presence in the form of ‘found sounds’ and by a subjective element known as electroacoustic composition. The performance will take advantage of acousmatic performance practice called ’spatial diffusion’, creating a seamless sound flow between different works from internationally renowned artists.

Live!iXem 2010 – Edition VII

U.S.O. Project — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 14:29:18 +0000

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)

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”

U.S.O. Project — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 17:24:20 +0000

@ 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, Fabio Orsi, Natasha Barrett
Curated by Matteo Milani, Federico Placidi (U.S.O. Project) and Domenico Sciajno

Biographies:

Alessandro Massobrio

Guitarist and composer, he is interested in working in collaboration with other art forms and works with experimental cinema and audiovisual art. He composes instrumental music as well as electronic pieces. His personal research focuses on illusion, relationship between sound and geometry, animal sound communication, emotions and thoughts. His music is related to the control of the physical gesture, timbre, decay and concrete material in order to create electronic-like structures and effect. As a performer he plays e.guitar and electronics in the audiovisual project Flushing Device.

www.flushingdevice.it

Fabio Orsi

Fabio Orsi is an electronic musician specializing in atmospheric drone. Fabio Orsi has consolidated his reputation as a key figure of the international nu-folk electronica underground with a bewildering yet fascinating series of solo works and collaborations dominated by psychedelically flavoured soundscapes. Orsi creates atmospheric audio postcards with a tangible sense of time and place, utilizing layers of guitars, old keyboards and found sounds, having a keen attention to details, loops develop so naturally that it’s almost impossible to notice when certain sounds are brought in and out.

www.myspace.com/orsifabio

Natasha Barrett (Guest lecture)

Natasha Barrett works foremostly with composition and creative uses of sound. Her output spans concert composition through to sound-art, sound-architecture, installations, interactive works. Whether writing for instrumental performers or electronic media her compositional aesthetics are derived from acousmatic issues focusing on the aural perception of detail, structure and potential meaning, and an interest in techniques that reveal detail the ear will normally miss. The composition and manipulation of space is a central element in much of this work. As a performer she works with electronics, improvisation and the interpretation of acousmatic works.

www.natashabarrett.org

Program

October 29, 2010

[10.30 am]

Introduction by Ricciarda Belgiojoso, author of the book “Costruire con i suoni – Building with sounds”. Defining the concept of soundscape and sound design work on the urban space.

[11 am -13 pm]

1st part: sound recording – microphones, hydrophones and geophones, digital recorders.
2nd part: the perception of sound in space. The multichannel sound reproduction.

[13-14 pm] lunch break

[14-17 pm]

1st part: listening, editing with freeware software.
2nd part: soundwalk.

October 30, 2010

[10.30 am -13 pm]

1st part: spectral analysis and editing. From time to frequencies.
2nd part: Presentation of instrumental and electronic works composed with custom sound sources

[13-14 pm] lunch break

[14-16 pm]

Conclusion: Creating one or more sound tracks based upon the soundwalk. Diffusion.

[16-18 pm]

Natasha Barrett – Composing with 3D space: the use of Soundfield recordings and Higher Order Ambisonics spatialisation in composition.

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

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

Location

The workshop will be held at:

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.

INFO: Antitesi | www.antitesi.org | workshop [at] antitesi [dot] org |

[ixem.it]

[facebook.com/IXEMfestival]

[twitter.com/IXEMfestival]

Documents available online:

[Live_iXem_2010_Workshop_ITA.pdf]
[Live_iXem_2010_Workshop_ENG.pdf]

“Empty Rooms” @ Celeste Prize International 2010

U.S.O. Project — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:25:10 +0000

“Empty Rooms” instances itself as an audio-visual self-organized performance space.
The paradigm itself discloses a synesthetic approach between the “aural” and “visual” experiences.
A Movie made of “inactive-real spaces” is projected on a screen.
An overlapped stream of pre-recorded “sound activities” is then diffused 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.
A Digital Sound Processor 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.

usoproject.com/video/Empty_Rooms_eng_booklet.pdf
usoproject.com/video/Empty_Rooms_Technical_Rider.pdf

[visit www.celesteprize.com/artwork/ido:64293]

Life After Transducers

U.S.O. Project — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:26:22 +0000

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]

Synesthesia Recordings now on @Bandcamp

U.S.O. Project — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:13:19 +0000

Nachtmusik aus 01 (SYN-004)

InharmoniCity (SYN-002)

Unidentified Sound Object (SYN-001)

[synesthesiarecordings.bandcamp.com]

U.S.O. Project @ Art Stays 2010

U.S.O. Project — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:58:17 +0000

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.

U.S.O. Project + Selfish @ CONTACT-S

U.S.O. Project — Mon, 24 May 2010 12:31:47 +0000

CONTACT-S
Luoghi dell’Arte Contemporanea

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]

U.S.O. Project+Selfish @ DENTRO!

U.S.O. Project — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 07:30:04 +0000

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]

U.S.O. Project+Selfish @ SoundImageSound VII

U.S.O. Project — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:23:02 +0000

SoundImageSound VII
mini-Festival of Experimental Music and Video

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]

U.S.O. Project + Selfish @ “How Much” – Cyprus

U.S.O. Project — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:05:46 +0000

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

CALL FOR WORKS – Winners list

U.S.O. Project — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:29:38 +0000

Sorry for the delay in issuing the verdict, but the submissions were numerous, and it was difficult to choose the winners. We decided to publish more than one work, since many were worthy and consistent to the subject of the call. We have rewarded the ability to work within the perceptual aspects of the composition, the consistency of the materials, the recognizability of the elements of timbre, dynamics and perspective.
The album will be released in digital format (via iTunes and other digital shops) and on Compact Cassette, limited edition (80 pieces). This looks like the most suitable media to represent the spirit of the project.

[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

‘Nachtmusik aus 01′ (SYN-004) review by Sound Proector

U.S.O. Project — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:50:46 +0000

What I like minimalistic improvisational electronics for is its intimacy, one can even say “homeness”. It seems that it is right here, very close, is creeping and fluttering hoping to leave its deep and significant trace in life of those to whom it had to penetrate. You listen and see musicians, designers hunched up at their laptops, with their virtual or rather tangible controllers ruling the sound surrounding space. They change the picture, on some transparent body of airy mass they scrap their abstract messages. Like an Italian duet Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi making project U.S.O. Project, the title of which stands for Unidentified Sound Object. That’s really problematic to identify the sources of the sounds, manipulated by Milani and Placidi in their latest work Nachtmusik aus 01. I suppose there’s double bass accompanying live project in 2006 (this record can be found on YouTube). Be it so or not, here’s of no doubt the material originally born on this planet without using computers and synthesizers. Though under creative manipulations’ influence it turns into a voluminous, rustling, squeaking, droning audio structure, unique sound object. One can creep abreast with it, run along flat surfaces rounding obstacles one by one. Happen to be in one big room with them. The hell with room – inside a huge hangar! Hangar filled with cases, boxes, technique, radios, light devices producing dull light… Carefully move through the dark, narrow paths looking back and taking a breath to avoid a sudden attack of claustrophobia… pi micron

Sound Proector is an experimental music webzine.

[soundproector.com]