[microsound-announce] TONEWHEELS 2010 USA tour

Sat Apr 10 10:30:11 EDT 2010

Next week I will be embarking on a quick tour of New York, Massachusetts 
and Rhode Island USA to give several TONEWHEELS performances and 
lectures as well as a field recording workshop and a lecture on the 
Tuned City project. I have several days free in NYC around 24-26 April 
in case people want to meet up or make some spontaneous noises happen...

Please check my blog for details on the different events:

http://macumbista.net

Be seeing you....
Derek

****

*TONEWHEELS 2010 USA tour*

*DATES*

FRI 16 April: Buffalo NY–SoundLab, 110 Pearl Street: TONEWHEELS 
performance + Affecting Animate Nerve Organs (16 artist multi-media 
installation) [8pm]

SAT 17 April: Syracuse NY–Spark Contemporary Art Space: TONEWHEELS 
performance, other artists TBC  [8pm?]

TUE 20 April: NYC, NY–Electronic Music Foundation: “A Brief History of 
Optical Synthesis” lecture [7pm]

WED 21 April-THU 22 April: NYC, NY–Harvestworks: Soundtransit-The Art of 
Field Recording workshop [6:30pm each night]

FRI 23 April: NYC, NY–Bent Festival, Dumbo, 81 Front Street: TONEWHEELS 
workshop [12pm] performance [8pm]

TUES 27 April: NYC, NY–Electronic Music Foundation: Tuned City lecture [7pm]

THU 29 April: Providence, RI–Rhode Island School of Design: TONEWHEELS 
workshop

FRI 30 April: Providence, RI-AS220: TONEWHEELS performance + Black Pus 
(1/2 Lightning Bolt), Humanbeast and Shawn Greenlee [9pm]

SAT 1 May: Somerville, MA: Existence Establishment @ The Starlab: 
TONEWHEELS performance + Karlheinz, Shawn Greenlee, Animal Steel, 
Brandon Terzakis, Benjamin Nelson, Bombings [8pm]

*DETAILS*

___TONEWHEELS PERFORMANCE
___Various locations and dates...

TONEWHEELS is an experiment in converting graphical imagery to sound, 
inspired by some of the pioneering 20th Century electronic music 
inventions. Transparent tonewheels with repeating patterns are spun over 
light-sensitive electronic circuitry to produce sound and light 
pulsations and textures. This all-analog set is performed entirely live 
without the use of computers, using only overhead projectors as light 
source, performance interface and audience display. In this way, 
TONEWHEELS aims to open up the “black box” of electronic music and video 
by exposing the working processes of the performance for the audience to 
see.

___TONEWHEELS WORKSHOP
___Bent Festival 23 April, RISD 29 April

TONEWHEELS is an experiment in converting graphical imagery to sound, 
inspired by some of the pioneering 20th Century electronic music 
inventions such as the ANS Synthesizer (Murzin USSR 1937-57), the 
Variophone (Sholpo USSR 1930) and the Oramics system (Oram UK 1957). In 
this workshop, participants will learn to construct their own 
optoelectronic synthesizer using two different circuits: a simple 
light-to-sound converter and a variable motor speed controller, as well 
as how to design and print their own tonewheel patterns using the FLOSS 
software Inkscape.

___“A BRIEF HISTORY OF OPTICAL SYNTHESIS” lecture
___TUE 20 April: NYC, NY–Electronic Music Foundation [7pm]

The technology of synthesizing sound from light is a curious combination 
of research from the realms of mathematics, physics, electronics and 
communications theory which found realization in the industries of 
motion picture films, electronic music, surveillance technology and 
finally digital communications.

This lecture will touch on various points in the development of optical 
sound synthesis in these various contexts, referencing the work of 
Joseph Fourier, Hermann von Helmholtz, Rudolph Koenig, Arseny Avraamov, 
Thomas Wilfred, Evgeny Scholpo, Nikolai Voinov, Oskar Fischinger, Boris 
Yankovsky, Edwin Emil Welte, Evgeny Murzin, Norman McLaren, Lev 
Theremin, Daphne Oram, Jacques Dudon and Iannis Xenakis, among others.

This lecture is given in the context of the opto-electronic performance 
TONEWHEELS, by Derek Holzer at the Bent Festival the following Friday.

___Soundtransit-The Art of Field Recording
___Harvestworks, NYC, Wednesday & Thursday, April 21 & 22 6:30 – 9:30pm $100

Field recording, or phonography, is the art of recording sounds as they 
are found “in situ”, rather than those created in a studio or concert 
hall. There are as many ways of approaching field recording as there are 
field recordists, with interests ranging from recordings of natural or 
urban environments to improvised situations or soundwalks to the 
resonance of solid objects or the Earth’s atmosphere.

The first session of this workshop provides a theoretical introduction 
to the various microphone techniques and recording strategies used for 
field recording, as well as special tools which allow phenomenon such as 
physical motion, electromagnetic waves and light can also be converted 
into sound. This will be followed by a night-time recording excursion 
into the city.

The second session consists of a critical listening session of the 
sounds gathered the night before. Key concepts to be explored include 
musical and cinematic metaphors of sound, composing the cityscape and 
communicating senses of place and space through sound.

___“Tuned City – Between sound and space speculation”
___TUES 27 April: NYC, NY–Electronic Music Foundation [7pm]

“Tuned City – Between sound and space speculation” was an exhibition and 
conference project taking place from July 01.-05. 2008 in Berlin which 
proposed a new evaluation of architectural spaces from the perspective 
of the acoustic. It’s next edition is scheduled to take place during the 
Cultural Capital summer of 2011 in Tallinn, Estonia.

In this lecture, we will see and hear some of the projects from the 
Tuned City event by Mark Bain, Raviv Ganchrow, Will Schrimshaw, John 
Grzinich, James Beckett, Akio Suzuki, Barry Blesser, Randy H.Y. Yau + 
Scott Arford, Thomas Ankersmit + Antoine Chessex, Bernhard Leitner, 
CRESSON, Farmers Manual, AGF, Chris Watson + BJ Nilsen, Jacob 
Kirkegaard, Martin Howse, Ralf Schreiber + Martin Kuentz and Staalplaat 
Sound System will be discussed, among others, as well as related 
projects covering the themes of Temporary Architecture for Sound, 
Buildings as Instruments and Composing the Cityscape. A limited number 
of catalogs and program guides will also be available.

-- 
::: derek holzer ::: http://macumbista.net :::
---Oblique Strategy # 13:
"Are there sections?  Consider transitions"