ecopolis

Dears,
after months, probably years, of rethinking intersubjectivity issues and remixing theory, I am very happy to annouce the birth of RAM LIVE under my direction.

RAM LIVE is a internet radio and place for the transmission of memories and experiences, providing an ethical listening before an aesthetic experience, open to a plurality of voices and the exchange of practices on an international level.

RAM LIVE is unique in its kind on the international scene, breaking away from genre and news radio stations.

RAM LIVE offers round-the-clock web streaming and (soon) monthly podcasts of: selections and remixes of sound works from SAM and RAM archives, interviews, historical recordings, popular music from the 1920s to today, field recordings, artist monographs, and new cultural programs, respecting the environments difference and languages.

Please feel welcome to send us sound materials, debates recording and to make purpose of collaborations.

The theme underlying the programming for October is the voice in a political view of an ethics of sound – from the first Beat revolution to the Black Panthers’ protest – featuring interviews to the protagonists of the cultural revolution in the USA (provided by filmmaker Ferdinando Vicentini Orgnani), and music of the time selected on the basis of a philological and emotional research.

The programming also gives room to multicultural reflection: the Mediterranean by Michelangelo Pistoletto; Carla Accardi and Gianna Nannini in Moscow; RAM travel diaries in Tunisia and China; FLUSSORAM sound geography; Manifesta sound landscapes; and other interior journeys through the voice of leading voices in contemporary culture.

Included in the schedule are also RAM LIVE’s regular programs: “Minima” (an hour of remixed material from the SoundArtMuseum archive), “Ready-Heard” (live broadcasts), and “Mono” (monographs on sound artists active on the international scene). The month of October will be dedicated to: Alvin Curran, Richard Crow, Jan Fabre, Michael J. Schumacher, Stephen Vitiello, and Luca Vitone.

Happy listening!

Ilari Valbonesi

Mail: live@radioartemobile.it
Skype: radioartemobileLIVE!
Web: http://live.radioartemobile.it/

Renzo Piano’s new green museum, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco is almost finished. Located in famous Golden Gate Park, and housing an aquarium, planetarium, and natural-history museum under two “hills” which are really a two-and-a-half-acre “living roof”, the building looks like a part of the park from some views.

As Piano says: “The building had to be green and sustainable to go with its purpose—study of the earth and science. It is also in a very unusual place, the middle of one of the most beautiful parks in the world. You almost never get a chance to build something in the middle of a great park, so it needed to be transparent. You needed to see where you are. Normally, a museum of natural science is created like a theater, so that you can have the exhibits inside. All museums normally are opaque; they are closed, like a kingdom of darkness, and you are trapped inside. But here you need to know about the connection with nature, so almost anywhere you are in this building you can see through to the outside.”

The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record included in the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. It contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. It is intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it. The Voyager spacecraft would take about 40,000 years to reach the distance of the star nearest the Sun, Alpha Centauri at a distance of 4.4 light-years, though neither craft is travelling toward that star.

The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Music On Voyager Record

* Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, conductor. 4:40
* Java, court gamelan, “Kinds of Flowers,” recorded by Robert Brown. 4:43
* Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
* Zaire, Pygmy girls’ initiation song, recorded by Colin Turnbull. 0:56
* Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26
* Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14
* “Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
* New Guinea, men’s house song, recorded by Robert MacLennan. 1:20
* Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (”Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
* Bach, “Gavotte en rondeaux” from the Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin, performed by Arthur Grumiaux. 2:55
* Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
* Georgian S.S.R., chorus, “Tchakrulo,” collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18
* Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima. 0:52
* “Melancholy Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
* Azerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30
* Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Sacrificial Dance, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, conductor. 4:35
* Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48
* Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
* Bulgaria, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin,” sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59
* Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
* Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, “The Fairie Round,” performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. 1:17
* Solomon Islands, panpipes, collected by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service. 1:12
* Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38
* China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37
* India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30
* “Dark Was the Night,” written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15
* Beethoven, String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, Opus 130, Cavatina, performed by Budapest String Quartet. 6:37

David Byrne: Playing the Building (BBTV)

Playing the building is a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument. Devices are attached to the building structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.

10 South Street, New York, NY (Map)
31 May – 10 August 2008
Open Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Noon – 6PM (Free)

„Radio signals are limited under the river and the constant roar of the 433 makes easy listening difficult. iPods are turned up high and Metro sentences are read and re-read. The Tunnel is just a means of getting from A to B, which is what most users need.” ( Alan Dunn, „When two worlds collide”, http://www.alandunn67.co.uk/soundtrackforamerseytunnel.html )

Werner Moebius‘ radio piece “Soundtrack for a Mersey Tunnel – extended” refers to a project by Alan Dunn in Liverpool 2008. Artists were commissioned to create soundtracks for the bus route 433 New Brighton – Liverpool. This bus spends 2 minutes and 33 seconds underneath the River Mersey, transporting passengers from the peninsula Wirral to Liverpool City and back. These sound pieces, partly recorded inside the Tunnel or in its immediate environment, were compiled on a CD an edition of 433 pieces.

Werner Moebius modifies the concept of acoustic interventions in relation to the Mersey Tunnel by using specific sound qualities of the tunnel architecture. He sketches an audiovision of a new, extended, imaginary non-place.

On the one hand Moebius uses his own sounds recorded in the City of Liverpool and the neighbouring Merseyside / Wirral region in the Northwest of England, and on the other hand he uses samples from the contributions of a.P.A.t.T., Büchler & Wand, Caroline Kraabel & Phil Hargreaves, Claire Potter, Gintas K, James Chinneck, Mark Pilkington, Ocean Viva Silver, Patricia Walsh, Pete Wylie & Jeff Young, Roger Cliffe-Thompson, unclejim und Wibke Hott & The Tunnel Choir, that were published on CD.

Werner Moebius enters an acoustic space which is real yet imaginary, a paradox constellation between concrete and abstraction. He sketches an audiograph of the European Cultural Capital of Europe 2008 Liverpool and its environment in the form of a fragmentary cut up collage.

(Text: Werner Moebius, May 2008; translation: Anna Soucek)

Damien Hirst – Breath 2000

SmartCityEU is an art project which explores and develops new artistic interventions within urban spaces in European cities during a 2 year period in 2008 and 2009.

At the forefront of new practices, SmartCityEU operates an art rereading of urban space and offers a vision of a balanced and sustainable European city reoriented towards citizens.

SmartCityEU has been initiated by 4 major cultural institutions sharing a common interest in new art forms and new media: Dédale [FR], WRO [PL], Zoneattive [IT] and AltArt [RO].

The 4 operators have applied together to the European Commission’s Culture programme.

Moreover, SmartCityEU brings together numerous actors in the fields of art, urban development and new technologies such as Recyclart [BE], boDig [TR], Kibla [SI] and Videomedeja [SR]. SmartCityEU’s art programme (exhibitions, live art, performances, concerts) takes place in 8 European cities: Paris, Wroclaw, Rome, Cluj, Istanbul, Brussels, Maribor and Novi Sad.