Author Archives: barbaraheld

Escuchar con los ojos Arte sonoro en España, 1961-2016

Escuchar con los ojos
Arte sonoro en España, 1961-2016
Fundación Juan March, Madrid

14 octubre 2016 – 15 enero 2017
 

Observatory / Lisa Joy is a generative audiovisual installation created by two multidisciplinary artists, Barbara Held (USA/Spain) and Benton C Bainbridge (USA). It is currently on view as part of “Escuchar con los ojos. Arte sonoro en España, 1961-2016”, a group exhibition of Spanish Sound Art from the past half century at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid.  Tones and flute from Held’s software system (coding by Ariadna Alsina) are used as control voltages to shape sinuous lines from Bainbridge’s modified videogame console.

Observatory, a sonification of helioseismological measurements, translates numeric data into another numeric structure: the overtone series of a sampled flute note, filtered and reinforced in the rhythm of the sound waves produced by solar oscillations. Like an oscillation between a microscope and a telescope, Held varies the intensity of harmonics (the building blocks of sound) to highlight the rich deep abstraction of pure tone and the immediacy of the breath, while Bainbridge’s system divides the sound into component frequencies which are visualized onto the display, creating calligraphic  patterns from the same electronic signals. Observatory was first created for Bioderivas, Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre, Tenerife. (Data thanks to the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, audio software created by Ariadna Alsina).

Benton C Bainbridge’s Lisa Joy generates electronic drawings with an analog video synthesizer and a modified video game console. Bainbridge assembled a set of unique Eurorack modules into a custom system to create the abstract moving paintings. The lissajous patterns emerge from the relationship of 3 signals which guide the electron gun from left to right, top to bottom, and up and down in brightness. The shapes vary as the 3 waves dance in relationship to each other and the sound frequencies.

BENTON C BAINBRIDGE AND BARBARA HELD

Bainbridge Held performance, distENDED cinema curated by David Linton, Brooklyn, NYC 2016, document video by Yana Milanberg

 

Media art collaborations by BENTON C BAINBRIDGE (The Bronx) and BARBARA HELD (NY/Barcelona) pair acoustic and electronic sound with realtime image processing. Their live performances, installations and recordings are composed using audiovisual synthesizers modulated with flute, as well as generative software. Solar seismic activity, the human breath, and other periodic measurements inspire their structural strategies.

Their generative audiovisual installation Observatory / Lisa Joy  is currently on view as part of “Escuchar con los ojos. Arte sonoro en España, 1961-2016”, a group exhibition of Spanish Sound Art from the past half century at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid.  Held’s software system, a sonification of helioseismological measurements, translates numeric data into another numeric structure: the overtone series of a sampled flute note, filtered and reinforced in the rhythm of the sound waves produced by solar oscillations, varying the intensity of harmonics. These frequencies are used as control voltages to shape sinuous lines from Bainbridge’s modified video game console, creating calligraphic patterns from the same electronic signals.

A previous collaborative performance with Nancy Meli Walker in 1995 for the Festival Grec in Barcelona, Spain used the sound and live video images of vintage laboratory glass and an original 19th century physics apparatus called the “singing flames”  on loan from the Mentor Alsina laboratory museum.

Bainbridge/Held’s current project is Pausa, a collaborative composition in which sound and image “conduct” each other. The Binary Pattern Generator, a one-of-a-kind modular instrument by Brendan Byrne, generates simple rhythms which are interpreted by a software and hardware A/V synthesis system, triggering variations in the timbre of a live flute performance and layering of abstract forms into moving pictures.

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BARBARA HELD is a flutist and composer based in Barcelona. She has performed the audiovisual work of Eugenia Balcells at MACBA; with Ursula Scherrer, Katherine Liberovskya and Anne Wellmer at LOOP Festival of Videoart in Barcelona ; Soundproof Festival, London; Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York; Solianka Gallery, Moscow; Issue Project Room, New York; The Bridge, Cologne; Experimental Intermedia, New York; Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; she participated in the group show “Microcosmics” curated by Joan Fontcuberta at the Sala Metrónom in Barcelona, and “Bioderivas” at the Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre in Tenerife with Yapci Ramos and Richard Garet. Her music has been published by FO A RM magazine and Leonardo Music Journal, and on the Lovely Music Ltd. CD, “Upper Air Observation”.  A collaborative installation with Kenneth Kirschner and Wolfgang Gil was presented by Contour Editions at Eyebeam in New York, and she recently created from 0, a performance/generative installation for the Signal X festival in Cagliari, Sardinia.  She teaches as part of the University of Barcelona’s Master in Sound Art program.

https://barbaraheld.com/

BENTON C BAINBRIDGE is a Bronx artist who makes media art with his own custom systems. Bainbridge is best known for visual performances, solo and in diverse collaborations. Benton VJ’d for 2 Beastie Boys world tours and made analog video synth FX for TV On The Radio’s “Staring at the Sun”. His artworks have shown around the world; currently touring projects include Kaki King/Glowing Pictures “The Neck is a Bridge to the Body” and two collaborations with Jin Hi Kim, “Ghost Komungobot” and “Digital Buddha”. Bainbridge has been resident media artist for One Step Beyond since its inception; this monthly music and visuals series is now in its ninth season at American Museum of Natural History. Benton C Bainbridge teaches “New Forms in Media” at School of Visual Arts MFA Computer Arts Department. Benton’s generative browser artwork “justasecXYZ #3” recently showed at the MFACA exhibition “Techtonic Shift” and online at justasec.XYZ.

http://www.bentoncbainbridge.com/

 

 

Alimentació

Sala Ricson, Hangar, Barcelona
February 8-10, 2016

Alimentació  is a collaborative performance-based sound installation created by more than 20 artists under the direction of Barbara Held, as the final project of the Sound Installation course of the Master in Sound Art, University of Barcelona. It was conceived as a sonic mirror, a site-specific exploration of concepts of feedback (electronic and analog). The visually transparent glassed-in booth in the Sala Ricson creates an aural boundary.  Sounds are performed live in the brightly-lit booth, and sent to a series of digital and analogue performers in the large, dark main space, where they are re-alimented and transformed. The sound performances are related to the celebration of art world rituals such as the opening of an exhibition. The ritual is a way in which we relate to our surroundings. There is an element of voyeuristic pleasure in the mis en scene.

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The process took place over the space of 3 days, with a live invited audience at the project’s “closing”.

Signal Festival 2015, Cagliari

from 0…
An improvised performance for a specific space that activates an evolving 4 channel sound installation. The flute tunes around a very soft high-pitched drone that seems to change location depending on the room’s acoustics.
Una performance improvvisata che “collabora” con lo spazio acustico, trasformandosi in un’installazione sonora in evoluzione continua.

SIGNAL Festival X 11866497_1034441943234785_1182294254159650769_n
Oct 29 – Nov 7 · Lazzaretto Cagliari ·
http://www.cagliari2015.eu/eventi/signal-x-festival

Senses of Place | LOOP 2015

28 may – 6 june
Reial Cercle Artistic de Barcelona

David Baker, José Manuel Berenguer, Blake Carrington, Melissa F. Clarke, Seth Cluett, Andrew Demirjian, Tom Chant, Brian Chase, David Galbraith, Richard Garet, Lorenzo Gattorna, Sandra Gibson-Luis Recoder, Wolfgang Gil, Andy Graydon, Jim Haynes, Barbara Held, Victoria Keddie, Kenneth Kirschner, LoVid, Katherine Liberovskaya, David Linton, Daniel Neumann, Phill Niblock, Yann Novak, Ursula Scherrer, Pinkcourtesyphone (Richard Chartier-Rob Parrish), Yapci Ramos, Phillip Stearns, Pilar Subirá, Fernando Velázquez, Byron Westbrook, Florian Wittenburg.

LOOP Festival 2015

LOOP Barcelona 2015, The Real Circulo Artístico de Barcelona, Hangar, Eyebeam Sound Research Group, PHONOS (University Pompeu Fabra Barcelona) and the Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre de Tenerife present “Senses of Place”, a program of exhibitions and screenings of audiovisual work, installations and performance that respond to space.

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Exhibitions:

An Immanence of Nature | collective exhibition with the artists Richard Garet, Barbara Held y Yapci Ramos | 11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Gallery Space

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In this exhibition artists make use of technology to capture and display images and sounds that re-contextualize how we perceive the world. Through close listening, focused sight and careful attention to perception, these artists have created a micro-environment that rewards active exploration and encourages thoughtful contemplation of how we understand the world around us through our senses of sight and sound.

Winter | sound installation by Richard Garet, 2008
11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Blue Zone.
Sensesofplace_RichardGaret-Blue-03

Winter is a surround 4.0 sonic construction focused on Winter as a subject. This interpretation was made from aural material recorded during December 2007 and March 2008 within the same 16-foot perimeter location in Astoria, Queens, NY.

Dark Before Dawn | video by Blake Carrington, sound from the album “Ulysses Syndrome” by Soundwalk Collective
11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Hall

Reial Cercle Artístic LOOP2015

Reial Cercle Artístic LOOP2015

“Dark Before Dawn” explores the subjective choreography of sound and image, the feedback loop between the two that informs and shapes what we think we see and what we think we hear. It takes the viewer through a slowly shifting, minimal and foggy color space that follows the contours of the album “Ulysses Syndrome” by Soundwalk Collective. Commissioned by Soundwalk Collective for their album “Ulysses Syndrome”.

Acoustic Imaging the Hudson | video by Melissa F. Clarke
11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Hall

Reial Cercle Artístic LOOP2015

Reial Cercle Artístic LOOP2015

Acoustic Imaging the Hudson shows a subsoil and underwater topography and past glacial movement; a particular profile of deep time and space history reaches the surface through sound signals and image data sent over. The installation shows the relationship between sound and image, water and sound, and with the sediments beneath.

Color Tones | sound installation by Wolfgang Gil
11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Courtyard
Sensesofplace_WolfgangGil-02
A site-specific, generative sound installation that produces its sonic content in response to the sounds occurring in the space in which the piece is installed. Comprised of slowly shifting tones and textures diffused over a multichannel sound system, the installation invites the audience to enter into a meditative dialog with the listening space. The piece is punctuated by periodic silences, during which the piece listens to the room and produces new content.

A project of the Sound Research Group at Eyebeam, New York

The Sound Research Group is a working group to focus on the what and why of sound art through critical discussion, collaborations, presentation of works in progress, and public events. For more information:http://research.eyebeam.org/sound

Recollections | video by Seth Cluett
11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Courtyard
Sensesofplace_SethCluett-03
A single, unedited, wide-angle shot of the edge of a forest, this video contains monaural audio of the sound of a person walking from the left  to the right of the screen. The visual occlusion of the forest combined with audio whose close-mic’d detail  provides no cues for locating the position of the walker. The viewer is forced to search, knowing that there must be a connection between hearing and sight, but is forced to rely on scanning the video carefully in search for alternative clues as to location of the sound source.

Screening:

Screening | program of audiovisual works. Curated by Richard Garet and Barbara Held.
11.00h – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Sala Atlants

download hand program

A  program of audiovisual works from artists working with sound, expanded cinema and video, presenting works of David Baker-Florian Wittenburg, Blake Carrington, Melissa F. Clarke, Andrew Demirjian, David Galbraith, Lorenzo Gattorna, Sandra Gibson-Luis Recoder, Richard Garet, Andy Graydon-Kenneth Kirschner, Jim Haynes, Victoria Keddie, LoVid, Katherine Liberovskaya-Phill Niblock, David Linton, Yann Novak, Ursula Scherrer-Brian Chase, Pinkcourtesyphone, Phillip Stearns, Fernando Velazquez and Byron Westbrook.

Concert:

Concert | performance by Aetherart
4 june – 21.00h. – 22.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Courtyard

This performance is a collective exploration of architectural acoustics, the interactive environment of Wolfgang Gil’s installation and Seth Cluett’s score system that utilizes concepts from machine listening research to enable performers to take on the role of adaptive listeners with a score. A visualization of the scored-work in tandem with the sounds of the ambient environment will drive a thin wire with mirrors placed at acoustically significant points along it. A thin strip of a video projection will be reflected throughout the courtyard, modulated chaotically by the sum of the sounds in the space. Barbara Held, Tom Chant, Pilar Subirà, Jose Manuel Berenguer, Daniel Neumann, video by Yapci Ramos.
A project of the Sound Research Group at Eyebeam, New York

Workshops:

Introduction to nonlinear methods of composition using MAX / MSP | workshop by Wolfgang Gil. Hangar – June 2 & 3
BTV news video:
Tret de sortida a la primera edició del Poblenou Crea! – BTVNOTÍCIES.cat.

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This is an introduction to the use of statistics for audio processing in real time.

The focus on sound composition is based on the definition of “sections” or states of a stochastic system, and “transitions” between sections, using a series of modules that I have created in Max/MSP, a graphic tool that permits logical computation of sound using visual objects.

New York-based Venezuelan sound artist and programmer Wolfgang Gil explores the interrelationship of sound, the listener, and the space of listening. In his experimental work, it is in the listener’s willingness to engage in a personal dialog with the sound and space that the work finds its purpose. He is director of Eyebeam’s Sound Research group, and since 2012, Gil, Richard Garet y Daniel Neumann direct the portable gallery/platform for sound installation work on Contour Editions.

http://wolfganggil.com/about/

DNeumannFoto1_CT-SWaM_June222014sm_photobyEmilioVavarella

Non-Representational Spatial Sound | workshop by Daniel Neumann
Hangar – June 2 & 3

This workshop is part of the investigation into the architectural space as strategies for exploring sound, sound material and its modulation by space and situation. The workshop will give a historical overview on the subject with some technical background and explore aesthetics and techniques for spatialization. Listening will be practiced as a phenomenological activity: the listener immersed in inner spaces / distance and continuity / sound as intersubjective space. The loudspeaker is an instrument, a resonating exciter, and the space is the resonator, like the wooden body of a violin.

Daniel Neumann is a sound artist based in Brooklyn, professional sound engineer with master’s degree in media art from the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. His main focus is the investigation of how sound interacts with space and how spaces can be shaped by sound. As curator, he directs the CT-Swam monthly series at Eyebeam, New York. He has presented work at Fridman Gallery, MoMA PS1, Pratt Institute, Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, Sculpture Center New York, Eigen & Art Gallery Leipzig, Skolska28 Prague, Lothringer13 Munich and many more.

danielneumann.org
danielneumann.wordpress.com
ctswam.wordpress.com

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19 sonidos no sonados

Cuando pensamos que el otro jamás ha escuchado un sonido, ¿a qué nos enfrentamos? A sonidos no sonados.

Desde un archivo particular damos a conocer nuestra percepción de lo real. Sonidos de la intimidad que son expuestos a un espacio concreto: contenedor de cables, tubos, ventanas, luces, cemento, memorias, recuerdos, cuerpos y otros hallazgos.

Del espacio personal al colectivo, proponemos un nuevo recorrido para la conciencia del escucha, quién está invitado a encontrar sus conexiones durante el tiempo que crea necesario.

Proyecto de instalación multicanal realizado por los estudiantes del Master en Arte Sonoro de la Universidad de Barcelona con la asesoría de Barbara Held.

Lugar: Sala Polivalente de HANGAR, calle Emilia Coranty, 16, antiguo Passeig Marquès de Sta. Isabel. Can Ricart, Barcelona.
Inauguración: 7 p.m del 12 de febrero de 2015.
Abierto el 12 y el 13 de febrero entre las 10 a.m y las 9 p.m.

Artistas: Daniel Authior, Ulisses Carvalho, Mercedes Delclós, María Durán, Federico Echave, Pablo Egúsquiza, Edgar Castro, Juan Manuel Castrillo, Sasha Margolis, Matías Monteagudo, Alessandro Olla, Violeta Ospina, Chiara Picotto, Sebastián de los Ríos, Uriel Ríos, Sebastián Sandoval, Juan David Segura, Marc Vilanova, Nicolás Villa

19 sons no sonats

Quan pensem que l’altre mai ha escoltat un so, a què ens enfrentem? A sons no sonats.

Des d’un arxiu particular, donem a conèixer la nostra percepció de lo real. Sons de la intimitat que són exposats a un espai concret: contenidor de cables, tubs, finestres, llums, ciment, memòries, records, cossos i d’altres troballes.

De l’espai personal al col·lectiu, proposem un nou recorregut per a la conciència de l´escolta com a invitat a trobar les seves conexions durant el temps que cregui necessari.

Projecte d’instal·lació multicanal realitzat pels estudiants del Màster en Art Sonor de la Universitat de Barcelona amb l’assessoria de Barbara Held.

Lloc: Sala Polivalent d’ HANGAR (carrer Emilia Coranty, 16, antig passeig Marquès de Sta Isabel. Can Ricart, Barcelona

Inauguració: 7 de la tarda del 12 de febrer de 2015
Obert el 12 i el 13 de febrer entre les 10 del matí i les 9 del vespre

Artistes: Daniel Authior, Ulisses Carvalho, Mercedes Delclós, María Durán, Federico Echave, Pablo Egúsquiza, Edgar Castro, Juan Manuel Castrillo, Sasha Margolis, Matías Monteagudo, Alessandro Olla, Violeta Ospina, Chiara Picotto, Sebastián de los Ríos, Uriel Ríos, Sebastián Sandoval, Juan David Segura, Marc Vilanova, Nicolás Villa

 19 unheard sound

When we think of a sound that no one has ever listened to, what do we think of?
Unheard sounds.

With these particular sound files, we present our perception of reality. Intimate sounds exposed to a specific space: one filled with cables, pipes, windows, lights, concrete,memories, bodies and other discoveries.

From a personal to a collective space, we guide you to a new conscience of listening.

You are invited to draw your own conclusions during the time you deem necessary.

Multichannel sound installation by the Master of Sound Art students of the University of Barcelona, with help from Barbara Held.

Place: Polyvalent Room at Hangar
Opening: 12 February 2015. 7pm
Runs: 12 February 2015. 7-9pm
13 February 2015. 10am-9pm

Artists: Daniel Authior, Ulisses Carvalho, Mercedes Delclós, María Durán, Federico Echave, Pablo Egúsquiza, Edgar Castro, Juan Manuel Castrillo, Sasha Margolis, Matías Monteagudo, Alessandro Olla, Violeta Ospina, Chiara Picotto, Sebastián de los Ríos, Uriel Ríos, Sebastián Sandoval, Juan David Segura, Marc Vilanova, Nicolás Villa

QUARTETS, a sound installation by Stephan Moore, OPENSIGNAL Festival 5.16-17 2014

QUARTETS (2014)

Many musicians, improvisers, composers, and sound artists were asked to record 7 minutes of sound-making using any method familiar and/or exciting to them. Suggestions, meant to be helpful (and to be taken, or not), included: recording in one pass, devising one’s own structure, imagining shared sonic space, and incorporating stillness or silence. The music could be improvised, composed, or created with any combination of methods that suited the artist.

In this installation, four recordings by four different contributing artists play simultaneously, each recording through its own speaker. The four sound files are chosen at random from all contributed files, forming impromptu quartets. Each quartet lasts for 7 minutes, with a 30-second pause before the next one begins.

The speakers are Baritone Hemisphere Speakers, which produce localized sound emanating from each speaker’s position and interact with a room’s natural acoustics. Each speaker is suspended from the ceiling at equal distance to one another, allowing installation-goers to traverse the space of the installation to experience different mixes of the quartets. The display shows which artists are currently being heard in each speaker.

The format of QUARTETS provides an avenue for participation for those engaged with sound-based art practices, some of whom perhaps do not have a performance practice, do not sell music objects, and/or cannot physically be present at the OPENSIGNAL festival (May 2014), for which this piece was created. The installation denies the power structures common to music performance (such as headliners, openers) by giving everyone’s contributions the same weight and equal footing in a unique setting. Additionally, it provides a platform upon which four artists, who might not know one another, may perform together. The result is a series of incredibly compelling surprises from the chance-determined quartets, as their sounds share time together.

There are 86 artists featured in this installation, allowing for a total of 2,123,555 possible quartets. Listening to all possible combinations would require 30 years and nearly 4 months.

 

list of all participating artists:

Akiko Hatakeyama
Alesia Williams
Allison Adah Johnson
Amber Vistein
Amy Chiao
Amy Mills
Amy X Neuburg
Andrea Williams
Angela Ferraiolo
Angela JeongHyun Kim
Angela Sawyer
a n n e b o u r n e
Annie Garlid
Ariadne Greif
Asha Tamirisa
Audrey Chen
Audrey Riley
Ayako Kataoka
Barbara Held
Barbara Lieurance
Beth McDonald
Bonnie Jones
Bridget Feral
Caroline Park
Catherine Pancake
Cecilia Lopez
Claire Kwong
Dafna Naphtali
Dana Reason
Dani Gershkoff
Dina Maccabee
Dorit Chrysler
Eel Burn
Eka Chabashvili
Esther Viola Kurtz
Francis Wilson
Gayle Young
Gina Roberti
Imogen Binnie
Jane Rigler
Jenn Grossman
Jennifer Butler
Jenny Lin
Joanna Mattrey
Julia C Moses
Juliet Palmer
Katarina Miljkovic
Katherine Young 
Kathryn Schulmeister
Katie McMurran
LAUB
Laura Cocks
Laura Ortman
Lauren-Rose King
Lauri McNamara
Linda Aubry Bullock
Lisa Mezzacappa
Lisa Murray
Lucy Lewis
Lyn Goeringer
Mari Kawamura
Matana Roberts
Melissa St. Pierre
Michelle Amador 
Momo Ishiguro
Monisola Gbadebo
n0izmkr
Noell Dorsey
Patchtax
Paula Matthusen
Pauline Oliveros
Rachel Devorah Trapp
Rosalie Kaplan
sawako
Shelley Burgon
Sophia Brueckner
Stephanie Lavon Trotter
Stephanie Nussbaum
Teeth Like Operas
Theresa Wong
Tianna Kennedy 
VALISE
Wendalyn Bartley
Yoon-Ji Lee
Yuan Liu
Yukiko Takagi

QUARTETS is a sound installation by Stephan Moore in collaboration with OPENSIGNAL. First showing at the inaugural OPENSIGNAL Festival on May 16-17th, 2014 at the Granoff Center. Created to celebrate the Spring 2014 OPENSIGNAL project at Brown University, led by Asha Tamirisa and Caroline Park.

cargocollective.com/opensignal