The Alchemists of Sound

The BBC's Radiophonic Workshop was set up in 1958, born out of a desire to create 'new kinds of sounds'. Alchemists of Sound looks at this creative group from its inception, through its golden age when it was supplying music and effects for cult classics like Doctor Who, Blake's Seven and Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and charts its fading away in 1995 when, due to budget cuts, it was no longer able to survive.



For the full documentary click here...

There are interviews with composers from the Workshop, as well as musicians and writers who have been inspired by the output. Great archive footage of the Workshop and its machinery is accompanied by excerpts of the, now cult, TV programmes that featured these sounds.

SottoVoice

Sottovoce, now in its 4th year, is a London-based, multi-venue festival showcasing groundbreaking acts producing challenging, experimental music. Sottovoce aims to expose the experimental musical genre to new audiences whilst maintaining the familiar crowd interested in new forms of presentation.


This year the festival will be based at The Nave for Saturday and Sunday, where the festival will present 8 acts per day in two different spaces: a main resonant hall for loud acts and a church hall for acoustic sets.

Invisible Architectures

Newcastle upon Tyne, 9th – 11th September, 2011.A micro-festival exploring the invisible yet influential substrates of urban existence.


About

Invisible Architectures is a micro-festival exploring the invisible yet influential substrates of urban existence.

Artists, architects and writers lead guided tours & workshops that expose layers of the city that otherwise remain imperceptible, making up what we habitually refer to and perceive as background noise, ambiences or atmospheres.

Within the apparent banality of the everyday lies beauty, horror and imperceptible dynamics that influence and inform the spaces we occupy, as well as our experiences of them. Guided tours of the subtle, subliminal and subtarranean expose invisible layers of the city, drawing into the foreground that which otherwise lingers in the background. The sounds, smells, textures and electromagnetic intensity of the urban environment often pass by unnoticed; through pedestrian exploration of the uncanny underside of Newcastle upon Tyne, these layers of the city are brought to the surface.

Mamori Sound Project

6th Annual Workshop/Residency for sound artists & composers at Mamori Lake (Amazon, Brazil)/ October 2011/ 2 weeks

Mamori Sound Project is an independent residency/workshop that has been carried out in the Brazilian Amazon since 2005 by a small non-profit organization, integrated by sound artist Francisco López and the cultural association Mamori ArtLab, based in Spain and Brazil. Mamori Sound Project supports the local community at Mamori Lake (Amazonas state, Brazil) by providing jobs every year for a significant number of people in this community.

The Mamori Sound Project is a 2-week workshop/residency for professional and semi-professional sound artists and composers with previous experience in the area of sound experimentation and field recordings. It takes place at Mamori Lake, in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon, and involves theoretical/discussion presentations, field work and studio work. The workshop/residency has a special focus on creative approaches to the work with field recordings, through an extensive exploration of natural sound environments. It does not have a technical character but is instead conceived and directed towards the development and realization of a collective project of sonic creation with the interaction of all participant artists/composers. The activities of the workshop/residency include: Introductory theoretical/discussion presentation sessions on field recordings and sound creation, with a historical/philosophical perspective.

MoKS Centre for Art and Social Practice

MoKS - Center for Art and Social Practice, is a non-profit artist-run project space in Estonia situated in the rural community of Mooste. We are located 40km southeast of Tartu and 20km west of the Russian border. With its diverse approach and open atmosphere, MoKS holds a unique position within the Estonian and greater European cultural context.

The MoKS "guest studio" was opened in 2001 as an organization dedicated to local and international cooperation in the fields of arts and environmental research in the rural context of post-soviet Estonia. Apart from managing the residency program our activities range from hosting an international arts symposium to educational workshops for artists and the local youth.

The MoKS studios are located in the newly renovated space of the manor house of the old Mooste farming estate. With its broad scope and focused environment, MoKS is the only project of its kind in Estonia.

International Artists workshops in Holon

Israeli Centre for Digital Arts

An e-mail was sent out from the school giving details of free workshops which would be happening in Holon, an area just outiside Tel Aviv, so I got in touch and enlisted myself for the following workshops. Very excited about the prospect of learning Pure Data in a bit more depth!

Genderchangers: Remote Intimacy

Friday, November 12, 9:00-13:00 and Sunday, November 14, 9:00-17:00

Kasia Krakowiak & Ronen Eidelman: Radio all.FM

Radio Hacking, Space Liberating

Monday, November 15, 10:00-16:00 and Tuesday, November 16, 10:00-13:00

Frank Barknecht: Introduction to Pure Data

Wednesday and Thursday, November 17-18, 9:00-17:00

Public Art Project: Making Stile

Video Workshop - 'Remake'

For the video workshop we had decided to play around with dough due to it's fantastic variety of properties.


I was inspired by John Smith's piece Leading Light (1975) which I had seen a while ago during one of the Friday events, and the way in which it displays a very playful use of the camera, experimenting with focus, aperture, sound, timing, panning etc.

We tried to incorporate these elements into our film which we shot in the round basement whilst we were investigating the qualities of the dough itself.

Mapping Workshop

Oblique Strategies

A map of central Glasgow which had been divided up into segments, was placed on the wall and we were given a dart to throw which would determine where we would perform our unexpected action. My site ended up being by the side entrance to Central Station.

We were then each given a phrase from a program crated by Brian Eno and Kirk Schmidt called Oblique Strategies.

Mine was, "Look closely at the most embarassing details & amplify them."


We were then asked to go to our spot and assess the surroudings for ten minutes or so and then respond in a way which would relate to our oblique strategy.

I wasn't sure whether to interpret 'embarassing' in the literal sense or to look for something more subjective i.e. my view of embarrassing attitudes say.

I observed people going into central station, talking on their mobiles, with umbreallas, eating food, reading newspapers, listening to music, running to catch a train. In mesponse I decided to multitask to an extent which would seem absurd, eating a banana, talking on the phone, doing sudoku, taking photos all at the same time.

However, I hardly had anyone who showed the slightest hint of being dissaproving as I came to realise that nowadays this is just a part of the fast paced society which we live in.