Zadar Sea Organ

Zadar, Croatia is known for it’s beautiful sunsets. But since 2005, the coast of Zadar has even more to offer. In a redesign of the coast back then, architect Nikola Bašić made a sonic improvement as well. He installed this beautiful sea organ. I’ve seen or heard about sea or wind organs in Vlissingen in the Netherlands, or the Wave Organ in San Francisco we’ve featured way back. There are lots and lots of impressions on Youtube and Vimeo, but I’ve sought out some to post here:

The Zadar Sea Organ was brought under my attention when NTS Radio (a great eclectic radio station, playing everything from experimental music to house music), broadcasted a two hour recording of the sea organ.

I love the fact it sounds very otherworldly, but still very natural and flowing. Also great to see how people come there to relax and listen.

300 speakers, pianola and vacuum cleaner

John Wynne is a sound artist currently based in the UK. His untitled installation for 300 speakers, player piano and vacuum cleaner plays with contrasts in size: the work is monumental and huge, while the sounds the installation produces are very delicate. In this way he is able to craft an immersive environment where the sound really becomes part of the space itself. The pianola plays some notes of Franz Léhar’s 1909 operetta Gypsy Love at a very low tempo. Synthetic sounds add to this and both the vacuum cleaner as well as the sound spatialisation are controlled through the space by contemporary digital technology. In that way the installation is about bringing together the old and the new, playing with themes like obsolescence and nostalgia.

At the moment, there’s a new show in London with site-specific works by John Wynne as well as Yoonjin Jung exploring one’s inner “movement” in relation to their surroundings. “The Flux, and I” seeks to provide a platform for the audience to detach themselves from the effects of time in order to understand and embrace the inevitable progression of events that we have little or no control over.

“The Flux, and I” is at the Gazelli Art House in London and runs until the 22nd of June.

Wow&Flutter

Over the years, we’ve seen quite some artists working with old media such as tape recorders and records. Jimmy Eadie is also exploring the imperfections of old media. In his work Wow&Flutter he explores the phenomena of mechanical instabilities of turntables that can cause subtle pitch variations and beating effects on playback.

The first recorded music I experienced was on vinyl and I always seem to remember the hiss, static

and random jumps of the needle as much as the music itself. I would play with the turntable speeds, changing records from 45 RPM to 33 RPM and was intrigued at this new slowed down sound world.

This piece could be considered a listening sculpture celebrating and evoking that memory.

To Eadie, the imperfections are as important as the music itself. To enhance this effect, he chose to put the music on acetate disc instead of vinyl, as those disintegrate more rapidly and thus the composition will “age” with each successive play until the surface noise becomes intertwined with the music itself. Furthermore, he used the properties of the turntables to make his composition. As he wanted the visitor to be able to make their own composition by changing the position of the needles on the eight turntables as well as the playback speeds (33, 45 and 78 RPM), he chose his sounds wisely and composed his music by calculating what the pitches of the sounds would be at other playback speeds.