Liquid Architecture: festival of sound arts

Today the Liquid Architecture festival of sound arts opens in Sydney. It's the tenth edition of this festival with concerts, immersive sound presentations, audio-visual and recorded work, exhibitions and installations in what they call "a sense-specific feast for the ears".

The festival focuses on listening. In this world mainly focused on visual stimuli it's great to see events like Liquid Architecture emphasize the importance of sound culture in the world. There will be exhibitions and concerts in various cities in Australia. I would have loved to visit the festival, if it wouldn't be on the other side of the globe!

Sound Walk: a human sequencer

The Sonar festival is over, but there are some more projects from the exhibition which are worth looking at. Like Sound Walk, a 'human sequencer' created by Julio Lucio with music written by Nikka. 

Visitors walk through the space to interact with the installation, creating the music as they move along. A projector creates the images on the floor, and while moving though the space, visitors get visual feedback as well, as the video clearly shows. 

WeAreWaves: move your body

While we're having a look at ways of using the human body to control music, this is a project that should not be missed: WeAreWaves, created by Sebastián Gonzalez and Javier Chávarri, involves the human body in creating sound. The performer isn't influencing existing music. Rather, he is creating waveforms, using his body to influence the timbre of the sound.

The silhouette of the body is registered by a camera and this shape becomes the actual wave form. By moving around you change the wave form and the timbre of the sound. An interesting experiment. In this interactive installation we are all waves. 

Are you curious what you sound like? You can find out at the Sonar festival in Barcelona this week, where the WeAreWaves installation can be experienced.

Voxstrumental at Futur en Seine festival

The Futur en Seine festival takes place in Paris this week. The festival shows interesting new technological experiments and futuristic products. Voxstrumental is a sound installation shown by Voxler, a development team focused on vocal interaction, mainly for the gaming industry.

There are four pipes connected to the Voxstrumental sound installation. Singing into one of the pipes triggers a musical sequence. The pitch of the music changes with the pitch of your voice. The microphones are able to capture multiple parameters of expression. Four people can play the sound installation at the same time, you'll have to listen to each other to make it sound good together. And if you do, the robot in the middle starts dancing happily!

Watch a short movie about this sound installation on the Futur en Seine blog.

Urban Explorers festival: Sponge Expanded

This weekend the Urban Explorers festival takes place in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. A festival of film, music, theater, dance, sound art, and crossover between those media. One of the pieces in the exhibition will be Sponge Expanded by Maurits Fennis (website doesn’t seem to be up-to-date).

Visitors of Sponge Expanded will be immersed in sound, as the installation consists of 18 speakers positioned in a spherical manner around them. There are no sound examples on the site yet.

After viewing the art projects and theater performances at Urban Explorers you can enjoy a concert of Mira Calix or the Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, to name just two of the 22 performing artists.