Three Piece

Three Piece is a three piece ‘band’ - two guitars and a bass guitar. The sound is generated by moving them around, so the air gently plays the strings of the instruments. The speaker is located on the other end of the installation. 

Visitors are encouraged to walk between the instruments (but don’t come too close to the moving arms!). The sound of this installation created by Stephen Cornford can best be described as a haunting soundscape.

(via Noise for Airports)

Credit Synthesis

This little interactive installation made by Jonathan Vingiano reads the information magnetically stored on credit cards and translates it into sound.

Nothing too ambitious here, but a funny little piece of data sonifying art. I don't know what kind of algorithm is used to generate the sound, and if it would be possible to learn to understand what is on the cards? 

(via @Rodrigo_Medina)

Staalhemel

Staalhemel (steel sky) is an interactive installation created by Christoph de Boeck. Using a wireless device for capturing brain waves, the participants brain activity influences the activity of the installation.

The steel sky itself is made up of 80 steel plates, and the sound is generated by pins hammering on the plates. I guess the most interesting experiment would be to try to keep the installation as quiet as possible.

Analogue Tape Glove v1

As we have seen previously, we can use our old tapes to weave a fabric. In Analogue Tape Glove v1 though, the tape is used in an interactive sound installation. Using a tape head embedded in a glove, participants can explore the recordings on the randomly selected tapes. 

The sound installation is created by artists who call themselves Signal To Noise. It brings back memories from the days before we could all carry a complete music studio under our arm. A nice reminder of how fast technology evolves.

Quintetto

The vertical movement of the fishes in these five aquariums is captured by a video camera and this data is used to influence the sounds we hear. So in this sound installations it is the fishes who conduct the music.

Quintetto is an installation by Quiet Ensemble in collaboration with Aesop Studio. They attempt to reveal what they call "invisible concerts of everyday life". As the fishes (most probably) do not know what their movement results in, the live concert they create will never be exactly the same.

Sound sculputres and installations by Zimoun

After sharing Woodworms I with you, I have to show you this one too. In Compilation Video 1.0 Swiss artist Zimoun shows us a nice selection of his wonderful, aesthetic sound installations and sculptures.  

I love the way these constantly moving installations seem to come alive, clumsy and mechanical. The sonic result isn't earth shattering, but the noise created by multiplication of one tiny machine is impressive!

Woodworms I

Woodworms I is a sound installation in which we can listen to the live sound of woodworms in a piece of wood. Swiss artist Zimoun created this piece of art.

I like the contradiction between what we see - a lifeless chunk of wood in a motionless setting - and what we hear - a hard working army of worms, making their way through the tough wood.

Bacterial Orchestra

A "self-organizing evolutionary musical organism", that's how the makers of Bacterial Orchestra define this sound installation. The cells in this organism are made of speakers and microphones, listening to the sounds that are surrounding them.

Visitors interact with Bacterial Orchestra by simply making a sound. I like the idea of having a system that takes your input and gives it back in a new form. The installation is created by Olle Cornéer and Martin Lübcke.

Soundspace Yogya by Cilia Erens

Soundspace Yogya is a sound installation by Cilia Erens. She creates sound art without processing and manipulating the sounds. Recordings of Yogyakarta are filtered and selected to create the content for this installation.

There's no preview of the sounds available, so I don't know what it sounds like. It was the image that caught my attention. These listening stations look wonderful. Wouldn't it be great to find them on your way, to just stick your head in one, let the sound surround you and leave the real world for a while?

Sound Looking: Watch the sound waves

It's great to see how an artists work can be re-discovered through the internet. Take for example this one: Sound Looking by Kim Kichul. I wasn't there at the exhibition, but since it was uploaded to YouTube yesterday, it's again presented to a large audience, even though it would have been more impressive when seen live.

Sound Looking creates another visible representation of sound, but other than Cylinder, it shows us what happens in real time in stead of a static snapshot. We all know sound is basically moving air, but it's quite fascinating to see what really happens!