Ode to the North

My brother Michiel takes part in the Fjällräven Polar competition. His goal: a trip to the Norwegian and Swedish north, navigating a dog sled trough 330 kilometers of snow. He would be thankful for your vote, so please consider clicking the vote button on the Fjällräven Polar website. 

For his promotional movie (he’s a motion graphics designer) I initially created some frozen sounds using the wonderful Spectral Dronemaker from the Soundmagic Spectral plug-in suite by Michael Norris. But Michiel found them a bit too haunting and wanted to put the emphasis on the beauty and timelessness of his photo’s, so used some simple sine waves instead. 

F L U X

What sounds do these moving abstract images make? Candas Sisman created this nice example of how motion and sound can come together. The objects twist and turn in a way that would be impossible in the real world, yet the sounds they make seem to fit to them perfectly.

F L U X was inspired by the sculptures of Ilhan Koman, and created for the Ilhan Koman Hulda Festival in Istanbul, 22 September - 31 October.

ElectroSmog Festival

The ElectroSmog festival takes place this weekend in various places all over the globe with as main ‘hub’ the Balie in Amsterdam. It is a festival about sustainable immobility and it explores a way to a more sustainable lifestyle using local resources, while at the same time being more connected to the rest of the world, using new technologies and networks. 

An interesting subject, but it does not have anything to do with sound. I show you the leader because the last few days I have been busy creating the soundtrack for it, so this time you get a glimpse of some of my own work for a change. The visuals are made by Jeroen Joosse, and I tried to create sounds that fit them as tightly as possible. 

The Balance

The Balance is a beautiful visual representation of two sound waves colliding. The video created by Lithuanian artist Rimantas Lukavicius, shows us the sound traveling trough air, a thing we will never be able to see.

There is no explanation to be found on how the video was made, and if an analysis of the actual sound we hear was used as input. I guess it is just the aesthetics that count, this time. 

(via @kamisir)

Traffic

My brother Michiel asked me for some sonic support for his motion graphics experiments. So first I gave him a rhythm to sync his motion to, and afterwards I added the sound effects. 

A nice case of sound design under pressure, as I didn not have much time to spend on it. Looking for the right sounds for the falling blocks I dug up a pack of old macaroni and threw it on the floor. After some layering and pitch shifting, it works quite well. 

Sometimes it's good to let go of perfectionism, just give yourself a few limitations in time and resources and do something fun with it. Let us not stop playing!