Tuned City Brussels Lecture-event #2 will introduce the work of 8 artists dealing with sound, public space, architecture and the city. Space and its sound can be considered an artistic subject or field of operation in both a physical sense as well as in terms of symbolic and metaphorical associations. Artist presentations will open these various layers of meaning, giving insight into working methods while exploring specific approaches to sound and the urban.

This will be followed by a collaborative workshop week March 25th – 28th together with Sint Lucas Architectuur, Erasmus Hogeschool RITS/Radio, Sint Lukas Transmedia, a.pass, okno and La Cambre (ENSAV) option Espace Urbain and l’Escaut.
Closing presentations on march 28th, Q-O2, Koomijnenkaai 30-34, 1080 Brussels, 18:00.

Tuned City Brussels – co-organised by Q-O2, workspace for experimental music and sound art is starting in collaboration with Sint Lucas Architectuur, Erasmus Hogeschool RITS/Radio, Sint Lukas Transmedia, a.pass and La Cambre (ENSAV) option Espace Urbain, with a series of lecture-events, artistic presentations, mini-residencies, university projects and workshops over the first half year. (see PRE-EVENTS) Those will be followed by an international four day festival from June 27th-30th mixing a conference with artistic  realisations such as concerts, walks, installations and interventions in situ. Looking forward to see you in Brussels!

30th of December 2012  15:00 (3 p.m.)
Berlin, Alexanderplatz    (meeting point: world-clock / Weltzeituhr)
initiated by Florian Tuercke (D)
Take part!!

about the flashmob
2012 was the year of John Cages 100th birthday. The musical, and philosophical accomplishments of this outstanding composer were celebrated with conferences, festivals, performances, lectures and publications all over the world. The 4′33” flashmob wants to set a proper ending point to the John-Cage-Year. You are invited to take part in this intervention. Further informations and instructions here: http://floriantuercke.net/news.html

about 4′33”
The composition was first performed by David Tudor in 1952 (which means it had its 60th anniversary this year). Though often referred to as “four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence” the composition isn’t about silence at all. The musical content rather is all the sounds that happen while a musician (or an orchestra) doesn’t play. 

Opening of “Tvísöngur” by Lukas Kühne
September 5, at 17.00 /mountainside above the town of Seydisfjördur / East Iceland

“Tvísöngur” is built of concrete and consists of five interconnected domes of different sizes. The heights of the domes are between 2 and 4 meters and they cover an area of about 30 square meters. Each dome has its own resonance that corresponds to a tone in the Icelandic musical tradition of five-tone harmony, and works as a natural amplifier to that tone.

The sculpture can be seen as a visualization of the five-tone harmony tradition. The round form is chosen for its acoustic properties as well as its visual function in the landscape. It results in a unique combination affecting visual and auditory senses. The Icelandic “Tvisöngur“ becomes a sculpture of “singing concrete”.

“Tvísöngur” is is open to everyone. It is embedded in the mountainside above the town, in a quiet area with a breathtaking view of the fjord. It offers an acoustic sensation that can be explored and experimented with by the visitor.  The site’s solitude and tranquility offers a perfect setting for singing or music playing, alone, in harmony, for ones own pleasure or for an audience.

At the opening in Seyðisfjörður there will be performances by local musicians, both professionals and amateurs, and guests are encouraged to bring their own version of five tone singing.

Lukas Kühne’s artworks are dedicated to space and frequency. He lives in Berlin and Montevideo, Uruguay, where he heads the workshop ”Form and Sound” at the Faculty of Arts of the State University.  The sculpture “Tvísöngur” relates to a series of works by the artist dealing with musical forms, one of which is the sculpture “Cromatico” built in Tallinn, Estonia as part of Tuned City Tallinn 2011.

Tvísöngur is realized in cooperation with Skaftell – Center for Visual Art,  East Iceland. It is supported by the Municipality of Seyðisfjörður, Sídarvinnslan hf, Blue Water Shipping, Goethe Institute Denmark and Nordecon Betoon, Estonia, Rosario Nuin architect.

Arno Brandlhuber Im Archipel
featuring BUG by Mark Bain
produced by Tuned City 2008
08.09.2012 – 21.10.2012 / Opening Sep 7, 8 pm / KOW Berlin / Brunnenstrasse 9, D-10119 Berlin

Brandlhuber is one of the most interesting voices in the current city development discourse. His collaboration with Mark Bain for Tuned City 2008 lead to a permanent installation which made the building acoustically transparent with the help of seismic sensors.
In the frame of the current show at KOW the sounds of this living organism and its social sourrounding will be played back in to the basement which will be flooded – blocked and set back to the primitive state of the investment ruin from 2008.

About the exhibition: Built structures (architecture and urban planning) shape social relations, and they present an unambiguous trend: homogenization. Urban environments that used to be shared or that would have lent themselves to sharing in the future are now being subdivided into the niches of social Darwinism. Like and like congregate on urban islands clearly staggered according to income classes. In Berlin, where heterogeneity was once a defining feature of the urban fabric, it is especially evident that the reorganization of the city serves the redistribution of participation in social life: a wealthy clientele takes possession of the central areas around prestigious new residential developments, displacing to the periphery all those who cannot, or do not want to, keep upping the ante. Social archipelagos take shape, new cities within the city, all of them similarly homogeneous: the unemployed here, an arts scene there, the migrants somewhere else.

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30. 08. 2012 / 20:00 / KIBLA, Ulica kneza Koclja 9 / Maribor, Slovenia
Udo Noll (Berlin/Köln) and Patrick McGinley (Tartu/Estonia) talking with Carsten Stabenow (Berlin) about the MariborMaps Project(Berlin)
radio aporee is a platform for artistic research of concepts and practices in the field of sound, location and their specifications in space. Two terms, periphery and resonance, build the main focal foundation, bound to sound and space and also to social and communicational viewpoints. The term periphery can be defined as a spatial or qualitative differentiation, as movement away from the centre, towards the borders. At the same time, every conscious perception builds peripheries, where the main focus lies in the centre of those peripheries. The term resonance defines two poles: the answer of the place or of the opposed to our mere presence or address, in contrary to the resulting muteness. Do we succeed in establishing a fruitful relationship with the surrounding world or are we left out? Field recordings as the main source and method of the willing approach towards places and situations can be read as communicative relationships: the recorded sound is, at best, the answer to the question, defined by our search and approach. In this case, resonance is the stroke of luck, where a contact with Space and the World is established. Conscious listening is the key and the access point to an intensified reception and experience of the surrounding world.

http://aporee.org/maribor

a project by Goethe-Institut within the framework of the European Capital of Culture MARIBOR 2012.

http://www.aswespeak.eu

The project Klang Orte Berlin/Berlin Sonic Places – perspectives of acoustic city development was initiated by Peter Cusack in the frame of his Residency at The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program and explores our relationship with and the importance of sound in the urban context.
From June to September 2012 Berlin Sonic Spaces will illuminate the issues through talks, discussions and performances. In 3 one day events the perspectives of different interest groups groups – artists, architects/planners, sociologists, musicians, residents, administrators, local communities and the public – will be brought together for a lively dialogue on the city’s changing soundscape.
Three themed modules will be presented in three exemplary places – Pankow/Prenzlauer Berg, /Wasserstadt – Rummelsburg/Stralau and Tempelhof Airfield. They all explore the spatial and communicative potential of sound as a tool and a means of urban practice. A cross disciplinary dialogue will be built that traces out the complex relations and interactions of space-sound by presenting and testing new strategies, methods and possibilities of sound work within artistic and applied contexts.
The results of the Berlin research modules and the collaboration between Peter Cusack, Sam Auinger and students of UDK Sound Studies Berlin will be featured at Ars Electronica 2012 in Linz this September.

Klang Orte Berlin/Berlin Sonic Places continues the discourse started by Tuned City Berlin in 2008 and aims to develop it further in cooperation with the UDK Sound Studies and a wide range of local and international partners. The project is realised by dock e.V. in cooperation with The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.

Check the program: http://sonic-places.dock-berlin.de

28.6.2012 / 19h / foyer bonner kunstverein
bonn hoeren — stadtklangforum 3/2012

»urbane hörräume«
vortrag von dr. trond maag [zürich/oslo]
die art und weise, wie wir städte und landschaften planen und organisieren, entscheidet nicht nur darüber, wie wir die entsprechenden räume visuell erleben, sondern auch darüber, wie wir sie akustisch wahrnehmen. die fortschreitende entwicklung der städte und landschaften und unser bedürfnis nach ruhe und mobilität verlangen nach neuen methoden zur planung von klingender umwelt und nach besonderen kompetenzen für die gestaltung von urbanen räumen. denn der stadtklang darf nicht (mehr) dem zufall überlassen werden. wie gelangen wir im nebeneinander urbaner stimmen zu akustisch bewusst gestalteten, zusammenhängenden stadträumen mit hoher aufenthaltsqualität?

im anschliessenden gespräch:
andreas oldörp [stadtklangkünstler bonn 2012]
trond maag [stadtforscher zürich/oslo]
carsten stabenow [tuned city berlin]
moderation: raoul mörchen

das gespräch wir aufgezeichnet und gesendet auf wdr3

http://www.bonnhoeren.de/?page_id=2023

On a national thematic Concrete Day, the Concrete Association of Estonia announced today winners of ‘The Concrete Construction of Year 2011’ Award at an seminar event held in the Tallinn University of Technology.

Concrete Construction 2011 in Estonia is ‘Cromatico’ sound sculpture, located on the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds.
Grand Prix Award of the competition was granted to sculptor Lukas Kühne from Germany.
Constructor Award – Andrei Kervališvili, Nordecon Betoon OÜ, Builder Award – Nordecon Betoon OÜ, Concrete Supplier Award – HC Betoon AS.

‘Cromatico’ is a visualisation of chromatic musical scale. It consists of 12 concrete chambers (which illustrate one octave of the black and white piano keys). Each chamber of the concrete band shell reverberates in a different pitch.

According to the sculptor, the ‘Cromatico’ project was realised for The European Capital of Culture Tallinn 2011 in cooperation with an international culture platform Tuned City (tunedcity.net), Architect, Rosario Nuin und Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Tallinn.
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The tuned city tallinn edition of framework:afield is done and ready to be aired! Felicity Ford and Valeria Merlini (with the participants of the framework radio: documentation and production workshop, which took place in july 2011 as part of the tuned city tallinn festival in estonia) have done an amazing job distilling their work down to one hour of radio. The show will premier as the last new edition of framework for 2011, sunday, dec 18th, at 11pm gmt, on resonance 104.4fm in London. It will then air throughout the week on the following schedule:

- sunday, 11pm, london, uk on resonance 104.4fm
- tuesday, 12:30pm, south devon, uk on soundartradio 102.5fm
- wednesday, 2am, thessaloniki, gr on cooradio
- wednesday, 3am, lisbon, pt on radio zero
- thursday, 7pm, lisbon, pt on radio zero
- friday, 1am, brussels, be on radio campus 92.1fm
- saturday, 11am, new york state, us on wgxc 90.7fm

The show will also podcast and stream-on-demand permanently from the framework website. please tune in, and please spread the word!
http://www.frameworkradio.net/2011/12/356-2011-12-18/

Many thanks to Felicity and Valeria, and to the workshop participants: Daniel Allen, Lewis McGuffie, Kadi Pilt, and Kaisa Sammelselg and of course Patrick McGinley who initiated the workshop and is the man behind framework!

A first documentation overview of Tuned City Tallinn is online!

Site of Sound Vol. 2 edited by Brandon Labelle and Claudia Martinho aims to address contemporary work being done in the cross-over between sound and architecture. The anthology brings together new research and writing that charts out the theoretical implications and consequences for artistic and spatial discourses, while documenting contemporary projects that come to occupy and define a sonic-spatial territory.

We are especially happy as the cover shows the Seaplane Hangar in Tallinn around wich the initial Tuned City event in Tallinn 2010 took place. The book contains a very nice documentation of the installation Crescents by Raviv Ganchrow. Next to that you can find many participants of Tuned City in that volume.

With contributions by Justin Bennett, Usman Haque, David Schafer, James Webb, Edwin van der Heide, Raviv Ganchrow, Jodi Rose, Nigel Helyer, Michael Gendreau, Jean-Paul Thibaud, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec, Oliver Laric, David Stalling / Anthony Kelly, Romano, Natasha Barrett / Birger Sevaldson, Scott Arford / Randy Yau, Riccardo Benassi, Carrie Bodle, Jenny Pickett / Julien Ottavi, Pascal Broccolichi, Jacob Kreutzfeldt, Joaquín Gutiérrez Hadid, Franz Pomassl & Björn Quiring.

With accompanying CD of related audio. http://www.errantbodies.org/siteofsound2.html

7. July 2011 – opening

8. July 2011 – first conference day

9. July 2011 – second conference day

10. July 2011 – third conference day

and 3 words about tuned city…

The participants of the framework radio – documentation and production workshop held within the framework of Tuned City Tallinn have been gathering recordings and interviews throughout the opening celebration and the first two days of the main program. The result are audio highlight sequences. For listening please press the links above.

framework radio – documentation and production
with Felicity Ford (UK) and Valeria Merlini (IT / D)
on behalf of framework radio, Patrick McGinley (US / EE)

This afternoon Thomas Ankersmit gave an acoustic saxophone performance at Cromatico installation by Lukas Kühne located at Laulauväljak – Song Festival Ground

Within the world of acoustic instruments, the saxophone remains unique in that it is both extremely directional and very close in timbre to the human voice. As an autodidact saxophonist, Thomas Ankersmit has learned to augment these characteristics with his own microtonal sound-palette. Adapting the possibilities of his instrument to the conditions of the respective sites–the Soviet-era Linnahall lobby and Lukas Kühne’s Cromatico sculpture in the Song Festival Grounds–Ankersmit aims at making the listeners aware of the space around them and unlocking its sonic peculiarities.

Throughout the afternoon of July 10th Mads Bech Paluszewski and the participants of the workshop Tuning the city will set-up a series of sound installations at the playground, Rotermanni 8.

The installations are the result of a several days during experimentation with the acoustic possibilities of the city. The method was basically to experiment with the Tactile-Acoustic Interventionist approach. This means, to use the physical and tactile aspects of acoustics to adapt the everyday objects and structures in our urban surroundings.
For further information please see Tuning the City workshop >>>

Transphere – Performance by Pierre-Laurent Cassière (F)
July 9th / 10th – ca. 16:00-17:00 between Tornide Väljak and Raekoja plats

Equipped with a highly directional parabolic microphone plugged to a speaker, the performer manipulates acoustic fields by moving sounds artificially. Improvising a walk through Tallinn, he reveals vibratory details of the physical environment to the audience and modifies their perception of sonic space. For a few seconds, the performer’s body becomes an acoustic interface whose position and motion determinates new relationships in the organisation of sonic environment. (Coproduction SMAK & Vooruit, Gent, Belgium)

The first conference day took place at Kultuurikatel, an ongoing reconstruction project of an old Tallinn Power Plant complex.

The lecture program was devided in two blocks: Sounding the local with lectures by Carlo A. Cubero (EE), John Grzinich (US/EE), Urve Lippus (EE) and Louise K Wilson (UK), and Subjective Soundscapes with lectures by Marta García Quiñones (ES), Justin Bennett (UK/NL), Peter Cusack (UK) and Ann Goossens  (BE) + Jaume Ferrete (E). We thank all participants and are looking forward to 2 more days of lectures and presentations.

The official opening of Tuned City Tallinn will take place tonight starting at 20:00 at Hobuveski (Horse Mill Theater), Lai 23, map>>>.

We are looking forward to the concert of the internationally acknowledged cellist of experimental music Charles Curtis. Curtis will be performing “Naldjorlak”, a piece born of a collaboration between him and French electroacoustic composer Eliane Radigue. The public is invited to join us. Tickets can be purchased directly on the venue or online. Price: € 8,- / € 10,-
The concert is part of a series of evening performances taking place within the framework of Tuned City Tallinn. Over the next days Charlemagne Palestine, Thomas Ankersmit and Maja S.K. Ratkje will be presenting their approaches to sound and space, each using his/ her chosen instrument – the organ, the saxophone and the voice.
For further information please see performances >>>.

Today the German duo Eyland07 will put into action the 12-tone filter, a mobile urban noise transformer. The installation will be up and running by 12:00 at Vabaduse Väljak (Freedome Square). The public is invited to join and experience the object´s capacity to transform urban noises into tuned sounds.

The 12-tone filter is a mobile sonic object that transforms so called bad noise into good noise. The performance aims at changing the listeners´ perception of the given sonic sourrounding and adding a new quality to the experiance of hearing strong everyday sounds such as street traffic and city noise. The 12-tone filter will be presented several times throughout the festival. Times and sites will be announced online or you stop by MÄRZ project space located in the Old Town. Here you can get information on all Tuned City Tallinn projects and events. You can pick-up the program and visit the exibition.

Tuned City Tallinn and Lift 11 send out an open call for ideas regarding the bell installation “Helin” at Linnahall.

We will be meeting today, July 6th at 17:00 at the installation. To get there pass by the Linnahall stairs facing Põhja pst and turn under the building.
The installation is a sound project. Due to site-specific reasons, it does not function as desired. We plan to discuss the causes and a possible reinvention of the existing installation, considering the advantages and disadvanteges of the site. You are invited to join us!