presenting Tuned City Messene at this conference at the OCC in Athens, 19-21 Oct. 2018
Program info: http://www.sgt.gr/eng/SPG2172/
The past fifty odd years have seen the creation, growth and proliferation of both technologically mediated and more direct creative approaches to using urban and natural sounds in art, broadly construed. Whether it be in situ sound art pieces, live performances that make use of natural soundscapes, the integration of spatially specific sounds into compositions and performance, the development of sound walks and related practices, or the creation of technologies that employ or process environmental sounds, such creative fusions of sound and space (a fundamental form of cross-modal art), invite us to reconsider both the relationships and dependencies between the two, and often suggest novel ways of relating them. How do such practices, particularly those making use of the power of digital technologies, suggest ways of improvising with space and time? How does problematizing our normal interactions with space and sound suggest new configurations of social interactions, of political relations?
This conference – including lectures, roundtables, demonstrations, performances and an exhibition taking place at the Onassis Stegi and out in the city – will focus on the role of both urban and rural-based sound art and other performance practices (including music, dance and cross-art practices), with a focus on new digital technologies intended to use both sound and space in ways that enable users to improvise with and through our sonosphere and spatial environment. We also hope to address questions concerning the cultural specificity of the use of digital tools in this area—how do issues of race, gender, class, nationality, sexual identity and so on affect the ways these issues are conceived of, and the ways technologies are developed and employed? Among others, we will feature demonstrations of a number of soundwalk related apps developed around the world, and documentation and discussion of the Tuned City Project in Ancient Messene and the Soundscapes/Landscapes initiative of the Onassis Stegi and Medea Electronique.