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What to watch, read and listen to - and everything else that's hot in the arts this year
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Classical
Anna Picard
Mahler fans can revel in the second of two anniversary years.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the LPO in Mahler's Fifth Symphony on 19 January, while Vassily Petrenko and the Liverpool Philharmonic continue their cycle with the Sixth (5 Mar). Maurizio Pollini surveys Bach, Beethoven and Schubert at the South Bank (from 28 Jan), home to Esa-Pekka Salonen's Bartók project, Infernal Dance, which opens 27 January with a complete performance of The Miraculous Mandarin.
Opera North looks East with Mieczyslaw Weinberg's The Portrait (2 Feb) and Janácek's House of the Dead (from 5 May). At the Royal Opera House, it's centrefolds and southern fried chicken as Eva-Maria Westbroek takes the title role in Turnage's Anna Nicole (17 Feb). Thrifty opera-lovers should watch the conservatoires for new talent: Stephen Barlow's production of Dialogues des Carmelites opens (3 Mar) at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Glyndebourne and Grange Park think big with new productions of Die Meistersinger (21 May) and Tristan und Isolde (3 Jun). Simon Rattle opens the Aldeburgh Festival with Messaien's Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum (10 Jun), while Opera Holland Park tackles La Wally (29 Jul). Liszt, born 200 years ago, should feature highly in the BBC Proms. For those who can't wait until summer, Hyperion releases its 98-disc boxed set of his complete piano music next month, played by Leslie Howard.
The one to watch: The golden countertenor Iestyn Davies sings at the Wigmore, La Scala, New York's Metropolitan Opera, and as Oberon in ENO's Midsummer Night's Dream.
Visual Art
Charles Darwent
Was there ever a groovier time and place than New York in the 1970s? Or a funkier trio than Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown and Gordon Matta-Clark? Well, no. Against a crumbling Manhattan skyline, they set up that edgiest of things, the Downtown Scene. Relive it at the Barbican (3 Mar to 21 May).
If 1890s decadence is more your bag, then the Courtauld Gallery's study of the friendship between Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the unexpectedly equally aristocratic can-can dancer, Jane Avril, is the one for you (16 Jun to 18 Sep).
The encrypted abstracts of Joan Miró (1893-1983) deal with a history that starts with the Great War and ends with post-Franco Spain. The Tate Modern show - inexplicably, the first major Miró exhibition in London for 50 years, inset below, is sure to bust all blocks (14 Apr to 11 Sep).
The one I'm looking forward to most is of the 16th-century master, Jan Gossaert, at the National Gallery (23 Feb to 30 May). While seldom lovable, his eye-teasing portraits and Holy Families have a glacial beauty.
The one to watch: In a day when public sculpture veers between soulless and kitsch, young Scot Michael Vissocchi, winner of the last Jerwood sculpture prize, offers a new monumental voice. Don't expect to see his work on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth: it's too good.
Jazz/World
Phil Johnson
The chance to see a cult attraction in a mainstream setting doesn't get much better than the appearance of the Brazilian singer and guitarist Vinicius Cantuaria in a duo with guitarist Bill Frisell, in the emphatically non-cult setting of London's Ronnie Scott's (11 and 12 Jan). It's a great opportunity to hear the alternately smooth and spiky sound-world of Cantuaria, whose updates on the bossa nova tradition take as much from the downtown New York City as they do from Rio. There's another cult offering when north London's The Vortex launches a new literary series with a reading by Geoff Dyer (13 Jan), the author of what Keith Jarrett called "the best book ever written about jazz".
The one to watch: Vinicius Cantuaria
Jazz/World
Howard Male
Over the past couple of years, West African music fans have delighted in a wealth of re-released material from Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. This year sees the release of their first new album of new material in 20 years, and also sees them play live at the Scala in King's Cross (31 Mar). The next Buena Vista Social Club is always being predicted, but personally I'm hoping for something a little edgier from this earthy, funky outfit. I'm also looking forward to new releases from the unselfconsciously eclectic Denver-based band DeVotchKa and the Ethiopiques-meets-roots-reggae collective Dub Colossus. Both these bands are going where no band has gone before, and that, for my money, is what it's all about.
The one to watch: Dub Colossus.
Dance
Jenny Gilbert
No one likes shelling out on a dud, so Sadler's Wells Sampled (28 & 29 Jan) lets you try before you buy. For only £12 a seat, or £6 standing, punters can see live excerpts from coming attractions, including stars from American Ballet Theatre, due to present two double bills (1-6 Feb), Balletboyz' latest venture, and a taster of ZooNation's Some Like it Hip Hop. What won't be in preview are the equestrian stars of The Centaur and the Animal (1-6 Mar), a dressage show from Spain in which elements of man and horse meet and merge. Most eagerly awaited of all at the Wells is the Pet Shop Boys' collaboration with Javier de Frutos in a full-length dancework based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Incredible Thing, with ex-Royal Ballet star Ivan Putrov (17-26 Mar). The Royal Ballet pushes the boat out with Christopher Wheeldon's new, full-evening Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, above, to a new score by Joby Talbot (2-15 Mar).
The one to watch: The fabulous new principal Sergei Polunin, in Alice, and making his RB debut in Giselle (12 Jan).
Pop/Rock
Simon Price
For what feels like the tenth successive year, the early months of 2011 will see the industry and media conspire to install a gaggle of new solo females. Heading the list is Jessie J, a Siobhan Fahey-faced shouter from Essex whose "Do It Like A Dude" saw her scoop both the BBC's Sound of 2011 poll and Critic's Choice at the forthcoming Brits. Like it or loathe it, she'll be inescapable.
Expect coercion campaigns behind foghorn-voiced Brummie Clare Maguire and rent-a-collaborator Katy B. There may even be another attempt to launch I Blame Coco (Sting's daughter). More interesting is the still under wraps Paper Tiger, a Brighton-based wonky-pop protegée of Preston from The Ordinary Boys.
Another exciting spring for fans of nepotism, as the full weight of hipster hype gets thrown behind Ramones soundalikes The Vaccines. Morecambe soul-punks The Heartbreaks will deservedly get the big push. Meanwhile, protest-pop berserker The Agitator and R&B commies Thee Faction may chime with the political mood.
Even more than previous Britpop reunions (Suede, Blur), a special edge of excitement surrounded the announcement that Jarvis Cocker was reconvening the classic line-up of the mighty Pulp for a handful of festival shows in the summer.
The Playbutton may just be the saviour of the "physical" product. A pre-recorded MP3 player in the form of a two-inch badge bearing the album's artwork, it allows the wearer to show off their taste, like ostentatiously brandishing a Penguin paperback.
Rock/Folk/Americana
Simmy Richman
The BBC's Sound of 2011 poll has value but away from the bolt-on mainstream stars-in-the-making only Anna Calvi will be of serious interest to serious music lovers. And the truth is (spoiler alert!): music writers cannot see into the future. In that spirit, I'm going to take it as read that you don't need me to tell you that The Decemberists (poppier, almost REM-ey), Iron & Wine (more experimental) and Fleet Foxes (more of the same would be no bad thing) will all deliver albums soon and that they will be full of the good stuff.
Of the new acts, the albums I'm most excited about all seem to come from female singers who together form a sort of anti-Gaga army: pure, unadulterated with a lack of affectation. That list includes Secret Sisters (Alabama-born siblings singing old-fashioned country in voices that can break your heart), Zoe Muth (more country, this time with a Seattle-ite's urban edge) and our own Hannah Peel (dark folky loveliness with a Tunng twist).
And then there is James Walbourne, once the guitarist in Peter Bruntnell's band, who this month releases his first solo album, a must for lovers of the Jayhawks, whose own classic early albums are about to be dusted down in search of the glory they so richly deserve.
But the thing I'm most excited about is a musical. Regina Spektor's Sleeping Beauty is due to open on Broadway this year, but you never know. You can't rush genius.
The one to watch: Hannah Peel.
Theatre
Kate Bassett
The West End's Nöel Coward theatre gets adventurous in mid-January, presenting the Muscovite Sovremennik company's Three Sisters, Cherry Orchard, and Into the Whirlwind – memories of Stalin's gulags. Cheek by Jowl's extraordinary Russian ensemble tours with The Tempest, from March.
Hotshot Rupert Gould stages The Merchant of Venice at Stratford's rebuilt Royal Shakespeare Theatre in May. Come June, Kevin Spacey steals the limelight as Sam Mendes's Old Vic Richard III.
Next month, Robert Lepage wings his way to the Barbican for The Blue Dragon: a sequel to his epic Dragon's Trilogy. In March, a sinister new Neil LaBute, In a Forest, Dark and Deep, slinks into the Vaudeville, starring Olivia Williams.
The Holy Rosenbergs marks playwright Ryan Craig's National Theatre debut, in March: Henry Goodman plays a Jewish father whose offspring radically disagree over Gaza. In February, climate change creeds are scrutinised, in an NT documentary drama, Greenland, and in polemicist Richard Bean's new black comedy, The Heretic, at the Royal Court.
The one to watch: Jessica Raine, having caught the eye in edgy teenage roles, will star in Clifford Odets' Rocket to the Moon at the NT in March. She plays the ferocious seductress Cleo Singer, sending Joseph Millson's repressed Ben Stark into a spin.
Museums
Jenny Gilbert
Buoyed by the increased footfall generated by Radio 4's A History of the World in 100 Objects, the British Museum is on a roll. Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World (from 3 Mar) will showcase more than 200 artefacts belonging to the National Museum of Afghanistan (a building "undergoing reconstruction"). They range from Classical sculpture, Roman glass, and stone tableware from Egypt, to personal ornaments worn by the nomadic elite, all feared lost after the Soviet invasion of 1979. Their survival is due to Afghan officials who hid them from the Taliban. Also at the British Museum, Treasures of Heaven (from 23 Jun) assembles sacred objects of the medieval age, when physical relics of the saints were believed to connect man and heaven.
As if taking up the baton from the Barbican Art Gallery, whose Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion continues (to 6 Feb), the Victoria & Albert fêtes Yohji Yamamoto (from 12 Mar), one of the world's most provokingly enigmatic designers of fashion.
The National Army Museum's Wives and Sweethearts (9 Feb) looks at love on the frontline in the Napoleonic, Crimean and World War conflicts as well as today's. Also in February, the Herbert Museum in Coventry launches its own blockbuster, Secret Egypt, and vows to dispel some popular myths.
Film (Art House)
Jonathan Romney
The art-house idols of 2011 will be animals. A 40-year-old orang-utan is the hyper-charismatic star of Nénette, from French documentarist Nicolas Philibert (Etre et Avoir), while the year's cult European hit could be Le Quattro Volte, a dialogue-free Italian marvel in which the show is stolen by a herd of goats and a dog with the comic timing of Jacques Tati.
National treasures Terence Davies and Lynne Ramsay return with new fictions: respectively, Terence Rattigan adaptation The Deep Blue Sea and problem-child drama We Need To Talk About Kevin.
The Coen brothers gee up the Western tradition with Jeff Bridges in a magnificent remake of True Grit, inset below, Martin Scorsese goes 3D with robot fantasy Hugo Cabret; David Cronenberg hits the couch for A Dangerous Method, his take on Freud and Jung; and Terence Malick ponders the meaning of it all in Tree of Life. And, if you need of cheering up, there's Lars von Trier's end-of-the-world drama, Melancholia.
And my wish for 2011? That Iran shouldfree director Jafar Panahi (Offside, The Circle) and lift its gag on his film-making.
One to watch: Mr Unavoidable in 2011 is Tom Hiddleston (The Deep Blue Sea, Kenneth Branagh's Thor, Steven Spielberg's War Horse) and much more.
Film (Mainstream)
Nicholas Barber
Superheroes abound: there's Green Hornet (14 Jan) with Seth Rogen, directed by Michel Gondry; the Hornet's near-namesake, the Green Lantern (17 Jun) played by Ryan Reynolds; Marvel paves the way for its team-up blockbuster, The Avengers, by introducing two more of the personnel: Thor (29 Apr) and Captain America: The First Avenger (29 Jul).
There's a double helping of Matt Damon in The Adjustment Bureau (4 Mar) – in which he and Emily Blunt dodge the agents of Fate – and Steven Soderbergh's Contagion (21 Oct), where he faces a "lethal airborne virus".
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (26 Oct), is a motion-capture version of Hergé's adventures (Avatar style, in other words), directed by Steven Spielberg. In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (16 Sep), Gary Oldman finally tackles a worthy role as John le Carré's George Smiley.
Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (18 May) zeroes in on Johnny Depp's Captain Jack. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley have walked the plank.
One to watch: Rooney Mara, right, is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (due 26 Dec).
Television
Hugh Montgomery
Drama gets off to a good start as Channel 4 serves up The Promise (Feb), Peter Kosminsky's four-part serial about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and BBC2's Christopher and His Kind (Feb) sees Doctor Who, Matt Smith, play it fast and louche as novelist Christopher Isherwood in pre-war Berlin. Elsewhere, ITV puts its faith in the supernatural with Marchlands (early Feb), a tale of a haunted house across the eras, and new US import channel Sky Atlantic launches with the first series of Martin Scorsese's much-hyped Prohibition saga Boardwalk Empire (early Feb).
For laughs, Episodes (BBC2, 10 Jan), a sitcom about the making of a sitcom, stars Matt LeBlanc as himself alongside Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan. Meanwhile Greig also crops up in Friday Night Dinner (Channel 4, late Feb) centred on a Jewish family's weekly get-togethers.
Many families will tune in to sub-Strictly jamboree Dancing on Ice (ITV1, 9 Jan), back with a more nondescript line-up than ever, while the retail doyenne Mary Portas, right, makes a more welcome return with a new show challenging customer service (Channel 4, Jan). For genuine "reality TV", there's How TV Ruined Your Life (BBC2, late Jan/Feb) in which the ever scabrous Charlie Brooker dissects the lies fed to us by the small screen
Monday, January 3, 2011
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Blip, Blink & Move Laboratory (BBML) - About BBML
#
Capitalist Evils 萬惡資本主義實體
Places where you can blow money
*
Sparkfun
*
Seed Studio Depot
*
Parallax
*
The Maker Shed
*
Smart Projects
*
Liquid Ware
*
Adafruit Industries
*
Jameco
*
Digi-key
*
Evil Mad Scientist Store
*
Carl's Electronics
A great place for electronics kits
*
Think Geek
*
Robot Zone (Hong Kong)
#
Learn Stuff 博學因特網
From electronics fundamentals to Arduino source codes
*
Makezine
*
Hackzine (Archive)
*
Arduino Playground
*
Arduino Taiwan User Forum
*
Instructables
*
Tinker It!
*
Hack a Day
*
Hack and Mod
*
Hand Made Music
*
Rod Elliott's Beginner's Guide to Electronics
*
Discover Circuits
*
Electronics Club Projects Page
*
Electronics Project Design
*
Fritzing
Create PCB layout for professional manufacturing
*
Bowden's Hobby Circuits
#
Circuit Bending 彎曲志向
*
Get Lo Fi
*
Odd Music
*
Reed Ghazala on Circuit Bending
*
Wiki Article on Reed Ghazala
*
Casper Electronics
*
Bent Festival
Capitalist Evils 萬惡資本主義實體
Places where you can blow money
*
Sparkfun
*
Seed Studio Depot
*
Parallax
*
The Maker Shed
*
Smart Projects
*
Liquid Ware
*
Adafruit Industries
*
Jameco
*
Digi-key
*
Evil Mad Scientist Store
*
Carl's Electronics
A great place for electronics kits
*
Think Geek
*
Robot Zone (Hong Kong)
#
Learn Stuff 博學因特網
From electronics fundamentals to Arduino source codes
*
Makezine
*
Hackzine (Archive)
*
Arduino Playground
*
Arduino Taiwan User Forum
*
Instructables
*
Tinker It!
*
Hack a Day
*
Hack and Mod
*
Hand Made Music
*
Rod Elliott's Beginner's Guide to Electronics
*
Discover Circuits
*
Electronics Club Projects Page
*
Electronics Project Design
*
Fritzing
Create PCB layout for professional manufacturing
*
Bowden's Hobby Circuits
#
Circuit Bending 彎曲志向
*
Get Lo Fi
*
Odd Music
*
Reed Ghazala on Circuit Bending
*
Wiki Article on Reed Ghazala
*
Casper Electronics
*
Bent Festival
Saturday, September 25, 2010
H1 - Handy Recorder One size. Fits all.
In Stores August 20th.
Introducing the H1 Handy Recorder.
It’s our smallest recorder ever. But don’t let its size fool you. The H1 Handy Recorder has our renowned recording technology and studio-quality microphones in our easiest, most portable device ever.
Now Zoom recording technology is available to everyone. And with an infinite variety of applications, you’ll want to take your H1 everywhere. From musical performances, songwriting sessions and rehearsals to seminars, conferences, journalism or capturing audio for video, the H1 gives you clean, clear stereo sound effortlessly.
What sets us apart?
Like all Zoom recorders, the H1’s onboard microphones are configured in an X/Y pattern, for stunning stereo imaging. Because both mics are arranged on the same axis, they are equidistant from the sound source for perfect localization and no phase shifting. The result is great stereo recordings with natural depth and accurate imaging.
Under your thumb…
With its newly designed user interface, the H1 is also our easiest recorder to use. All its functions are at your fingertips, such as track marker, auto record, low cut filter, level and volume controls with on-board buttons… No menus required!
H1 in hand
Intuitive controls make it easy to capture the audio you need with ease. But we still provide the versatility you’ve come to expect from Zoom. So you get total recording format flexibility from 16-bit/44.1 kHz to 24-bit/96 kHz WAV, or MP3 from 48 kbps to 320 kbps and enough tools onboard to make impeccable recordings.
Secure your digital memories.
The H1 records on microSD cards and comes with a 2GB microSD card. Using a 32GB microSDHC card allows over 50 hours of recording time at 16-bit/44.1 kHz. H1 with cards
MicroSD cards were specifically designed for the ever-evolving mobile technology market. Approximately the size of a fingernail, the microSD card is a significant advance in technology and its size and capacity are a major reason why the H1 is able to deliver so much recording technology in such a small package.
Share the love.
With its Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port, the H1 allows for fast transfer of your audio files to your computer. Listen, edit and share with your fans on your Mac or PC. It also includes a reference speaker to ensure your recordings are being captured as you desire.
Applications:
Musicians – Shorten the Learning Curve.
With stereo recording so precise and so easy, musicians will love the H1. An indispensible part of any serious musician’s arsenal, the H1 makes recording rehearsals and practice sessions easier than ever. And the best part is, because your performance is captured with crystal clear audio, you can really critique your own playing, and get better….
Peter Erskine Alan Pasqua
Peter Erskine, Educator, Grammy-Winning Drummer and Alan Pasqua, Chair of Jazz Studies, USC
Songwriters – More Hit Wonders.
Isn’t it time you heard your masterpieces in beautiful stereo that rivals a professional recording studio? We know you’re the creative type, not an engineer. That’s why we made the H1 so easy to setup and navigate. So you can keep the inspiration going. Your most creative ideas can now be recorded and shared with your co-writers anywhere and at anytime the music hits you. Just be sure you have your H1 on at all times!
Alice in Chains with the H1
Mike Inez and Jerry Cantrell - Alice in Chains
Bands – On the Road, On the Run.
There are so many applications for your band and the H1. Start with learning new songs. If you’re the guy who teaches the songs, record each part on an H1 and email it to the members of your band. If you’re the one who books the band, you band needs to get heard. And everyone in the group needs to hear their performance to get better. The H1 makes capturing your performance easy, even when you’re cranking out high SPLs.
Shinedown
Shinedown live in New York City
Video and Film Professionals – Indie Shoots That Don’t Sound Indie.
With DSLR cameras that shoot incredible HD video, the need for a better audio solution has emerged. The H1 will easily shoe mount on top of a video or DSLR camera. And because it has a standard ¼-20 mount on the bottom, you can place the H1 anywhere on your rig. Use the stereo output jack to connect directly to the audio input on your camera, or bring the audio into your editing suite using the USB connection. The H1 is the perfect entry point for those getting started with dual source shooting.
H1 on a DSLR camera
H1 mounted on a Canon T2i
Journalism – Scoop Central…
These days, a journalist needs be able to capture broadcast ready interviews whenever or wherever they occur. Imagine being able to spontaneously capture the kind of audio your producer needs and send it remotely via email. That’s what the H1 provides. It’s literally a recording studio in your pocket! And the files are Broadcast Wave Format (BWF) so your producer has time and date stamping as well as any markers you set for total editing ease.
H1 in journalism
Business – Content Management.
Whether it’s a sales meeting, training conference or a seminar, the ability to capture and distribute the content is a big part of the ROI when you do events. Use the H1 to record your content for your company website or distribute it by email to your peers. Edit and turn it into a podcast. The possibilities are endless. Whatever the use, the H1 is perfect for legal, business and medical field use.
H1 in the boardroom
Accessorize the size…
Everything you need to get started recording is included. Your H1 comes with an AA battery for 10 hours of operation and a 2 GB microSD card.
In addition, an H1 accessory package (APH-1) is also available with an array of accessories that make your recordings even more pristine and easier to capture. The accessory kit includes a windscreen, AC adapter (USB type), USB cable, adjustable tripod stand, padded-shell case and a mic clip adapter.
H1 / APH-1 accessory pack
Brilliant Stereo Recording.
Now in your pocket.
Combining powerful recording capability with elegance and simplicity, the H1 Handy Recorder is our smallest, most affordable recorder ever.
Click here to watch the Zoom H1 Basic Product Overview Video!
Features:
* Stereo X/Y mic configuration captures perfect stereo images
* Same frequency and SPL handling as popular Zoom H2
* Records Broadcast WAV (BWF) at 96kHz/48kHz/44.1kHz at 16-bit or 24-bit
* Records MP3 from 48 to 320kbps for maximum recording time
* Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port
* Built-in reference speaker
* Includes 2GB microSD memory card and one AA battery
* One AA size battery allows 10 hours operation
* Accommodates up to 32GB microSDHC memory cards
* Track marker function
* Low cut filter
* Built-in tripod mount
* 1/8-inch external mic input
* 1/8-inch stereo line output
* Auto record level
* Optional accessory package (APH-1) includes windscreen, AC adapter (USB type), USB cable, adjustable tripod stand, padded shell case and mic clip adapter
H1 Features at a glance:
The H1 Handy Recorder puts all its functions at your fingertips. No menus! Its backlit display features recording levels, file format, time elapsed, remaining battery life and recording time.
Its intuitive transport puts all the controls on the side with no menus on the screen. A large record button gives you complete control. Playback and pause, marker, forward and rewind buttons are all accessible by your thumb. Volume for playback and monitoring can be adjusted using your index finger.
On the back, you’ll find a single AA battery compartment, a tripod mount, low cut filter, auto level setting and recording format selectable switches. There’s also convenient mount for a strap or lanyard clip.
H1 front and back annotated
All the transport controls are on right side of the H1 and you can adjust recording levels on the fly. A 1/8" stereo line input is located on this side and its USB port is also accessible here as is its power on and hold switch.
On the left side, you can replace your microSD card by folding down the rubberized door. There’s also a 1/8" stereo line/headphone output with adjustable volume control for monitoring playback. The built-in reference speaker is on the bottom of the unit.
H1 sides annotated
Download a list of "approved" microSD cards that have been comfirmed for operation with H1 (PDF file).
Introducing the H1 Handy Recorder.
It’s our smallest recorder ever. But don’t let its size fool you. The H1 Handy Recorder has our renowned recording technology and studio-quality microphones in our easiest, most portable device ever.
Now Zoom recording technology is available to everyone. And with an infinite variety of applications, you’ll want to take your H1 everywhere. From musical performances, songwriting sessions and rehearsals to seminars, conferences, journalism or capturing audio for video, the H1 gives you clean, clear stereo sound effortlessly.
What sets us apart?
Like all Zoom recorders, the H1’s onboard microphones are configured in an X/Y pattern, for stunning stereo imaging. Because both mics are arranged on the same axis, they are equidistant from the sound source for perfect localization and no phase shifting. The result is great stereo recordings with natural depth and accurate imaging.
Under your thumb…
With its newly designed user interface, the H1 is also our easiest recorder to use. All its functions are at your fingertips, such as track marker, auto record, low cut filter, level and volume controls with on-board buttons… No menus required!
H1 in hand
Intuitive controls make it easy to capture the audio you need with ease. But we still provide the versatility you’ve come to expect from Zoom. So you get total recording format flexibility from 16-bit/44.1 kHz to 24-bit/96 kHz WAV, or MP3 from 48 kbps to 320 kbps and enough tools onboard to make impeccable recordings.
Secure your digital memories.
The H1 records on microSD cards and comes with a 2GB microSD card. Using a 32GB microSDHC card allows over 50 hours of recording time at 16-bit/44.1 kHz. H1 with cards
MicroSD cards were specifically designed for the ever-evolving mobile technology market. Approximately the size of a fingernail, the microSD card is a significant advance in technology and its size and capacity are a major reason why the H1 is able to deliver so much recording technology in such a small package.
Share the love.
With its Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port, the H1 allows for fast transfer of your audio files to your computer. Listen, edit and share with your fans on your Mac or PC. It also includes a reference speaker to ensure your recordings are being captured as you desire.
Applications:
Musicians – Shorten the Learning Curve.
With stereo recording so precise and so easy, musicians will love the H1. An indispensible part of any serious musician’s arsenal, the H1 makes recording rehearsals and practice sessions easier than ever. And the best part is, because your performance is captured with crystal clear audio, you can really critique your own playing, and get better….
Peter Erskine Alan Pasqua
Peter Erskine, Educator, Grammy-Winning Drummer and Alan Pasqua, Chair of Jazz Studies, USC
Songwriters – More Hit Wonders.
Isn’t it time you heard your masterpieces in beautiful stereo that rivals a professional recording studio? We know you’re the creative type, not an engineer. That’s why we made the H1 so easy to setup and navigate. So you can keep the inspiration going. Your most creative ideas can now be recorded and shared with your co-writers anywhere and at anytime the music hits you. Just be sure you have your H1 on at all times!
Alice in Chains with the H1
Mike Inez and Jerry Cantrell - Alice in Chains
Bands – On the Road, On the Run.
There are so many applications for your band and the H1. Start with learning new songs. If you’re the guy who teaches the songs, record each part on an H1 and email it to the members of your band. If you’re the one who books the band, you band needs to get heard. And everyone in the group needs to hear their performance to get better. The H1 makes capturing your performance easy, even when you’re cranking out high SPLs.
Shinedown
Shinedown live in New York City
Video and Film Professionals – Indie Shoots That Don’t Sound Indie.
With DSLR cameras that shoot incredible HD video, the need for a better audio solution has emerged. The H1 will easily shoe mount on top of a video or DSLR camera. And because it has a standard ¼-20 mount on the bottom, you can place the H1 anywhere on your rig. Use the stereo output jack to connect directly to the audio input on your camera, or bring the audio into your editing suite using the USB connection. The H1 is the perfect entry point for those getting started with dual source shooting.
H1 on a DSLR camera
H1 mounted on a Canon T2i
Journalism – Scoop Central…
These days, a journalist needs be able to capture broadcast ready interviews whenever or wherever they occur. Imagine being able to spontaneously capture the kind of audio your producer needs and send it remotely via email. That’s what the H1 provides. It’s literally a recording studio in your pocket! And the files are Broadcast Wave Format (BWF) so your producer has time and date stamping as well as any markers you set for total editing ease.
H1 in journalism
Business – Content Management.
Whether it’s a sales meeting, training conference or a seminar, the ability to capture and distribute the content is a big part of the ROI when you do events. Use the H1 to record your content for your company website or distribute it by email to your peers. Edit and turn it into a podcast. The possibilities are endless. Whatever the use, the H1 is perfect for legal, business and medical field use.
H1 in the boardroom
Accessorize the size…
Everything you need to get started recording is included. Your H1 comes with an AA battery for 10 hours of operation and a 2 GB microSD card.
In addition, an H1 accessory package (APH-1) is also available with an array of accessories that make your recordings even more pristine and easier to capture. The accessory kit includes a windscreen, AC adapter (USB type), USB cable, adjustable tripod stand, padded-shell case and a mic clip adapter.
H1 / APH-1 accessory pack
Brilliant Stereo Recording.
Now in your pocket.
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* Records MP3 from 48 to 320kbps for maximum recording time
* Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port
* Built-in reference speaker
* Includes 2GB microSD memory card and one AA battery
* One AA size battery allows 10 hours operation
* Accommodates up to 32GB microSDHC memory cards
* Track marker function
* Low cut filter
* Built-in tripod mount
* 1/8-inch external mic input
* 1/8-inch stereo line output
* Auto record level
* Optional accessory package (APH-1) includes windscreen, AC adapter (USB type), USB cable, adjustable tripod stand, padded shell case and mic clip adapter
H1 Features at a glance:
The H1 Handy Recorder puts all its functions at your fingertips. No menus! Its backlit display features recording levels, file format, time elapsed, remaining battery life and recording time.
Its intuitive transport puts all the controls on the side with no menus on the screen. A large record button gives you complete control. Playback and pause, marker, forward and rewind buttons are all accessible by your thumb. Volume for playback and monitoring can be adjusted using your index finger.
On the back, you’ll find a single AA battery compartment, a tripod mount, low cut filter, auto level setting and recording format selectable switches. There’s also convenient mount for a strap or lanyard clip.
H1 front and back annotated
All the transport controls are on right side of the H1 and you can adjust recording levels on the fly. A 1/8" stereo line input is located on this side and its USB port is also accessible here as is its power on and hold switch.
On the left side, you can replace your microSD card by folding down the rubberized door. There’s also a 1/8" stereo line/headphone output with adjustable volume control for monitoring playback. The built-in reference speaker is on the bottom of the unit.
H1 sides annotated
Download a list of "approved" microSD cards that have been comfirmed for operation with H1 (PDF file).
Thursday, September 16, 2010
焦點人物 楊天帥 愛蛙聲科學家：無端成為藝術家
2010年9月8日
我眼前是一位藝術家，或者數學家、生物學家、物理學家，或者什麼都不是，只是一位退休老人，那視乎你作何看法。
來自荷蘭、擁有物理及數學博士學位的Felix Hess，青絲早已成雪，但依然精神爽利。緋紅的臉總掛着微笑，給人感覺就像是一個在8月海邊嬉鬧慣的孩子。
他說話聲音很小，儘管訪問時我已把咪高峰放得極近，還是有幾句錄得不太清楚。我們在他為「聽在聲音藝術節」帶來港的藝術品前聊天的。我猜，他之所以壓低聲音說話，是因為怕驚動了他的「孩子」。
澳洲荷蘭叫聲不同
年輕時的Felix，對回力鏢情有獨鍾。
他認為回力鏢能返回投擲者手中的事實「難以置信」。這一「神奇現象」成為他在修讀學士期間研究的課題。畢業後，有教授建議他修讀空氣動力學博士學位，他答應了。
愈多接觸回力鏢的文獻，Felix對澳洲土著的文化就愈嚮往。於是，博士畢業後，Felix赴澳工作。也就是在那裏，遇上改變他一生的動物──青蛙。
不是一隻青蛙，是一群青蛙。
「澳洲與荷蘭很不同，連青蛙的叫聲也不一樣。牠們的音樂會，對我而言非常吸引。」他說。「我錄下青蛙的叫聲，好讓自己在回國後也能重聽。然而，很快我就發現錄音的不足─每次都一模一樣，毫無變化。」
「關鍵在於，青蛙音樂會與環境是互動的。例如，當牠們聽到我的腳步聲，就會靜下來，不唱了。」這發現繼回力鏢後再次勾起Felix的科學家精神，他心中盤算着要做出能模擬青蛙音樂會的「sound creature」。
「sound creature」原理不難明。其部件是咪高峰、喇叭與電路。咪高峰接收聲音，經電路分辨「好」（即其他「sound creature」的聲音）與「壞」（其他雜音）。「好」聲音愈大，「sound creature」的叫聲就愈響；「壞」聲音愈大，「sound creature」就愈閉口不唱。
寧靜活動雕塑
「我本想在生物科研究『sound creature』，但生物科教授認為意義不大，拒絕了。後來竟有搞實驗音樂的部門覺得這有點意思，但我連樂譜也不會看，哈！」Felix說。「輾轉之下，忽然有人告訴我，『sound creature』是藝術，我是藝術家。」
「OK！我是藝術家，沒所謂，只要給我機會做『sound creature』，我就OK。」就這樣，Felix從科學家變成藝術家了。
「Sound creature」已是上世紀八十年代的事。Felix這次帶來港的藝術品，名為「It's in the Air」。它不是關於聲音，是關於寧靜。超過二百幅小旗幟豎立在地上，只一點風吹草動，如參觀者輕輕走過，小旗幟就會受氣流影響而旋轉。
沒錯，就是這樣簡單。
「我花了很長時間找一種既薄又耐用的物料做旗幟。試過用鋁片、纖維等，效果都不理想，最後才找到米紙。」他解釋。「因為小旗幟實在太敏感了，展覽廳內連冷氣也不能開，以免影響氣流。」
Felix自言很愛這些小旗幟，說它們就像自己的孩子，閒時享受與它們共處的時光。由於最弱的氣流也會影響小旗幟的活動，「它們身處不同時空，表現也有所不同。」
「It's in the Air」一發表，各有各的表述又來了。Felix的老同事，空氣動力學家認為那是把「空氣流動實體化的裝置」，雕塑家則稱其為「一種活動雕塑」。Felix說，人家怎樣看，他不介意。
「我只做我喜歡做的事，誰管它關心那是關乎藝術、物理還是生物呢！」
大概這也可稱為藝術家脾氣罷。
gyeung@hkej.com
【列印文章】
我眼前是一位藝術家，或者數學家、生物學家、物理學家，或者什麼都不是，只是一位退休老人，那視乎你作何看法。
來自荷蘭、擁有物理及數學博士學位的Felix Hess，青絲早已成雪，但依然精神爽利。緋紅的臉總掛着微笑，給人感覺就像是一個在8月海邊嬉鬧慣的孩子。
他說話聲音很小，儘管訪問時我已把咪高峰放得極近，還是有幾句錄得不太清楚。我們在他為「聽在聲音藝術節」帶來港的藝術品前聊天的。我猜，他之所以壓低聲音說話，是因為怕驚動了他的「孩子」。
澳洲荷蘭叫聲不同
年輕時的Felix，對回力鏢情有獨鍾。
他認為回力鏢能返回投擲者手中的事實「難以置信」。這一「神奇現象」成為他在修讀學士期間研究的課題。畢業後，有教授建議他修讀空氣動力學博士學位，他答應了。
愈多接觸回力鏢的文獻，Felix對澳洲土著的文化就愈嚮往。於是，博士畢業後，Felix赴澳工作。也就是在那裏，遇上改變他一生的動物──青蛙。
不是一隻青蛙，是一群青蛙。
「澳洲與荷蘭很不同，連青蛙的叫聲也不一樣。牠們的音樂會，對我而言非常吸引。」他說。「我錄下青蛙的叫聲，好讓自己在回國後也能重聽。然而，很快我就發現錄音的不足─每次都一模一樣，毫無變化。」
「關鍵在於，青蛙音樂會與環境是互動的。例如，當牠們聽到我的腳步聲，就會靜下來，不唱了。」這發現繼回力鏢後再次勾起Felix的科學家精神，他心中盤算着要做出能模擬青蛙音樂會的「sound creature」。
「sound creature」原理不難明。其部件是咪高峰、喇叭與電路。咪高峰接收聲音，經電路分辨「好」（即其他「sound creature」的聲音）與「壞」（其他雜音）。「好」聲音愈大，「sound creature」的叫聲就愈響；「壞」聲音愈大，「sound creature」就愈閉口不唱。
寧靜活動雕塑
「我本想在生物科研究『sound creature』，但生物科教授認為意義不大，拒絕了。後來竟有搞實驗音樂的部門覺得這有點意思，但我連樂譜也不會看，哈！」Felix說。「輾轉之下，忽然有人告訴我，『sound creature』是藝術，我是藝術家。」
「OK！我是藝術家，沒所謂，只要給我機會做『sound creature』，我就OK。」就這樣，Felix從科學家變成藝術家了。
「Sound creature」已是上世紀八十年代的事。Felix這次帶來港的藝術品，名為「It's in the Air」。它不是關於聲音，是關於寧靜。超過二百幅小旗幟豎立在地上，只一點風吹草動，如參觀者輕輕走過，小旗幟就會受氣流影響而旋轉。
沒錯，就是這樣簡單。
「我花了很長時間找一種既薄又耐用的物料做旗幟。試過用鋁片、纖維等，效果都不理想，最後才找到米紙。」他解釋。「因為小旗幟實在太敏感了，展覽廳內連冷氣也不能開，以免影響氣流。」
Felix自言很愛這些小旗幟，說它們就像自己的孩子，閒時享受與它們共處的時光。由於最弱的氣流也會影響小旗幟的活動，「它們身處不同時空，表現也有所不同。」
「It's in the Air」一發表，各有各的表述又來了。Felix的老同事，空氣動力學家認為那是把「空氣流動實體化的裝置」，雕塑家則稱其為「一種活動雕塑」。Felix說，人家怎樣看，他不介意。
「我只做我喜歡做的事，誰管它關心那是關乎藝術、物理還是生物呢！」
大概這也可稱為藝術家脾氣罷。
gyeung@hkej.com
【列印文章】
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sonic Boom
Sound isn't just noise or music - it's the raw material for a growing number of audio artists, and montreal is building a strong international reputation for this form of creative expression
CAMERON SKENE, Freelance
Published: Saturday, January 13 2007
This is the latest instalment in the continuing series In Profile, which looks at a cross-section of art being produced on the island and the people who make it.
Diversity is a prominent feature of Montreal's current art scene. Previously dominated by the strong tradition of Quebec's modernist painters, the realm of artmaking has expanded beyond what is coyly called "the dirty arts" (painting, drawing and sculpture) to include photo and mixed-media, web-based installation, performance, sound, even smell.
This fourth edition of the In Profile series, Sonic Boom, examines four artists who are working in what could be called a booming field in the art world: sound, also called audio art or sound installation. To some it is just noise, albeit with banks of computers, high-tech speakers and jumbles of tangled wires, and playing to esoteric-looking crowds at performances in barns or obscure festivals.
Jean-Pierre Aube: "For some artists working with technology, the more shiny it is, the more it looks professional. When we look at Star Trek, everything looks so smooth: it's like a bourgeois living room."View Larger Image View Larger Image
Jean-Pierre Aube: "For some artists working with technology, the more shiny it is, the more it looks professional. When we look at Star Trek, everything looks so smooth: it's like a bourgeois living room."
JOHN KENNEY, THE GAZETTE
More pictures: < Prev | Next >
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But sound work, unlike video or web-based work, draws on a long history dating from the early 20th century. Artists in movements like Dada and the Italian Futurists - one of whom, Luigi Russolo, wrote the seminal 1913 sound manifesto, The Art of Noises - made the observation that the sound landscape of the modern age is entirely new, marked with a technological urbanism: the clangs, yelps, squeals and groans of machines. The first noise performances by early sound artists were received in confused silence - one dissatisfied Futurist compared it to "showing the first steam engine to a herd of cows."
continued from e1
But technologies - and the public - seem to have caught up to the concept. Desktop studios and trips to Radio Shack have increased the access to recording and editing. And as everyone knows, anything an artist can get his hands on is fair game. Montreal, in particular, has a strong reputation internationally. With yearly festivals like Mutek and Elektra, support from and access to such art centres as Quartier Ephemere, and ambitious installations like the Silophone, a disused grain silo in the Old Port that in 2000 was turned into a kind of musical instrument, sound in the city is booming.
With the visual getting most of the aesthetic coin in museums and galleries, it is easy to forget the other senses - or dismiss them as devoid of content serious enough for aesthetic investigation. Yet artists are increasingly exploring sound, smell and taste as vehicles for content.
During a stint as a bicycle courier in this city, I ran the usual range of adjustments to the haste, pace and danger of a job that is carried out in a panicky sensory jumble. One adjustment was particularly telling: since you can't swivel your head all the time to look out for traffic, you put your head down, stare fixedly ahead and listen hard. Your eyes are for steering, but your ears are for navigation, and they become the predominant tool for self-preservation.
"We use (sound) like a radar - we think we know where we are with the space in front of our eyes, but if you ever have an ear problem, it's amazing ... blind people walk with a stick, tapping it. It's not to feel out things, it's setting up echoes."Steve Heimbecker is a thickset, methodical man in his 40s. He stares - as most sound artists necessarily do during interviews - into a computer screen, going through DVDs of his work. Heimbecker explores, among other things, the sculptural dimensions of sound. His work with what he calls "acoustic mapping" situates the observer in a multi-channel sound environment.
In The Acoustic Line as the Crow Listens, the artist plotted a mile through the landscape and recorded simultaneously at eight sites placed about 200 metres equidistant. For the resulting installation, speakers are placed together in a line that compresses the mile into 64 feet. The result is a time-warped stereo experience: environmental sounds that travel a mile, like a car horn, move and fade rapidly in a squished sonic environment, bending perception.
"So conceptually, if you walk really fast, you would be travelling faster than the speed of sound," the artist says.
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He fabricates most of his installations himself; his studio is a jumble of speaker boxes built to spec for his next show. His work travels widely to sound festivals and galleries in Europe and North America.
A Saskatchewan native recently transplanted to Montreal, Heimbecker is most known for his sound work with the Silophone and a 2003 installation titled Wind Array Cascade Machine, where a field of 64 wheat-like stalks of electronic sensors bent with the wind on the roof of the
Ex-Centris building on St. Laurent Blvd. The data stream from the rooftop sensors was transmitted to galleries in Toronto and Europe, where other installations, called Pods, translated the data into rows of upright LED readouts on poles, reinterpreting the wind as a field of oscillating lights in the gallery.
"I realized that the wave patterns of a wheat field caused by the wind were exactly how the sine wave works ... so it's a metaphorically perfect thing."
If music is, as American composer John Cage said, "organized sound," then Heimbecker displays how sound, transcribed by technology, can be made into an aesthetic replication of experience: not music, but something altogether new. Heimbecker's eyes light up at the elegant idea: "So the wind in Quebec was blowing in Toronto ..."
"I don't really work with data like Steve does. Steve is really more into programming, how data inputs and then outputs differently. It's totally another way of working ..."
Jean-Pierre Gauthier, preparing for his exhibition at the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal in February, is distracted and intense, with a furrowed brow, constantly looking elsewhere. A maker of sound-producing kinetic installations, Gauthier starts up a piece that's waiting to be shipped from his east-end studio: a piano with wires running from the keys to a swarm of more wires, switches and sensors stuffed into the seat.
The piece is activated by motion sensors. As the viewer moves, the piano twitches into action, plucked notes sputter here and there, initially startling me into thinking that I had stepped on something accidentally
'There are three microprocessors. I program the sequence. (The computer) chooses randomly the note ... Each sequence is tripped by motion sensors."
The effect is unsettling and twitchy at first. As you move, the volume of notes gains mass, cascading into a nervous symphony.
"I like it to be random, so at one point I lose control of the result. ... The composition gets free, like this one - I select the notes ... but the rest is out of my control. To me, the 'order' of this is about trying to get the work free from my control."
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Gauthier, represented by the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, was the 2004 winner of the Sobey Art Award, a $50,000 award given to Canadian artists under 40. Gauthier's noisy, kinetic installations have received lots of notice and justifiable acclaim.
Usually working with everyday objects like skis, mirrors or hammers, Gauthier fashions these into robotic instruments that sing: "Basically the objects are quite insignificant, they're quite normal - but the sound they can make is quite amazing," he says. "(They're) just amplified, no (added) effect. I use as much as possible the pure sound of the object, and (try) to find an object that has its own colour."
In his 2002 installation Echotriste, Gauthier combined mirrors with dangling industrial coils that scored the mirrors' surfaces to create ethereal sounds suggesting an eerie human chorus - home-made music that gives a nod to the Futurists themselves, who encouraged artists to create their own instruments.
"I loved electronics when I was a kid - I had a Radio Shack electronic kit. The work brought me to this. It was quite natural for me to do this."
"Jean-Pierre (Gauthier) and (I) have the same background - we both did our master's at UQAM - a real visual art background. When I think about Pierre, he's a craftsman: He builds stuff."
Jean-Pierre Aube started as a photographer, but instead of visual images now captures sound. "There's not a big difference. ... I go around in the woods with my VLF receiver and bring something back with a technology device - the camera is a radio receiver for me (now)."
Aube is a tall, gregarious man who works out of his home in the north end. The interview is occasionally accented by the staccato wails of his new baby in the other room. Leaning back on a thrift-store couch, we watch a video projection of a performance piece he did at the Quartier Ephemere this past summer. A huge mass of giant speakers sits in the middle of a room. Titled Save the Waves, the system - built out of plywood, old computers and scrap material - showed that he is not averse to building stuff, either.
"A critic wrote that the exhibition isn't really about the object, it was more about the sound - which surprised me a little bit because those speakers weighed 3,000 pounds ..."
Aube often works with a VLF (very low frequency) receiver that he makes himself:
"It's basically (like) a hula hoop with 300 feet of cable, ... a simple radio receiver that allows you to grab all natural electromagnetic phenomena."
Very low frequency was inadvertently discovered in the 1800s when it became apparent that telegraph lines picked up signals from atmospheric phenomena like the aurora borealis. VLF receivers also pick up what Aube considers to be the frequency of modernity: "60 hertz is the soundtrack of domestic life, because 60 hertz is everywhere. Your fridge hums at 60 hertz."
Save the Waves is a reflection on Aube's difficulty with getting far enough away from the interference of 60hz electrical lines to record the aurora himself. In the piece, a series of receivers pick up all electromagnetic signals in and around the building, while a performer runs a hand-held receiver over various appliances: a fluorescent light, a sound board, the computers themselves. The effect is an eerie accidental modulation coming from the giant speakers, like a mass of chanting Buddhist monks, all produced by our own electromagnetic pollution.
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Aube, a darling of the electronic festival circuit, has shown his work in such far-flung places as Latvia, France, the Philippines and Germany. Sound art, like a lot of technology-based work, seems to have more of a receptive audience outside North America:
"Let me put it this way: (on this continent) I've never shown my work outside of Quebec, but I've shown 20 times in Europe in the past few years." He adds: "Montreal has a big scene. ... Mutek - it's huge and known all around the world."
"Sound is big nowadays."
Christof Migone agrees. But while the audience is growing for such work, he, like a lot of others, finds that more traditional museums and galleries are taking time to adjust to the medium: "Some galleries are starting (to show more sound work) ... but it's also not an ideal space ... they've done shows, but the result is a cacophony - they just don't take into account that it's a radically different medium."
Migone - tall, slight, and reticent - sits at the kitchen table in his modest Little Italy apartment. He displays a more multidisciplinary bent in his work, but sound is his base: After starting in radio at CKUT in the 1990s with his show Danger in Paradise, he pushed the envelope of experimentation with recording and broadcasting, and has written extensively on the subject of audio art.
"I think sound is something I keep returning to, I guess because I have a certain level of skill. Once I get an idea it often translates into sound, because I guess I can sort of see how it can materialize."
In his work Crackers, Migone solicited volunteer performers through radio and print ads, seeking individuals who were willing to make cracking sounds with various parts of their bodies. Some were more than willing, cracking necks, wrists, toes and jaws - and providing Migone with enough recording material for years. Crackers started as a sound installation in 1998, but was redone in performances and installations in Paris, Geneva and Los Angeles and as recently as this fall in Montreal at UQAM's gallery.
One of the recordings was a string of cracks from various parts of the body, edited closely together, bristling and alive with varying notes and textures: the music of wet popcorn, and strangely compelling to listen to.
"When presented in artists' talks or things like that, people have a dual reaction. Some kind of wince, and other people start cracking," he says. "What interests me is also the 'uncontrollable-ness' of that action. When you crack, it's a habit, it's a compulsion."
Some of his other work displays a penchant for recording obsessive-compulsive behaviours and bodily functions - like P, where the artist recorded 1,000 moments of urination while saying "P."
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"Crackers really helped me focus, and I did a fart record afterwards which kind of applied the same kind of restrictions and focus."
Creating with a blend of old-fashioned microphone recording and software editing, Migone keeps the technology simple to focus on the product and the idea.
"I try to downplay sound, in a sense, because (the work) gets pigeonholed. Most of the time it's not necessarily about the medium. I'm much more interested in the initial idea."
Steve Heimbecker agrees: "I think a lot of sound artists are really involved in the process as much or more than the outcome. ... Many of the ideas themselves are based on expanding technologies, (and) sometimes result in a piece that's interesting, sometimes not. ... The big discussion now is, 'What is the content?', because the technology's kind of flatlined - everything you can do with it has been imagined. "
But with the plethora of noise in our world, and since part of the artist's job description is to absorb and reflect human experience, the genre is constantly brushing up against the definition of music.
"(John) Cage thought everything was music," Migone says. "There's no such thing as silence - and he incorporated everything into music. And that's dangerous for sound art, because how does it carve out its own territory outside of (music)?"
montrealgazette.com
Sound Sights: To see more photos of the artists' works and link to more information about them on the Internet, go to Editor's Picks.
Sound isn't just noise or music - it's the raw material for a growing number of audio artists, and montreal is building a strong international reputation for this form of creative expression
CAMERON SKENE, Freelance
Published: Saturday, January 13 2007
This is the latest instalment in the continuing series In Profile, which looks at a cross-section of art being produced on the island and the people who make it.
Diversity is a prominent feature of Montreal's current art scene. Previously dominated by the strong tradition of Quebec's modernist painters, the realm of artmaking has expanded beyond what is coyly called "the dirty arts" (painting, drawing and sculpture) to include photo and mixed-media, web-based installation, performance, sound, even smell.
This fourth edition of the In Profile series, Sonic Boom, examines four artists who are working in what could be called a booming field in the art world: sound, also called audio art or sound installation. To some it is just noise, albeit with banks of computers, high-tech speakers and jumbles of tangled wires, and playing to esoteric-looking crowds at performances in barns or obscure festivals.
Jean-Pierre Aube: "For some artists working with technology, the more shiny it is, the more it looks professional. When we look at Star Trek, everything looks so smooth: it's like a bourgeois living room."View Larger Image View Larger Image
Jean-Pierre Aube: "For some artists working with technology, the more shiny it is, the more it looks professional. When we look at Star Trek, everything looks so smooth: it's like a bourgeois living room."
JOHN KENNEY, THE GAZETTE
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But sound work, unlike video or web-based work, draws on a long history dating from the early 20th century. Artists in movements like Dada and the Italian Futurists - one of whom, Luigi Russolo, wrote the seminal 1913 sound manifesto, The Art of Noises - made the observation that the sound landscape of the modern age is entirely new, marked with a technological urbanism: the clangs, yelps, squeals and groans of machines. The first noise performances by early sound artists were received in confused silence - one dissatisfied Futurist compared it to "showing the first steam engine to a herd of cows."
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But technologies - and the public - seem to have caught up to the concept. Desktop studios and trips to Radio Shack have increased the access to recording and editing. And as everyone knows, anything an artist can get his hands on is fair game. Montreal, in particular, has a strong reputation internationally. With yearly festivals like Mutek and Elektra, support from and access to such art centres as Quartier Ephemere, and ambitious installations like the Silophone, a disused grain silo in the Old Port that in 2000 was turned into a kind of musical instrument, sound in the city is booming.
With the visual getting most of the aesthetic coin in museums and galleries, it is easy to forget the other senses - or dismiss them as devoid of content serious enough for aesthetic investigation. Yet artists are increasingly exploring sound, smell and taste as vehicles for content.
During a stint as a bicycle courier in this city, I ran the usual range of adjustments to the haste, pace and danger of a job that is carried out in a panicky sensory jumble. One adjustment was particularly telling: since you can't swivel your head all the time to look out for traffic, you put your head down, stare fixedly ahead and listen hard. Your eyes are for steering, but your ears are for navigation, and they become the predominant tool for self-preservation.
"We use (sound) like a radar - we think we know where we are with the space in front of our eyes, but if you ever have an ear problem, it's amazing ... blind people walk with a stick, tapping it. It's not to feel out things, it's setting up echoes."Steve Heimbecker is a thickset, methodical man in his 40s. He stares - as most sound artists necessarily do during interviews - into a computer screen, going through DVDs of his work. Heimbecker explores, among other things, the sculptural dimensions of sound. His work with what he calls "acoustic mapping" situates the observer in a multi-channel sound environment.
In The Acoustic Line as the Crow Listens, the artist plotted a mile through the landscape and recorded simultaneously at eight sites placed about 200 metres equidistant. For the resulting installation, speakers are placed together in a line that compresses the mile into 64 feet. The result is a time-warped stereo experience: environmental sounds that travel a mile, like a car horn, move and fade rapidly in a squished sonic environment, bending perception.
"So conceptually, if you walk really fast, you would be travelling faster than the speed of sound," the artist says.
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He fabricates most of his installations himself; his studio is a jumble of speaker boxes built to spec for his next show. His work travels widely to sound festivals and galleries in Europe and North America.
A Saskatchewan native recently transplanted to Montreal, Heimbecker is most known for his sound work with the Silophone and a 2003 installation titled Wind Array Cascade Machine, where a field of 64 wheat-like stalks of electronic sensors bent with the wind on the roof of the
Ex-Centris building on St. Laurent Blvd. The data stream from the rooftop sensors was transmitted to galleries in Toronto and Europe, where other installations, called Pods, translated the data into rows of upright LED readouts on poles, reinterpreting the wind as a field of oscillating lights in the gallery.
"I realized that the wave patterns of a wheat field caused by the wind were exactly how the sine wave works ... so it's a metaphorically perfect thing."
If music is, as American composer John Cage said, "organized sound," then Heimbecker displays how sound, transcribed by technology, can be made into an aesthetic replication of experience: not music, but something altogether new. Heimbecker's eyes light up at the elegant idea: "So the wind in Quebec was blowing in Toronto ..."
"I don't really work with data like Steve does. Steve is really more into programming, how data inputs and then outputs differently. It's totally another way of working ..."
Jean-Pierre Gauthier, preparing for his exhibition at the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal in February, is distracted and intense, with a furrowed brow, constantly looking elsewhere. A maker of sound-producing kinetic installations, Gauthier starts up a piece that's waiting to be shipped from his east-end studio: a piano with wires running from the keys to a swarm of more wires, switches and sensors stuffed into the seat.
The piece is activated by motion sensors. As the viewer moves, the piano twitches into action, plucked notes sputter here and there, initially startling me into thinking that I had stepped on something accidentally
'There are three microprocessors. I program the sequence. (The computer) chooses randomly the note ... Each sequence is tripped by motion sensors."
The effect is unsettling and twitchy at first. As you move, the volume of notes gains mass, cascading into a nervous symphony.
"I like it to be random, so at one point I lose control of the result. ... The composition gets free, like this one - I select the notes ... but the rest is out of my control. To me, the 'order' of this is about trying to get the work free from my control."
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Gauthier, represented by the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, was the 2004 winner of the Sobey Art Award, a $50,000 award given to Canadian artists under 40. Gauthier's noisy, kinetic installations have received lots of notice and justifiable acclaim.
Usually working with everyday objects like skis, mirrors or hammers, Gauthier fashions these into robotic instruments that sing: "Basically the objects are quite insignificant, they're quite normal - but the sound they can make is quite amazing," he says. "(They're) just amplified, no (added) effect. I use as much as possible the pure sound of the object, and (try) to find an object that has its own colour."
In his 2002 installation Echotriste, Gauthier combined mirrors with dangling industrial coils that scored the mirrors' surfaces to create ethereal sounds suggesting an eerie human chorus - home-made music that gives a nod to the Futurists themselves, who encouraged artists to create their own instruments.
"I loved electronics when I was a kid - I had a Radio Shack electronic kit. The work brought me to this. It was quite natural for me to do this."
"Jean-Pierre (Gauthier) and (I) have the same background - we both did our master's at UQAM - a real visual art background. When I think about Pierre, he's a craftsman: He builds stuff."
Jean-Pierre Aube started as a photographer, but instead of visual images now captures sound. "There's not a big difference. ... I go around in the woods with my VLF receiver and bring something back with a technology device - the camera is a radio receiver for me (now)."
Aube is a tall, gregarious man who works out of his home in the north end. The interview is occasionally accented by the staccato wails of his new baby in the other room. Leaning back on a thrift-store couch, we watch a video projection of a performance piece he did at the Quartier Ephemere this past summer. A huge mass of giant speakers sits in the middle of a room. Titled Save the Waves, the system - built out of plywood, old computers and scrap material - showed that he is not averse to building stuff, either.
"A critic wrote that the exhibition isn't really about the object, it was more about the sound - which surprised me a little bit because those speakers weighed 3,000 pounds ..."
Aube often works with a VLF (very low frequency) receiver that he makes himself:
"It's basically (like) a hula hoop with 300 feet of cable, ... a simple radio receiver that allows you to grab all natural electromagnetic phenomena."
Very low frequency was inadvertently discovered in the 1800s when it became apparent that telegraph lines picked up signals from atmospheric phenomena like the aurora borealis. VLF receivers also pick up what Aube considers to be the frequency of modernity: "60 hertz is the soundtrack of domestic life, because 60 hertz is everywhere. Your fridge hums at 60 hertz."
Save the Waves is a reflection on Aube's difficulty with getting far enough away from the interference of 60hz electrical lines to record the aurora himself. In the piece, a series of receivers pick up all electromagnetic signals in and around the building, while a performer runs a hand-held receiver over various appliances: a fluorescent light, a sound board, the computers themselves. The effect is an eerie accidental modulation coming from the giant speakers, like a mass of chanting Buddhist monks, all produced by our own electromagnetic pollution.
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Aube, a darling of the electronic festival circuit, has shown his work in such far-flung places as Latvia, France, the Philippines and Germany. Sound art, like a lot of technology-based work, seems to have more of a receptive audience outside North America:
"Let me put it this way: (on this continent) I've never shown my work outside of Quebec, but I've shown 20 times in Europe in the past few years." He adds: "Montreal has a big scene. ... Mutek - it's huge and known all around the world."
"Sound is big nowadays."
Christof Migone agrees. But while the audience is growing for such work, he, like a lot of others, finds that more traditional museums and galleries are taking time to adjust to the medium: "Some galleries are starting (to show more sound work) ... but it's also not an ideal space ... they've done shows, but the result is a cacophony - they just don't take into account that it's a radically different medium."
Migone - tall, slight, and reticent - sits at the kitchen table in his modest Little Italy apartment. He displays a more multidisciplinary bent in his work, but sound is his base: After starting in radio at CKUT in the 1990s with his show Danger in Paradise, he pushed the envelope of experimentation with recording and broadcasting, and has written extensively on the subject of audio art.
"I think sound is something I keep returning to, I guess because I have a certain level of skill. Once I get an idea it often translates into sound, because I guess I can sort of see how it can materialize."
In his work Crackers, Migone solicited volunteer performers through radio and print ads, seeking individuals who were willing to make cracking sounds with various parts of their bodies. Some were more than willing, cracking necks, wrists, toes and jaws - and providing Migone with enough recording material for years. Crackers started as a sound installation in 1998, but was redone in performances and installations in Paris, Geneva and Los Angeles and as recently as this fall in Montreal at UQAM's gallery.
One of the recordings was a string of cracks from various parts of the body, edited closely together, bristling and alive with varying notes and textures: the music of wet popcorn, and strangely compelling to listen to.
"When presented in artists' talks or things like that, people have a dual reaction. Some kind of wince, and other people start cracking," he says. "What interests me is also the 'uncontrollable-ness' of that action. When you crack, it's a habit, it's a compulsion."
Some of his other work displays a penchant for recording obsessive-compulsive behaviours and bodily functions - like P, where the artist recorded 1,000 moments of urination while saying "P."
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"Crackers really helped me focus, and I did a fart record afterwards which kind of applied the same kind of restrictions and focus."
Creating with a blend of old-fashioned microphone recording and software editing, Migone keeps the technology simple to focus on the product and the idea.
"I try to downplay sound, in a sense, because (the work) gets pigeonholed. Most of the time it's not necessarily about the medium. I'm much more interested in the initial idea."
Steve Heimbecker agrees: "I think a lot of sound artists are really involved in the process as much or more than the outcome. ... Many of the ideas themselves are based on expanding technologies, (and) sometimes result in a piece that's interesting, sometimes not. ... The big discussion now is, 'What is the content?', because the technology's kind of flatlined - everything you can do with it has been imagined. "
But with the plethora of noise in our world, and since part of the artist's job description is to absorb and reflect human experience, the genre is constantly brushing up against the definition of music.
"(John) Cage thought everything was music," Migone says. "There's no such thing as silence - and he incorporated everything into music. And that's dangerous for sound art, because how does it carve out its own territory outside of (music)?"
montrealgazette.com
Sound Sights: To see more photos of the artists' works and link to more information about them on the Internet, go to Editor's Picks.
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