HarSMedia (Feed and Podcast)

Steal this for the love of god ...

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:59:57 +0100

[november 20, 2008] On a thursday morning earlier this month I went to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. For a while I there stood skull-to-skull with For the Love of God, a postart extravaganza signed Damien Hirst and bearing the London platinum hallmark of 2007, exposed in a small dark room in the midst of our old dutch masters. "Underneath the physical skill there is always a very dark and cruel view of life ... The weak won't inherit the world ... "
Post includes pictures of Hirst's complete selection of 16 works from the museum's collection of 17th century paintings, and a couple of hints on how to steal this ...

Neurotic Precision (Tuned City, Berlin _iii)

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:14:57 +0100

[november 12, 2008] On the second Tuned City day we again walked for far more than two hours, up to the Staalplaat store in the Torstrasse. There we met a charming young japanese musician who 'knew about the festival since coming', and Rinus van Alebeek wrote a radio memory on Brandon Labelle's white tablecloth. We then embarked upon the long march back down to the Weserstrasse ... The first stage of that journey led us to food and the second one to music. With its third stage we came to knowledge, as we arrived at Udo Noll's place, who that evening was just about to test his upcoming presentation of the radio aporee soundmaps, played by means of a GPS enabled cell phone ... We thus listened to the many sonic ghosts lurking in the neighborhood, while Udo shared with us his passion for maps and the history of surveying ...

Cake and Coffee (Tuned City, Berlin _ii)

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:54:57 +0100

[november 07, 2008] How 'obst und gemuesse' became 'coffee and cake', on aurality and living on foot, on speaking spaces and spanish buildings, about bubble wine, infrasound, migrating bees without a house and a startrek to Neukoelln, which on the first night of Tuned City, this summer in Berlin, led Rinus and me to a night shop at the border of Kreuzberg. We bought some drinks and sat down next to two big but friendly Germans. "Mok mok jaha!" one of them cheered in Klingonisch ... "Ruhm und Ehre: Mok mok jaha!," he said. "You can learn it" ...
The next day my feet hurt a lot ...
Mok mok jaha! for das kleine in Berlin was still lying ahead.

New in the Found Tapes Exibition

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:04:57 +0100

[november 02, 2008] New in the Found Tapes Exhibition: acquisitions number 88 and 89 ... The first of these I compiled 'live on the air', during a memorable emission of Epsilonia, on the parisian radio Libertaire, the evening of this october 2nd; the second one I started compiling during the Portes Ouvertes october 18th, at Montreuil's 'best kept secret', La Machinante ... Then I jump to acquisition number 96, compiled in the brand new gallery and store of Cake and Coffee Records in the Weserstrasse, while foundtaping early july of this year in Berlin, Neukoelln ... That's because the current and upcoming editions of the SoundBlog are dealing with that time of the year. And of course I mind the gap ... It'll be filled! Last but not least, there's a free downloadable 16 page Found Tapes Picozine. Have a great day ...

Light budget, heavy thinking (Tuned City, Berlin _i)

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:34:57 +0100

[october 29, 2008] For the time of Tuned City, an exhibition and conference project in Berlin, Germany, which took place between july 1st and 5th of this year, I joined Rinus van Alebeek and his das kleine, which in 2008 went into asymptotic Zen mode ... In this first of several reports, read about the sirens in Berlin, about Ryijo Ikeda's Spectra/Matrix installation next to the Tour Montparnasse in Paris, and about the two old ladies that were with me on the bus from Hauptbahnhof to Neukoelln ... "Wherever you go, there you are" ...

Hanna's Sirens (Tuned City, Berlin _o)

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:34:57 +0100

[october 12, 2008] Hanna Buhl came from Berlin to Paris, on a summer-sound-sabbatical, and re-discovered there a sound for her unheard since early youth: the testing of the sirens ... To capture that sound and its feeling, on the first wednesday of october, she sent out a team of siren hunters to set up their microphones along the Seine ... Meanwhile, in the city of Marseille, on the square in front of the opera, there was the monthly 12 minute public city play with and in between the testing of the sirens: Sirenes et Midi Net ... An upbeat to more Tuned City reports, forthcoming ...

The Right to be Slow

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:34:57 +0100

[october 02, 2008] Last week, with the ookoi, we went to PICNIC, the annual Amsterdam new-media-mega fest, as embedded artists ... Ex-pressing our im-pressions of precisely how our future was created, we sat on a vibrating couch, were lifted sky-high by a pair of scissor lifts, met old friends, made new ones and were rewarded with free drinks. We discovered the latest in e-Art and claimed our right to be slow by making a new number: 11:01.4 ...
About iPhones, RFID-tags, digital things, collaborative creativity, mechanical turks, the sheepmarket, and music as a metaphor for business ...

Souvenirs de Vacances_("Hear how you think !")

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:48:57 +0100

[september 22, 2008] This summer I had tea at Rod Summer's, an audio artist of british origin who has been living and working for most of his life in my native town, Maastricht. I talked with Rod about his career and work, but most about the VEC Audio Exchange Program, an audio mail art project run by him between 1978 and 1983. It comprises a series of 16 audio-cassettes that provide a multi-faceted sound portrait of those years. The 16 1/2 hour collection of (mostly) 'home'-recordings nicely feature and illustrate several of the hang-ups and peculiarities of those years, as well as bringing to the fore the great overlap and intricate entanglement of the world of 'young and avantgarde art' with that of post-punk experimental pop in its bloom time, the late 1970s / early 1980s ... Back in Paris there was even more mail art: though it did not make any sound, it stuck thousandfold to the walls of gallery Art de Rien in the rue d'Orsel ...

The Speed of Things

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:48:57 +0100

[september 18, 2008] It was only after a while that it dawned upon me that she really thought that I was putting the tapes out there ...
But isn't that wonderful ?
Imagine me roaming city streets, carefully watching ... looking for suitable spots to drape strands of magnetic tape that I carry along in my bag ... around flowers, in fences, in gutters ...
Oh, it would be so much better ...

Psycho/Geo/Conflux in Brooklyn, NY __i

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:08:57 +0100

[september 16, 2008] While this year's edition of Conflux, the annual New York festival dedicated to contemporary psychogeography, just came to an end, here's me reporting on last year's edition, when I went foundtaping in Brooklyn, NY. I just finished "Found in Brooklyn, NY", which documents the 25 tape clods that I picked up there, and in this and following SoundBlog reports I will retrace my 2007 steps in sunny Williamsburg and elsewhere ... In this report: read about Sander Veenhof's "SL Walkie Talkie Walks", and the Shua Group's "Intersection Play" ... There's also a bit of ookoi-news ... So, do hop over now ...!

Found in Brooklyn, NY

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:45:25 +0100

[september 15, 2008] "Found in Brooklyn, NY" is the Found Tapes Exhibition's newest acquisition, the 87th. It documents the 25 cast-aways picked up in New York, between september 12th and 16th last year, as part of the 2007 edition of the Conflux festival. It turned out to be a fascinating lot: with mexican music and, of course, some pop, rock ... Somewhere along Wythe Avenue I came upon a very badly degraded bit of tape with parts from Jethro Tull's 'Aqualung' that somehow sound ... modified ... Also there's a tape from a telephone answering machine, a recorded lecture on something, readings in yiddish and much more. "Found in Brooklyn, NY" is the fifth in our series of limited fotex-editions on cassette. Get it from our online shop ...

Vicky in Berlin

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:25:57 +0100

[september 01, 2008] On sunday august 3rd, Vicky entered the Natural History Museum of Sound, as part of a four hour performance entitled "Throw away your radio, get a new one ...", by Adam Thomas, James Edmunds, Kim Laugs and Rinus van Alebeek. That was in O Tannenbaum, in Neukoeln, Berlin (Germany) ...

" Le chasseur " (foundtaping in brussels_ii)

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:55:57 +0100

[august 31, 2008] When outside foundtaping, I'm like a hunter... So go and watch "Le chasseur", a 4 minute u-Tube clip shot last year at Recyclart in Brussels. Its soundtrack is an extract of the trio performance we did out there with Jean-Jacques Duerinckx and Fabrizion Rota at the end of the "Tape It : Found Tapes" event, june last year ... Read about the tape I stole from a parked red Toyota, and the audio cassette guide for christian pilgrims, found in the Rue Blaes ... Then hurry over to the Found Tapes Exhibition on line store, to get your copy of "Found in Brussels" ...

Rags 'n' riches

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:25:57 +0100

[august 29, 2008] I got up-cycled and RFID-triggered at the brand new Mediamatic Bank in the Amsterdam Vijzelstraat, a street that for some reason I continue to associate with depression, wind and rain ... Watch me in a fine pair of sekppku pants, hand-tailored from formerly owned trousers drawn from a huge pile of rags provided by the Salvation Army. On the pile there was a sign: "Do not climb the mountain" ...

Spiegeltje, spiegeltje

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:45:57 +0100

[august 27, 2008 | sbpc/024] Hear Audio [ mp3 6MB ]
The star of the evening, on july 17th, 2008 at the parisian La Miroiterie was a mysterious black box, called RT.220 ME. Jean-Philippe found it in a dustbin on the parking-lot of a shopping mall in Marne-la-Vallee, where it had been crying out to him, like an abandoned child. Listen to this entry's podcast, and hear it chit-chatting along with us in the Miroiterie's yard ... Read about the Stig Noise Sound System (from Liverpool, UK) : "... some bands start to play, but Stig Noise exploded ..." ... Together with Rinus van Alebeek we were the final act, that memorable evening. Large parts felt like a freeze within the sound of a huge mirror at the precise moment of its 'smashing' ...

Trashing, un(un(un(educated

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 23:50:57 +0100

[august 23, 2008] Noise ... sometimes it is white, sometimes it is pink; it may be brown, speckled, crackled or thermal ... even chaos is noise! Or would that be the other way round? ... Some lines on Portable Noise Kremator's Uneducated Trashing, a very limited edition 8-track CDr, produced by the author of the Noiseblog, with the help of a cracklebox that he just bought and a couple of effects ...

Quirass Moet Je Horen !...

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:50:57 +0100

[august 20, 2008] Four years ago I wrote extensively about 'Quirass', the ... whatchamacallit? ...'teen-avantrock-band' me and a couple of friends did when we were at highschool in Maastricht (the Netherlands), in the early 1970s, as part of Splogman's '52 Weeks Project'. The article came with a CD-length selection of the original live-and-other recordings, that survived the tear and wear of decades. The 14 tracks now have been re-published by 'Maastricht Moet Je Horen', a website that reports on all aspects of 'life in the town of Maastricht', through sound: interviews, lectures, audio reports, music, etc ... Now including a downloable CD cover ... !

How to become an angel ...

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:05:57 +0100

[august 04, 2008] In order to ensure the Found Tapes Exhibition's continuing online existence, thanks for considering to sponsor the ongoing work by adopting one or more acquisitions, either individually, as an association or as an institution ...
You become a 'Found Tapes Angel' for as little as 25 euros ... !
(Read more to learn details on the what and how ...)

Michel Waisvisz' Song of Praise

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:45:57 +0100

[july 28, 2008 | sbpc/023] Hear Audio [ mp3 14.7MB ]
On the evening of this year's Bastille Day, in the small basement studio of the parisian Radio AligreFM, a ten (wo)men strong 'Cracklebox Orchestra' gathered to perform a Kraakdoos Sinfonietta: a tribute to Michel Waisvisz, the inventor of the cracklebox (and much more besides), who recently passed away. Listen to our Kraakdoos Sinfonietta in this entry's podcast ... In the article you find a link to the downloadable mp3-file of the complete special edition of 'Songs of Praise', dedicated to Waisvisz, with lots of unique audio documents, and including one other live tribute: members of the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, improvised in the program's finale from within Second Life, on the Patafone, a virtual instrument designed and built by Michel's avatar, Pata Mayo ...

Mind: the gap (Hommage a Nam Jun Paik)

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:45:57 +0100

[july 23, 2008 | sbpc/022] Hear Audio [ mp3 5.1MB ]
Musicians from the impromptu Ana-R chamber orchestra, in divers combinations, performed over the course of two separate evenings in june six times a parisian Sound CityScape, signed by the Korean artist Daily ... We used a flute, a toy piano, a Casio keyboard, an acoustic guitar and an ukulele on sunday june 15th at La Veilleuse; at the franco-korean Espace Han-Seine, on friday june 22nd, there were a double bass, a piano, and - again - Rebus's toy piano. I think I never ever before heard nor played anything as ephemeral.
" "... As ephemeral as the nightly view of a city from within an airplane flying high overhead. As ephemeral as the view of Paris from within a car that is speeding along its ring way ..."
Such was Daily's 'Hommage to Nam Jun Paik' ...

Diktat went double Swiss

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:35:57 +0100

[june 29, 2008 | sbpc/021] Hear Audio [ mp3 17.8MB ]
DIKTAT performed but twice over the last seven months or so. Twice that was in Paris, and twice we met a Swiss duo in concert. Late last autumn we played with BUG (Christian Bucher and Andreas Glauber) in La Comete (watch it on YouTube). And last month (hear a 20-minute extract in this entry's podcast) we met JEUDI (Benoit Moreau and John Menoud) in l'Ogresse, for the time of an intimate and concentrated two set performance. Then we mistook an egg box for a hat, and in the end went home with nothing but some change, and enough Mongolian Tugrik to buy us a couple of pieces of candy ...

"Sing laping, sing !" (foundtaping in brussels_i)

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:35:57 +0100

[june 18, 2008 | sbpc/020] Hear Audio [ mp3 15.4MB ]
Somewhat over a year ago, during my foundtaping event at _Recyclart_ in Brussels, Belgium, I watched a man picking up a cardboard box on the place du Jeu de Balle. The box was left behind there at the end of the daily flea market. When the man turned the box upside down, out came tumbling 16 cassette tapes. He took the box. I picked up the tapes. I found that they once belonged to Willy's husband. Willy and her hubby liked singmusic, and they liked birds. Hubby used the cassettes to record Willy's gramophone records. For this he put the microphone of his cassettetape machine next to their gramophone player's speaker. Not far away from both, there stood a birdcage. Inside of that case there was a shrieking singbird ... Whence, 16 full cassette tapes long, we hear Willy and her hubby's domestic bird squeaking along to the music ... Listen to all of it together in this entry's podcast ...

d_Revolution #2

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:45:57 +0100

[june 09, 2008] "Mechanical machines are bodies," writes dutch writer Dirk van Weelden in a recent blogpost. "They share with us humans, the tragic aspects of being a body." Dirk is, specifically, referring to typewriters ... For even though he keeps a blog, at heart Dirk is an analog writer. It is therefore that I rejoiced when discovering that recently he has begun to typecast his weblog ... "Fold 'm and fly 'm!" ... Or how to get trans-digital ...

Raudio Graffiti: almost live!

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:55:57 +0100

[june 06, 2008 | rpc/040] Here's all about ookoi's 'doing nothing' at the 2008 Maastricht Kunsttour ... See us sit on Pierre Paulin design furniture in a freshly re-decorated _Timmerfabriek_. Watch us drag the Radio Raudio Mobile along the city's cobblestones, live on the web. Hear us hit a white Baby Grand in _Landbouwbelang_, the Euregional center for autonomous and anti-commercial artistic activity. Amaze at fPcM's cranking a street organ in the gigantic _Eiffel building_ hall. Come along with us to check out what it is that is going on in Kaspar Koenig's _ArtSpace Rondeel_, Maastricht's next b i g art-thing ... and listen to an eclectic stream of more than seven and a half hours of Kunsttour sounds: from popular dutch to Sofia Gubaidulina, from street noise to backyard-rock, from beer to scotch, from sunshine to rain, from minutely composed to freely improvised, from circuit bent to organ ground ... This is Raudio Graffiti. This is almost radio. This is almost live ...

free lodgings, free food

Wed, 14 May 2008 21:15:57 +0100

[may 14, 2008] In Celeste Boursier-Mougenot's From here to ear some thirty small, but loud and boisterous, sing birds are kept in a wide and light room of a parisian gallery, thus turned aviary. Flitting around and perching on a number of horizontally supported electric guitars, each connected, via a 'big muff' distortion unit, to a stage amplifier, the guitar-birds make 'sweet, sweet music'. They get their free lodgings, drink and food in return. It's the way of the world. Elegant and simple ...

a new kind of water

Sun, 11 May 2008 13:35:57 +0100

[may 11, 2008] First: there's a giant blue Boeing tjif tjaf flying overhead, the silent un-sound of water and a police car rushing backwards along a forest path in 'Air, Earth, Water, Fire', six-and-a-half minutes of uTube with sounds and visions from our soundwalk in the Amsterdam Forest ... In Second all falls into place, in one more pretty uTube signed by Rebus: 'The Music Box' ... Third is about vibrations, which is the stuff that sounds are made of, and how with Jodi Rose we made a brand new passerelle across the Seine sing, on a funny sunny friday afternoon in april ... 'See me, feel me, touch me, steel me' ...

Saskatoon: a demain (tot morgen !)

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:55:57 +0100

[april 22, 2008] 'Tot Morgen (a demain)', a sound piece that I made for seven consecutive nights in Saskatoon, Canada, this week is webcast as the final of four contributions to Simulcast 1.0b: Saskatoon, a month-long audio transmission event curated by Emmanuel Madan ... In 'Tot morgen (a demain)' one chord sounds. It consists in two tritones that overlap each other by a semitone. It sounds 140 times forwards and 140 times backwards. The unlawful sequence of its soundings forms a sonic palindrome: it is identical to its time-reversal ... Were it not for the _flies_, the piece would have been 'time-less' ... 'Tot morgen (a demain)' bridges the gap that separates the beginning of a next day in Saskatoon from the end of a previous one ... it separates the end of a previous day from the beginning of a next . .. ... .. . "until, again, the roar of dawn" ... (In the first measure of Stockhausen's "Klavierstueck IX" the same chord is played 140 times in an evenly spaced decrescendo during 48 seconds.)

Mythical beasts, corsets and kites

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:35:57 +0100

[april 18, 2008 | sbpc/019] Hear Audio [ mp3 4.6MB ]
As a sonic environment for Yvonne Oerlemans' Mythical Beasts installation (to be visited still, daily until the end of the first week of may, in the Visitor's Center of the Amsterdamse Bos), I composed an hour-long soundtrack, endlessly repeating. It is called Where are you, Wolf ? ... On the occasion of the show's opening, on sunday march 2nd, we went for a walk to discover and record the sounds of this 'Amsterdam Forest': an isle of artificial green, cut in the middle by a busy highway like a pie by a chainsaw, enveloped in the continuous distant low-ish drone of busy life in the dutch capital, and whipped by the roar of airliners soaring onto the adjacent Schiphol airport every other minute or so ...

Dung, dung, dung, beetle, bone, bone, dung, dung

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:15:57 +0100

[april 14, 2008] In the Louvre's 39 galleries dedicated to paintings from the northern schools, the flemish artist Jan Fabre traced a meandering monodic path marked by many large but often transient and fragile looking objects built from thousands of iridescent dung beetle elytra, slices of bone and angel hair. A flamboyant, repetitive and obsessive mix of body fluids, angels, warriors and carnivorus insects, that is cartoonish, jubilant and profoundly optimistic ...

Resonant Cities

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:45:57 +0100

[april 04, 2008] As part of the 2004 Drift project at New Media Scotland, Robert King curated 'Resonant Cities', a series of themed audio webstreams, exploring the sonic identity of our surrounding space. The Remembered Journey, the Narrative Journey and Sonic Ghosts ... This 'addendum' is about the physical documentation of 'Resonant Cities', that appeared last summer, in the form of two audio CDs and a booklet. It is also about how diesel boat motors and horns on a Bangladesh river relate to a humming top turning on the floor of a Bayswater appartment ...

Boezem (suite)

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:15:57 +0100

[march 30, 2008] Thanks to Diktat's secret action in Breda on sunday september 30th, 2007 (that is, today precisely half a year ago), and the 'noise' we made, the city of Breda has assured Marinus Boezem that his 'Visual Sound Project' will be restaured and that soon his voice will sound again on the corner of the Academiesingel and the Willemstraat ...

Au clair de la lune

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:15:57 +0100

[march 30, 2008] "... if the air we breathe is the never-failing historian of the sentiments we have uttered, earth, air, and ocean, are the eternal witnesses of the acts we have done," Charles Babbage wrote in 1837 in his 'Ninth Bridgewater Treatise' ... So listen to the sound that was inscribed on a phonautogram made in France, in april 1860, and recently dug up from a parisian archive. Then read about ancient pottery recordings, and sound inscribed in paint stroked along an artist's canvas...

The Great Washing

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:35:57 +0100

[february 24, 2008] In search of a music that does not make sound ... about ookoi's l'Ecoute, 'Live Beyond the Paradiso' and the end of art ... about Olivier Vadrot's 'kiosque electronique' (a mobile placard), and the Brocante Sonore and Har$ performing chez Fukiko, a japanese hairdresser in Vincennes, France ...

Karlheinz's Song of Praise

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:35:57 +0100

[february 12, 2008 | sbpc/018] Hear Audio [ mp3 28.4MB ]
For a special tribute edition of Aligre FM's "Songs of Praise" I dug up the original audio cassette recording of an interview we did with Karlheinz Stockhausen more than twenty five years ago, in november 1982, at the time he was composing Samstag aus Licht and with family and friends/collaborators for a period of thirty five days 'occupied' the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (the Netherlands). This SoundBlog edition's podcast consists in a special 30 minutes 'Stockhausen on dictaphone' reportage around three large audio extracts taken from this historic recording, in which Stockhausen, among other things elaborates on the process of composing his thirteenth piano piece (Lucifer's Dream), on the nature of time, on pop music, on what's wrong with collage, and on the 'terrible decadence' of western culture, and western music in particular ... (Please respect this podcast audio file's attribution/non-commercial creative commons licence.) ...

Dead composers and a hairdresser (japanese)

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:55:57 +0100

[february 08, 2008] About our upcoming performance at a japanese salon de coiffure in the heart of Vincennes, about Avraamov's 'Symphony of Sirens' and about how I found a trace of the mysterious long lost pre-futurist 'Symphonie des Forces Mecaniques', written by the french composer Carol-Berard in 1908 (or 1910) ...

Songs of Praise: Kh. Stockhausen

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:55:57 +0100

[january 21, 2008] Tonight the parisian free radio Aligre FM's indispensable 'Songs of Praise' will pay a one and a half hour tribute to Kh. Stockhausen, who unexpectedly died of heart failure on the morning of december 5th, 2007. As SoP's special guest, I will bring extracts from the tape with an interview that we did with Karlheinz on november 24th, 1982, at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague (the Netherlands), play dictaphone field recordings from the summer courses in Kuerten, and invite SoP's staff to join me in a Vicky's Mosquitos (the text of which - as you might remember - has Kuerten and the Stockhausen courses as its setting ... Listen to Aligre FM at 93.1, between 19h30 and 21h, when you are in or around Paris ... check the radio's website to listen to the archived program afterwards ...

Restmuell

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:55:57 +0100

[january 06, 2008] Tapes found on a german Restmuell bin and elsewhere in Cologne, about a pretty poetic sort of inversion, a crown of thorns, a hanging cassette cemetery, fast-forward-ing your granny, and restauring found cassettes while zipping champagne at december's Dorkbot ... here's to a Happy New Year!

Kh Stockhausen (1928-2007)

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 11:55:57 +0100

[december 08, 2007] On dec. 5th, 2007, Karlheinz Stockhausen, after a short illness, passed away in his house in Kuerten, Germany. It was an unexpected message, and it caught me by surprise, on the evening of friday dec. 7th ... I felt sad for the music, but most of all for the passion that has gone with him. And no more summer courses in Kuerten! At least not with 'the master' ... I thought of Haus Hubertus, of professor doktor doktor, then of Vicky's Mosquitos, and the road curling down from the hill to the village's high school ... I turned over the leaves of the notebook that I kept the summers that I went there. Looked at the quick drawings that I made, the words, the question- and exclamation marks. Oh, it was easy ot make fun of Stockhausen! Here is the final entry in my notebook, made while assisting at his 2004 'Kompositions-Kurs' : ... and this here ... now this is very interesting ... have a look at page 14, please! ... this is where we flush the soprano down the toilet. This is completely new! I have never done this before. For the first time in the history of music, we flush a soprano down the toilet ...!"

... So here's to you, mr. Stockhausen ...!

I'm An Island

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:55:57 +0100

[december 04, 2007 | rpc/039] Bananas, a seagull, a funeral procession and a snow-white coffin, a golden sun rising, chasing sheep, standing with windmills and staring at windsocks ... ookoi were 'achterom' at Gallery Dit Eiland on the fine dutch isle of Ameland, where they reached upwards, upwards, always upwards, while being featured in the Archipel Medialab's 3rd Digital Suite ... "It is not easy to be an island. There is water all around you." Also: ookoi's new 16 track EP ('Live Beyond the Paradiso') will be released as part of PARK4DDD, a digital data dump to be had at Video Vortex.2, at the Netherlands Media Art Institute (Montevideo/Time Based Arts) in Amsterdam, between dec. 7th 2007 and feb. 03 2008. And: JAM KARET IV, a brandnew ookoi PocketMovie clip ...

All Hallows Trivia (ii)

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:15:57 +0100

[november 26, 2007] About a phonecall from Rob Scholte and 39 dutch names for marbles. How I became a member of the Andy Warhol Club, sneak pictured "Other Voices, Other Rooms" at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and way too much watched and listened to the Velvet Underground's "Symphony in Sound" from 1966. I then went to see Lou Reed's rather nondescript New York photographs in Rob Malasch's "Serieuze Zaken" gallery, only to buy a black bag with a yellow drawing of a cassette tape entitled "Music to Fuck and Fly" in the store next door. I took that bag to go shopping at Mediamatic's "El Hema" ...

All Hallows Trivia (i)

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:15:57 +0100

[november 8, 2007 | sbpc/017] Hear Audio [ mp3 11.6MB ]
About free improvisation and the art of wearing ties, Brooklyn, celebrating Wiel's birthday in Montevideo, a video impression of the Brocante Sonore from Brussels, and playing live sudoku's at the Agence XP placard in Paris XIV (podcast) ...

Diktat in Breda - 2. Boezem

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:15:57 +0100

[october 19, 2007] For half an hour Diktat squatted an abandoned piece of public sound art, on the corner of the Academiesingel and WIllemstraat in Breda. We secretly performed, but many questions remained unanswered. How was this 'open air sound cube' supposed to work? What sounds should one hear? Why is it no longer functioning? What is going to happen to this piece of 'art refuse'? Who is responsible? ... "A la recherche du Boezem perdu" ...

Diktat in Breda - 1. dutch angle

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:15:57 +0100

[october 14, 2007] Diktat went to the Netherlands to perform at the B-Movies, Underground and Trash Film Festival in Breda. The outing turned into a dazzling trip. Read all about snackbars and post-trash, about doctor Bibber and princess Maxima. Find out how dutch tolerance at heart is merely *apparent* acceptance of many_thing 'other', and actually covers up a deep-rooted xenophobia ...

New York @ 9/11

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 11:15:57 +0100

[september 25, 2007] Two weeks ago I took an early plane from Paris to New York. It may have been mere coincidence, but there were not very many with me on this particular 9/11 flight, apart from a large group of orthodox american jews that, as so many Jack-in-the-boxes, all the way kept on jumping up from their seats to lay tefillin ...

Diktat in De Haag

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:15:57 +0100

[september 20, 2007] Diktat went to The Hague, the Netherlands, to perform at a Tic-Tac feast in King-Kong, all part of the Ground 2 Festival ... with retro-early-1980's feelings, an interlude for 67 trucks and other assorted vehicles, a mysterious whitish powder and a secret performance on the Scheveningen beach ...

"leve ookoi !" - 3.

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 11:55:57 +0100

[september 04, 2007 | rpc/037] About Vicky's Tapemosphere at the Maastricht Kunsttour, and the Vogelvlucht / Downunder event of sunday may 27th, with contributions by Wiel's and students from the dutch Academy for Pop Culture (who were in Hollum, on the isle of Ameland), by ookoi (in the Art Garage in Maastricht), and from Xiamen, China, by Yariv Alter Fin, who last week unexpectedly and to great dismay of his many friends, students and colleagues, choose to end his life.

it hurts like a warehouse ...

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:55:57 +0100

[august 31, 2007] Blockhaus 1-3 ... Watch me sing and dance among, with and inside degraded german bunkers ... Three mobile field noise movies, here to mark five years of SoundBlog.

"leve ookoi !" - 2. OK. Let's Dance

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:55:57 +0100

[august 22, 2007] A l o n g entry, that is all about avatars ... about das kleine in Second Life, about HarS Hefferman dancing, Dresscode Avatar, Transponderfish's Transversalia, SL-art in general, love for one's virtual double, and how even ookoi went all SL-psychedecybercosmic at the opening of the Maastricht Kunsttour ... "And later that evening it rained cats and dogs..."

"leve ookoi !" - 1. Certified Reconditioned

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 23:55:57 +0100

[august 12, 2007] The first in a series of entries crammed with stories and obeservations on and around ookoi's residency as special invites of the Urban Myths New Media project, during the weekend of this year's Kunsttour in Maastricht, the Netherlands ... Now that's BIG ... ! Including dreams of Mick Jagger, a wooden cabin in the midst of Sologne woods, blackberries, fox pee and mushrooms ... Certified Reconditioned ...

Wash (Not Wash)

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 17:15:57 +0100

[july 16, 2007 | sbpc/016] Hear Audio [ mp3 8.8MB ]
Unlike Didier C., who on three consecutive evenings of collective cleansing at Montreuil's MACH'Inante transformed himself into a cloud, while driving along the french highway at 80 miles an hour and listening to Ornette Coleman playing, I suddenly - bljoeeppp! - disappeared ...

Back to Berlin, 3_iii ('dinges' - final)

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:15:57 +0100

[july 01, 2007] In this fifth and final entry about and around the second edition of das kleine field recordings festival that took place in Berlin in february of this year, we finalize 'Back to Berlin' (which is also the title of the 24/7 Raudio webstream with our Berlin recordings) and tell all about our own contributions to the festival ...

The Ministry of Silly Crackles

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:59:51 +0100

[june 23, 2007 | sbpc/015] Hear Audio [ mp3 3.3MB ]
"Je n'aime pas la musique contemporaine ..." We pulled our crackle boxes and started our noisy business, right on the doorstep of the french ministry of culture, which thus for some thirty, forty minutes became the Ministry of Silly Crackles ...

Mo' Better Mo-Tapemosphere

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:59:57 +0100

[june 16, 2007] On the first of april of this year I went from Berlin to Cologne, to spend some tape-finding time with three B-boyz's - Bela, Block and Balz - who had invited me to come over and participate in the ninth 'Tapemosphere' ... They chased away all my fear ...

Tin(g)tin(g) in Switzerland

Sun, 06 May 2007 15:59:51 +0100

[may 06, 2007 | sbpc/014] Hear Audio [ mp3 21.1MB ]
A curious country - A curious Jura hotel - A curious mark3t in Bern - A curious concert in Lausanne - A not so curious scheme for EAI ... But still: no tapes found in Switzerland, only a soother caught in Biel underwood ... (entry includes 20 minute podcast with extracts from our Lausanne performance (re-mastered)) ...

With a Dorkbot here and a Dorkbot there

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:59:57 +0100

[april 28, 2007] Two dorkbots on one and the same day: one in Mains d'Oeuvres, just north of Paris: it was the third parisian dorkbot (video impression by Rebus); the second one was SecondLife's second dorkbot, organised by Maximillian Nakamura. whom I met in Berlin, when he performed there with the Berlin Laptop Orchestra ...

Fluxissage

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:59:57 +0100

[april 25, 2007] A finissage in Friedrichshain ... with - maybe too? - many words on the sonanismo; long nights in Berlin, ever changing and dissolving as if in bergsonian flux; a Fifty-Fifty for fifty minutes of dictaphone field recording; and a look at Gunter Krueger's wonderful video film 'Magnetic {eye}': found tapes in Jerusalem, 2000 ....

Back to Berlin, 3_ii

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 14:59:57 +0100

[april 12, 2007] On feelt reek or dinges, second part ... About sound pictures and sound writings ... Schaeffer, Curgenven, Weiser, Riek and Momus (click the picture to enlarge) ... Tobias: inCorrect! ... and rauschpartikel's fridge.

Back to Berlin, 3_i

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:59:57 +0100

[april 08, 2007] On feelt reek or dinges. First part ...

Gentlemen, soundart and miniskirts

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 12:59:51 +0100

[march 25, 2007 | rpc/034] Tickets for Dolly Parton, and ookoi head-banging live with Meneer Jan on Radio Zwolle ...

Vicky, Killers and Avatars

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 22:59:51 +0100

[march 24, 2007] Between then and when, between here and there, ookoi appeared in de Waag Society Lounge in Amsterdam. And a 13th Vikcy's Mosquitos, live in SecondLife ...

Back to Berlin, 2.

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 22:59:51 +0100

[march 07, 2007] 'The risk of some random sleazebag serendipitously profiting from found tapes on the side of the highway is extremely remote ...' (John Oltsik, senior analyst)

Back to Berlin, 1.

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:59:51 +0100

[february 27, 2007] '!Do not open in broad light!', or 'bo tunty te... !', if one allows me to say so ...

Every Presentation is a Premiere

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 12:59:51 +0100

[february 15, 2007 | rpc/033] "All the King's horses and all the king's men" ... ookoi _press_en_ted its 1024 DVD in Arti, Amsterdam

Pop Fictions, by Dutch Masters

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:59:51 +0100

[february 13, 2007] Pulled from the depths of our archives, thanks to Mungbeing magazine ...

1024 Waarden, by ookoi

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 12:59:51 +0100

[january 25, 2007] With a click of your mouse you bring up a cloud, and every second one has you uncovering hidden connexions ...

Sound Souvenirs

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 19:59:51 +0100

[november 26, 2006] "But then maybe human memory really *is* a time machine? Farfetched as this may seem, it is one among other points views ... Ah, and I do find it wildly attractive!"

Cellarlar Heroes

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 17:59:51 +0100

[november 05, 2006 | rpc/030,031] perpetual music tracks __ celluloid __ cellular __ cellarlar ___ cellar hall __ paradiso, amsterdam __ tuesday october 10th, 2006 __ "we need rock 'n' roll!", part one; and part two __

jenny likes poets

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 01:36:51 +0100

[september 28, 2006] An RER train approached from the parisian direction of the track ... I looked at Jenny looking my way with a sudden sweet and sunny smile, that read "Jenny likes poets !" ...

shake your buddha-loop

Sat, 16 Sep 2006 23:36:51 +0100

[september 16, 2006 | sbpc/011] Hear Audio [ mp3 2.6MB ]
"Everyone can take part in Chanting for Peace in their home - just turn on the chanting player and chant along with it ..." Words, sounds and pictures ... all on FM3's transcultural Buddha Machine ...

the sound of almost-no-more words

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 23:36:51 +0100

[september 05, 2006] "Every minute, every day I think you, because I love you, love you, love you ..." This is what within and amidst the noise I heard she said. But few words, that were almost there no more. The sound of almost-no-more words ...

"le zida ne passera pas par moi ..."

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 12:36:51 +0100

[july 30, 2006 | sbpc/010] Hear Audio [ mp3 3.5MB ]
About zoom-recording and 'Match Vide', our live re-mix placard of the world cup final match between Italy and France, on sunday july 9th ...

de_tails of lite house keeping

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:36:51 +0100

[july 07, 2006] About Raudio's Havenland Lighthouse Placard, on sunday may 28th 2006 ...

hors temps (jam karet)

Sat, 06 May 2006 12:36:51 +0100

[may 06, 2006] Cosmodrone playing Hors d'Oeuvres and Orguanisation ... ookoi on Raudio #8 and live in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the Netherlands ... it's all jam karet, each in its own way ...

raudio@cosman's

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:36:51 +0100

[march 20, 2006] With a bag full of 1980s master tapes and a pile of scratchy vinyl records found in the streets here and there, on the morning of tuesday march 14th, we biked over to old mr. Okhuizen's booth on the Amsterdam Waterlooplein market, and used the equipment he has on sale there in an improvised one hour long open air audio mix.

ride, buggy, ride ! ...

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 16:36:51 +0100

[january 19, 2006] A swarm of jolly tape-o-bugs, or: how to breathe some soul into a Monster Happy Tape ...

axiology for dummies

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 16:36:51 +0100

[january 13, 2006 | sbpc/005] Hear Audio [ mp3 10.78MB ]
About statues stolen from a french country side church, about respect, about values, about an envelope with three thousand and seven hundred euros. And about Mix Ape's collection of tapes found in the streets of Providence, Rhode Island (199?-2004) ...

"In your ball, sir, I see fertility ...!"

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:36:51 +0100

[october 22, 2005 | sbpc/004] Hear Audio [ mp3 9.1MB ]
In the midst of crop circles, flying saucers in grainy black and white, green vintage alien dolls, women receiving messages and men with a mission, Cosmodrone surfed the planing waves of a vintage universe ... live at the 1st European Ufo Congress in Chalons-en-Champagne ... "Space is the Place!"

Aan Beethoven trekken ....

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 16:36:51 +0100

[sept 18, 2005 - for our Dutch readers] Over Leif Inge's '9 Beet Stretch'. In Cut-up Magazine (v3.0, issue #19)

Spiderman

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 16:36:51 +0100

[september 12, 2005] I went walking for a week, high up in the French Alpes. Amidst the fantastic sounds made by millions of bugs, Spiderman promised, he'd throw me a rope ...

tete-de-tettine/tete-de-cassette

Sun, 28 Aug 2005 16:36:51 +0100

[august 28, 2005 | sbpc/003] Hear Audio [ mp3 2.49MB ]
... 'nuf said ! ... this one's to watch ...