Acoustic Bogota

2006-04-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

Transmission

"Transmission" was the final exhibition for Ross Dalziel's Artist Residency at Universidad de los Andes supported by British Council, Arts Council England and El Ministerio de Cultura de Distrital Bogota. It was a temporary sound and video installation and performance at Parque Virgilio Barco following 2 other interventions in the City Centre.

It led to a solo show at Preston Art Gallery in Preston , UK in June - August 2006 which took the form of video documentation, a multi channel sound installation and intervention at Preston Market.

Transmission Video
Folklorico Sound System Event Video
The Conversation Intervention Video

The exhibition consisted of a PureData patch making random selections from the archive of recordings I've made over the 3 month residency and then making equally random decisions over which of the 4 channels to distribute the audio to.

In addition there were 2 monitors displaying video documents of my interventions in the city. Folklorico Sound System, where a truck drove a sound system down the Septima of Bogota.

The space at Virgilio Barco has the acoustic effect of a whispering gallery, audio from one end of the half circle of the amphitheatre travels exactly to the opposite side. With some positioning of the 4 mid to high frequency speakers meant the sound travelled over the entire space. The bass frequencies travelled equally well.

One of the nicest effects of the installation was that from time to time the patch decided to play nothing, which meant you tuned in to the sounds that were already happening in the space. This was usually the time when the public would be compelled to clap or shout to hear the acoustic effect.

I turned the installation on at about 1pm and then the band Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto performed their versions of Love Will Tear Us Apart

http://cheapjack.org.uk/bogota/Folkloricoweb.mov

Inti said something interesting about the sound system intervention, "Folklorico Sound System" . As it took place just after the Carnival/theatre festival it was like its status as a cultural event was almost negated. It provoked some responses but people seemed unsure of this status which I think was really interesting.

The idea was to somehow use sound through existing structures like the structure of the "folk " tradition of sound systems. This tradition is also one that takes place extensively in the countryside, so to bring this into play in an urban space caused another level of cultural play.

Of course the sound system tradition exists here in the city and has its links to structures of urban protest. To mix this with the apolitical nature of abstracted audio field recordings and the apolitical nature of the residency itself was also a nice irony.

Of course there is some political process at work in this project. The way one can use a city rather than make statements on it informed by your foreign outsider position is something I tried to explore. The success or failure of this is open to debate.

Love Will Tear Us Apart could be said to be making some kind of statement considering the performance at Virgilio Barco was on the anniversary of Gaitans death. It was also interesting in that the Biblioteca Virgilio Barco project is a utopic Parque "for the people".

The choice of song had this kind of reference maybe to past "troubles" of Colombia. More than that it was meant to be a song that was important to me personally when an adolescent in England and something I perceive as a folk and to offer it to interpretation and use the band as some kind of artwork was meant as a gesture of generosity somehow.

For me Folk is a creative process that exists outside of high culture or institutional processes. It has a DIY attitude and one that does not require formal or conventional education.

I wanted to make the installation (with its use of expensive USA laptop and PureData patch, classic high art/music materials) clash against this folk creativity and interpretation and make it become part of my study of the topology of the city though sound.

The generosity I mention is to do with this clash, allowing the installation to be infected and taken over by the band. When they finally finished to be left with the sound travelling around the space and the natural acoustics was really powerful.

Somehow the experience of the installation worked better after the band had finished. As if the band somehow framed it and embedded it into the city. This could well be only my experience, but after the party atmosphere generated by the band the installation settled in.

It was as if the PureData high aesthetics had been invited into a living room where it could relax and the audience with it and just listen without trying to decipher the "artwork".

The band and their interpretation of the material I gave them and my interpretation of the city was a nice relationship and helped me feel I had engaged somehow. It had become impossible to think I "knew" bogota but I had explored some parts of it and I hope the works reflected this in some way.

For me this residency was a fantastic opportunity to explore ways of using sound and a city. Playfulness is something I love and think is important in this kind of work with the city.

"No language just sound, That's all we need know"

2006-04-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

Tango in the night

Performing cover version of Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division by Grupo Los Currarros.

Many thanks to Eloy, Wilhelm et al! Fantastic musicians who will be playing live at the exhibition.

Listen to their remix here Love Will Tear Us Apart

Sound System was a success! Many strange looks, and some thumbs up and some thumbs down, an interesting experiment I think! Think we needed more people to join me on the truck and maybe more of a party atmosphere. But I did like the low key intervention style... Was it part of the festival or just some people...

Will post in more detail sooon need to prepare for exhibition:

PARQUE VIRGILIO BARCO
LAGO CEREMONIAL
CIRQUE PARQUE SIMON BOLIVAR
DOMINGO 9 ABRIL
1PM-4PM
INSTALACION Y EL GRUPO LOS CURRARROS

Thanks to everyone for their help!

2006-03-29T15:12:00.000-08:00

EVENTO SONIDO
Evento de Sonido
El sonido de la ciudad de Bogotá; folk arquitectura
Desde la septima con Plaza de Bolivar hasta El Planetario
Punto de encuentro Plaza Bolivar 2pm - 4pm
Domingo 2 Abril 2006

Well I could call out when the going gets tough.
The things that we’ve learnt are no longer enough.
No language, just sound, that's all we need know
to synchronize love to the beat of the show

2006-03-27T12:55:00.000-08:00

Evento Sonido
El Septima
Salir Plaza Bolivar a 1pm ir a El Planetario a 3pm
4pm FIN

El evento Sonido is looming.
Preperations in progress... Unfortunately we cant use the band on the street too many permits required at this stage. Although not ideal we can record the band playing a traditional arrangement of Joy Divisions Love Will Tear Us Apart and still play through the truck sound system.

Experimented with Laura's factory recordings to make a Reich style drone using gateing.

The Machine Sings

2006-03-21T07:54:00.000-08:00

Exiled On Main Street

Made an experiment in recreating the first scene of "The Conversation"

The Conversation Experiment

Well it worked very well with thanks to Vivian's camera work. But thanks to all for being patient with my idea!

There was some confusion as to the route to walk but that was to do with me not making a specific route, or being clear enough, but wanted some casuallness to the direction of the 2 actors...

Next time we need walkie talkies to communicate and a more specific route that the actors walk to We also had technical problems with the radio mics... Also I will mic up the 2 actors, even the original film didnt use just the "secret" mics.

Of course the "secret" recording mics could not really pick up the conversation, and I knew that would happen, but I wanted it to make us think about the public and private sonic spaces even in the busiest crowd in a city.

I think even looking at a rush edit there is further potential in the idea; it may be nice to use the video to 'frame' the sound in some way, along with the video documentary of the Sound Event and walk on El Septima SABADO 1 ABRIL 2006 so I am going to consider spending more time on what I originally wanted to use as short study or exercise...

So perhaps a friend, video artist Carlos will help with this using a canon camera and tripod....

In terms of the final installation I have changed location from some underground spaces in the films location at Avenue Jimenez y el Septima, to the Biblioteca Virgilio Barco. Its an easy place to get to and the site is a circular amphitheatre that is effectively a whispering gallery. Its also protected from the weather and a nice publicly accessible space.

The strange acoustics may do something interesting to the PD run 4 channel installation....

2006-03-10T15:17:00.000-08:00

"Entropy, culturally superelevated"
"Entropie, kulturell überhöht"

Irma M. Hinghofer-Szalskay, PHd

Acrylic / mixed media on canvas. Approx. 35" x 35"
Acryl-Mischtechnik auf Leinwand, 90 x 90 cm
Musik: Wind riders / Native American Flute Composition; Schubert / Piano Sonatas in A minor,D.784 in D major

Gestural Entropy, Hampstead Heath to Brazil to Military Bands

Inti Guerrero referred to an idea of "gestures of entropy" video link (copyright Inti Guerrero) within the city. In his video work he follows a group of people struggling down a hill side to get to a modernistic architetural structure that is the Brasilian congress...

I think this is a great way to respond to a city. The idea of a city's architecture being in constant flux beyond the planning of larger civic structures. Re use or misuse of spaces particularly interest me... from skateboarders to homeless people to cutting simple steps into a grass embankment because public initiated flow has made it happen, beyond the architects plans.

This all leads me back to an unfinished work, Blowing Up a reedit of Antonioni's "Blow Up" where a photographer is drawn to the entropy of London through witnessing a murder, early garage punk ending in a kind of absurd gestural pantomine...

These gestures of entropy (a perfect term Inti! mucho credit to you) point to another emergent architecture that takes place in the city. Its like an additional topography of the city that is emergent and more DIY orientated, and less to do with the authority of architecture proper.

Architects like Will Alsop seem to anticipate and revel in this entropic process, and tend to allow it to happen or even set frameworks for it and that is fascinating. (The cloud being a big loss for Liverpool I think...ah well).

Please forgive me if my project seems to be down on architecture. Its authority is of course grounded in importance and of course I like great innovative brutalist structures as much as the next hombre, but I think in terms of my research here I am trying to work out responses that do not repeat or attempt to ape architectural practice.

Do these entropic processes signify a problem...

Of course I have limited knowledge of architectural process and in many ways am making lay responses from the angle of artistic pracitces...

In many ways there is a result right there. I have found my research path has led me not to direct collaboration with architectural practice but in finding responses to perceived practices and just physically being in a different architectural space than Liverpool.

To interact and collaborate directly with an architect is I suppose the next step, but I think the path I have taken now, an almost entropic map of a city (this is not yet fully realised) 'in use' has value particularly in terms of any future work with respect to the city and Awareness of Sound. My instinct draws me to the natural hybridization of musics and their contexts and reproductions: thinking of these gestures of entropy through musics...

I now want to use a military band as a sound mechanism. There is no intention of approaching the military politics of Colombia, thats a whole other residency... though of course this kind of reading seeps through. I want to use it because a band like that is in a position of authoritive use of the city perhaps disrupted by them playing songs like Paint it Black some kind of entropy in a static model of authority... Of course pop music has its own topography of authority. Mick Jagger and Mariah are allowed on the airwaves but perhaps funky carioca (see Walter Benjamin made my Booty Bounce) is more entropic and more like pirate radio.

It follows also with the idea of using existing city sound sources (not a constructed soundscape) and processes and not imposing my own compositional authority. Of course I am doing this anyway but maybe looking at how to play with that, I hope...

Mapping the entropic topography... how in sound....

2006-03-07T14:37:00.000-08:00

International Symposium For the Study of Criollisation

Walter Benjamin Made My Booty Bounce

2006-03-07T13:02:00.000-08:00

Artist and the City, news, emerging thoughts, perspectives and practice

Went with class "The Artist and The City" to the Colpatria building, the highest building in the city. We made recordings from various points, avoiding the air conditioning units...

Of course your sense of perspective with sound works differently than that of the visual. In photography we naturally understand and construct perspective from a 2D image but with sound perspecive works differently.

The familiar sub bajo roar of a city works almost like background radiation. Unlike in image, information from a distance does not infect the foreground, we distinguish easily between objects. With sound low frequencies travel further and in a non directional way and so it is as if the far distance, which would not be visible within a photographic frame, is present even amongst foreground sounds.

Of course this is apparent when you begin recording with a wide dynamic range, the bass frequencies from far away are not removed by our perception.

Had very interesting talk with Andrés and Alejandro about how my projects sound event could work.

Think there should be a strong interactive element in the sense of playing sound to non art audiences in the city. Perhaps some kind of live sampling of voice at particular truck stops and play sites around the city.

I think some element of recognising your own city and particular things from some kind of new angle is important...

"drift"

Wonder to the true value of this mapping and understanding the city. And also wonder about approaches. My initial approach to the basic idea of a soundscape seems a little cold now: i think I have to play between generic recognisable city noise and particular microscopic experiential sounds.

The project has evolves into research into how sound art practice can interact with a city and into city/urban based artistic practice in general. There is no direct interaction or collaboration with architectural practice in my project, but collaboration with other artistic practice in Bogota that is informed by architecture and urban planning issues.

I cannot stress more the importance of being able to discuss my work with other artists here; Talking with Alejandro, who shared my lecture space at Los Andes, Andrés and Anna led me to think about the importance of the interaction angle, so the truck tour of the city will be stopping at key sites. Once stopped I hope to gather a crowd of people to listen...

Anna also reminded me of the importance of being a tourist it removes the normal routine that you follow in space dictated by work etc wherever you live you are free to drift and explore and experience differently. I like that I will not really be able to make some sort of detailed empirical map instead it is some kind of intuitive map of place and sound

A particular example is that this blog and my sound maps are now part of Jaime Iregui's El Observatario project.

There is definate dialogues going on and I hope will be ongoing. How an artist like me defines a map (some kind of hybrid sociological experiential mapping) and how an architect would; and looking into the value of these different forms of mapping. I am suspicious of how sound mapping ie making recordings of time and place itself can be given an assumed artistic value due to it's relative obscurity.

Of course it is not really that obscure; Murray Shaeffer, the acoustic ecology movement; there is a rich history of this kind of mapping in urban centres, with a major work by Mauricio Bogota soundscape project.

My take is to use an idea of mapping as only an exercise in thinking of a city. From that starting point I feel I need to make some sort of physical or contextual affect on something (like live sound events, driving through the citys traffic system, an exhibition in a temporary building, using a military marching band) to avoid the way sound becomes so easily conceptualised as non physical and abstracted from the environment through recording.

This can happen in general installation practice with speakers hidden away, cables tidied, CD walkmans, and the recent format of CDs and MP3s making the sound work dissappear into ideas of "the virtual".

In many ways thinking of oneself as a sound artist is a problem in itself; one can be caught in the process of recording in the obsessive capturing of sound

My initial response is to take sounds and manipulate them in an intuitive musical way; to follow the concept of situationist/architecural drift from the work of Constant Nieuwenhuys except drift in terms of experimentation, drifting through resonances and plug ins...

and then for me the key is what to do with this result? I liked Pedro Gomez Egana's description of a kind of generosity in the practice, presentation or performance if you like of music or sound or material. You embed your result somewhere in space or context or community. For example a performance of Harmonica is not a multichannel layering of harmonica tones played acousmatically, but friends and colleagues wander a space playing nieve harmonica tones this seems more generous to an audience than making them sit and listen to an electroacoustic performance. This of course has its own importance and validity I am not critcising that kind of compositional practice per se, but in terms of my work here this 'genorisity' is important.

Maybe even my manipulation of sound will fall away here; the manipulation will be in the presentation. In the way my recordings are played back into the city to interact with the live soundscape I will have little or no control of.

Overview of Residency Exhibition

Exhibition

Exhibition in temporary site of multi channel sound installation. Chaotic system in Pure Data will move sound and samples made during the residency through the channels and so the space.
Documentation in video of "The Conversation" exercise
Documentation of local marching band playing pop music
Documentation of truck, cars and people replaying the collected sounds into the city

Evento Sonido

Truck travels through route of the city with sound system distributing samples of the city back in to the city. Its chaotic distribution (to parrallel the installation PureData process) controlled by traffic flow.
Truck makes 2 stops on its routes.
I will be on the back of the truck mixing audio live.
Independent cars and people playback audio material on CD, and hand out CDs to public.
A marching band follow truck route the following day, domingo. They will play tracks that have some kind of cultural reference

Preston

The title Acousmatic spaces which I used in my funding application for an exhibition in Preston informed by my research here is intentionally misleading to some extent; my work is the opposite of acousmatic or 'behind a screen' as i think the translation is from the original Greek. Please correct me on this any linguists out there.

However it is to do with deconstructing an acousmatic performance into a city space.

In Preston there is a Foucaults pendulum that will represent an early sense of a places relationship to the rest of the world geographically, physically and a reference to an empirical description of space an early global mapping system. The pendulum will modulate sound material in some way using an acceloremeter placed discreetly on the pendulum.

Then there is an opportunity for some interesting transfer of material and process. I now think I will drive through a route in preston playing sound from Bogota: the same samples will now use the Preston city 'machine' to generate some kind of interaction. Or perhaps only the process will be transferred.

My plan to use a marching band in Colombia playing music like ¨Paint It Black" and "Inspector Gadget" alongside the truck with its manipulated soundscapes, with all its strange contextual play can also be transferred. This time a Preston based band can play south american pop like Reggaeton.

I'll paint it black next time Gadget

My friend Mauricio a philosopher at Los Andes was reading Walter Benjamin the other day and I was reminded of his Arcades project and its importance to this kind of exploration of a contemporary city that existing contemporary structures like the shopping streets below the septima, are like some kind of site for how a city and a society may work. My reference to this is rather wooly however.

I am reminded of maybe the kind of practice of UK artists like Becky Shaw or Jeremy Deller or Janet Cardiff; their process makes some kind of interplay with the world it does not become an audio CD or virtual product only: it is sited in some kind of constructed context or one that already exists outside the art world. I guess this is the interaction I am thinking of. My take is to have exercises in thinking of a city space and from there try to use the city structures and topogrpahy that exist already to distribute my artistic 'results'

In many ways mapping and then contextual play is the key to this kind of exploring a city through practice

I liked the map Deller did for his Turner prize exhibition last year; it was like a thinking map or flow chart of where all his projects are coming from or are going to...

Inti Guerror's, (a friend at Los Andes) interest in topographies is a good example of approach. He initially wanted to explore recently updated security systems of Los Andes and had the idea of presenting the live radio conversations between security guards at varied geographical points. So we have a sound installation at hand. Perhaps I will link to some of Inti's writing on the project here for accuracy's sake. But allow me to use my perspective on the project.

Then his instincts drew him back to a non art object the security staff make at the security stations, stickers that show you have legal access to the University are often handed back to staff on leaving, where they are stuck together into a small ball or cube that over several weeks become large football sized objects made entirely of the constructed identity of valid access, the identity of non terrorists....

What the final outcome of his project may be we shall see...

What is interesting in relation to what I want to do here is that an embedded non-art practice (into a community like the security staff) can be used as some kind of signifier for the areas the artist is exploring.

Thats why the marching band (after recording one last week, see link above) is perfect. I want them to play songs you might think unusual like "Paint It Black" by the Stones. But this is no artistic intervention like Jeremy Dellers Acid Brass but there is a tradition of playing pop arrangements to these bands here. Of course I will be making some intervention just by communicating with them.

First reactions again

I think initially I imagined some kind of abstracted and largely empirical form of sound map and I had looked into using database and mapping software used by acousticians. I imagined borrowing some kind of scientific process from acoustics engineering sound pollution related practice and then making artistic decisions from that point.

However my practice has only borrowed this engineering or empirical based approach as something to inform what I am doing rather than attempting some kind of scientific or statistical approach.

The residency has instead involved me building relationships between artists in Bogota who interact with the city in some way and many who share an interest in cross discipline practice. Their artistic practice is informed by architecture and in turn

My web based maps are a reflection of that simplistic almost lego mapping approach to visualising the city but I now want my maps to be mapping a more vague terrain. A vague topography of sonic terrain and layers to the city...

Site for writing on architecture practice meeting artistic practice.

Tanque Del Silencio

Thanks to Carlos for taking me up there for some contemplation on the city, the sublime and Reggaeton. Also was interesting to see some Columbians nearly arrested for taking pictures of a giant map sculpture of their own country...

Interesting link on public art

2006-02-27T09:20:00.001-08:00

Harps and missed tracks

Met up with Pedro last week was very useful. He reminded me that perhaps there is not so much left to do in terms of experimentation in music but there is still much space to play with context...

He is working on a really interesting piece for harp, which I have always been drawn to. I think it just seems so un rock 'n roll that its kind of punk rock.... if you understand what I mean

Been well into it since I saw a scene in the film "The Haunting" (Dir. Robert Wise 1963)
where a harp plays itself periodically alluding to the ghosts in the film and aeolian harps, structures that resonate in the wind to make a kind of music...

Have really been interested in the harp since seeing Joanna Newsom at the Green Man Festival in Wales in UK. There was an amazing natural reverb caused by the hills behind the site. Was amazing to here harp and voice with 2000 people in total silence...

The Harp here is from the music of the plains so not native of Bogata but Im still into an idea of using it with PD and in 8 channels somehow. I was reminded of it watching TV in Bogata where there are Harp classes on TV!

I am thinking to use the recordings of the city as material that informs the finished work rather than using them directly or a combination perhaps. The gallery part of the final work could be a more musical thing or using specific sounds seperated from the city sound field.

I am thinking of distributing 'clean' recordings of instrumentation or voice back into the city (using cars, trucks and pedestrians) and then recording them again as part of the documentation of the event.

Also had fun trying to record music with Daniel Prieto. He has something in a show called BZZZZZZZ at Fundación Cuarto Nivel Arte Contemporáneo on Jueves at 7PM.

music in bars

Have been experimenting with PD and using random number generators with a panning patch of Daniel's. Am starting to understand PD more than SuperCollider. Its almost identical to MAX/MSP so doesnt take long to start making noises.

Helped out with Andrés at BOGOTRAX where he was showing some Open Source Software. I briefly showed some examples of SuperCollider and PD but forgot to mention Audacity which is a brilliant and useful sound editor. My main example on Supercollider failed however which made me rush through everything...

Were some great lectures there really enjoyed it, a very creative atmosphere.
Unfortunately missed the end of the festival on Sabado. Was ill all weekend, something I ate I think, so missed the final party...sounded fantastic with 60 tents of music outside the city...

Lecture tonight, everything ready. Showing past work and how it has led to the work I am doing here. In some respects my work with the city seems more abstracted... It may be to do with me not using the moving image much anymore? Just sound abstracts things almost immeadiately. I want to try and have a really abstracted part of my work combined with something very human and interactive in some way... maybe the TV channel with Harps could be incorporated in some way.

This relates to what my friend Inti Guerrero is working on at the moment with the idea of radio waves being another topology of the city in addition to political, sonic, physical and social topographies that make up a landscape urban or otherwise...

2006-02-16T11:27:00.000-08:00

Mo' money
mo' problems

Something I liked last night:
Harmonica by Pedro Gomez-Egana at the Watts show, Centro Colomba Americano

Had an interesting chat with someone last night at Centro Colomba Americano about the problems of artists working with the city.

I think he was talking about how certain approaches enforce a kind of imperialism or authority by an artist making a statement about some aspect of a city, or indeed trying to "help" or "improve" something they perceive as bad in a city.

I am trying to avoid this kind of approach and certainly avoid references to what Colombia is infamous for. I am interested in something that is more like using the city as a conduit or machine or organism for generating work and in my case sound. This sounds overly abstracted but I mean it in a more warm human way.

In the process of learning about the city machine or organism through meeting and working with people who have their own relationships with the city then there is potential for discovering and exploring the city and not making statements about it.

This project is a research residency so it is about me learning something and developing some work...

I wonder how my idea of literally using the city as an instrument with cars buses and trucks re distributing sound really works in the sense of this relationship between artist and city...

I dont want to say hey this is what the sound of Bogota is... so what? Everyone has ears to hear the sounds unmediated by an artist... I want to make the work be a byproduct of making some exploration of place...process, process I guess.

It is also not meant to be a statement on street art, the idea is by no means "street" nor does it represent "a street culture"...It is of course an old idea but then I want the idea just to be the tool to explore the city in some way...

Very useful meeting with Daniel Prieto here. He is using the Murray Shaefer
book Tuning of the World in his teaching at los Andes (not to be confused with Pierre Schaeffer of Musique Concrete fame).

Next week we will go out recording to some new places. Very interesting guy. Does work with sensors and sound and mutimedia. Am getting into some PD

Supercollider is proving pretty hard for someone new to OOP (Object Orientated Programming). Will keep at it but PD may prove to be faster to get the installation to work in time for April.

2006-02-14T14:07:00.000-08:00

Supercollider VS Flat bed truck

On thursday 9th met some good people outside Galeria Valenzuela & Klenner
where i saw a show by Phil Niblock and Katherine Liberovskaya.

Hola Javier Navarro, Juan C Guerrero, Leonadrdo Castellanos and Julio (?my poor spanish and memory I have forgotten your name amigo!). Hope to maybe work with Javier in some way while Im here.

They took me to their artist spaces at MapaTeatro Cr.7 #23-08. Interesting show there on Friday 17th and an amazing space to work in.

Going back to the Galeria V & K, some nice footage used but the subtleties of the sound were lost in the totally reflective space. Had great power though; the sound would bounce around everywhere. Definately worth a look.

That place and the MAPA space would be great sites for the multichannel installation I am working on.

Also met up with Miller Lagos who has a show on Jueves at 12, his work is great. He did a brilliant piece (I think a long time ago now) in the Place Bolivar where he made a pre Colombian image out of bread and rice and seeds and then slowly the pidgeons of the square ate the image away. Recent work are sculptures of balloons made of concrete...Thanks for being my tour guide Miller!

At the moment I am trying to use Supercollider to distribute sound (originating from city field recordings) across a number of channels with some sort of chaotic system to parallel the way the sounds of a city are distributed in reality:

This would make up an installation at a few sites in the city and would be the "gallery" environment.

Then another physical system would distribute processed sound back into the city; a number of cars or taxis with stereos on loud would play sound on CD or Tape BACK into the city while on the move. A flat bed truck could navigate paths relating to the recordings and soundmaps made during my residency; it could also host other artists to collaborate with me and have a soundsystem I could use in a live mix. All this physical distribution would be documented and presented in some of the static locations with the Supercollider based system

Here is a mockup of a soundmap, with some recent recordings I made with Jaime Iregui.

soundmap1

Its a bit slow at the moment. Click on the little buttons which represent recording locations and wait for the audio to stream while the mouse flashes; can take 1 minute or more before you hear anything. Then click a few times on another button to get that working. You need broadband internet and stereo headphones help.

2006-02-09T13:24:00.000-08:00

Had an interesting talk with Juan Fernando Herrán today. We talked about me presenting some work to link with the site specific part of his installation programme.

He borrowed "The Conversation" a film by Coppola and Walter Murch from 1974.
Alot of my work has been influenced by film in a way; I am an unusual watcher of films. I hardly go to the cinema but accumulate films that become an obsession... then of course pick up bad films from tv along the way

Films like Gummo (Harmony Korine, 1997), Solaris (Tarkovsky,1972) The Conversation ( Coppola/Murch 1974), The Blow Up (Antonioni, 1966), Barry Lyndon (Kubrick 1975) seem to have got stuck in my brain and filter into my work.

Tarkovsky´s Solaris, seeped into my exhibition Cheapjack! (Artist residency about Chemical Factories in Widnes my home town in the UK) its exploration of humanity and memory really resonated with the exhibition subject... the soundtrack was sampled in video and sound works with one sequence from the film referenced and reconstructed with local people....

The Conversation is the latest to have got stuck in my memory; a surveillance expert pieces together a couples private conversation in a busy park in the city.

It is interesting in that it is the first film to really explore the concept of digital audio (although in a way that gives it a super-nerd glamour which has kind of stuck). At the time digital encoding was a research project and far from its domestic invasion we are so used to today. Editor Walter Murch used an ARP synthesiser (now a vintage instrument like anything by the late Bob Moog) to scramble voices into what he imagined a digital encoding might sound like...

It is always fascinating to see the present from the imagination of the past... I see the film as about the construction of meanings through sound and space and relevant to my work here.

Juan and I talked a bit about the nature of site specific work and found sounds/objects... I showed him a film about Gelatin I found in the chemical factory where I was artist in residence and placed it in the present day factory... that when you use film or soundtracks as found objects then you are released from the burden of recording or constructing them. They are there as readymades. From then on the rest is contextual play and representation perhaps...

I am interested in using sound in some way that does not necessarily involve recording and constructing things digitally; these things of course can be part of the work and process but perhaps not the whole thing... perhaps the tools to lead somewhere else...

The other day Inti pointed out a building that was part modernist part hybrid fake terracotta referencing colonial styles and selling paella... The way the building could sit anywhere but would affect the context of its place...

It is tricky to find something that then interacts with different contexts... I am unsure if the video does that... or how to use The Conversation in some way... obviously there are some resonances with the independent security culture of Colombia but perhaps these are too certain... I have always been attracted to recreating the opening scene of The Conversation to actually do some audio surveillance on other actors in a square in a city though I am not sure how it would work as an artwork or unclear of what kind of contexts it could work in.

Its an intuition thing.... whether it should work in Bogota and in Liverpool who knows. It is tricky as I do not want to make a film but recreate the scenes process and then what to do...

2006-02-07T13:31:00.000-08:00

On Friday night I went to a show by Wilson Diaz with Inti & Maya Guerrero and Danillo Valpato. I had seen Wilson´s work at the last Liverpool Bienniale in the Independant. Weirdly the work was about the problems English/Liverpool galleries had with his work and how he ate cocoa plant seeds in order to bring them over..¡ Anyone who could describe the show better and more accurately please add a comment. This description doesnt do his work justice so apologies!

Was a great show and like his work alot. He performed with a group of musicians which you can see and hear below: the lyrics were about his work and gallery systems I think.

Wilson Diaz Song Video (lofi)
Wilson Disz Song Audio (lofi)

Monday had lunch with Liliana from Ministerio di Cultura and went in search of a memory card...Was useful to discuss my work and others before I do a lecture on my work at the Universidad.

Had an idea yesterday about how and where to exhibit work...

Making little interactive sound maps will be a starting point but thought it might be interesting to exhibit a sound work on the back of a truck and drive it round the routes made on the maps... Maybe even a mini carnival with people following the truck through the streets. Was thinking about compositions like Beach Singularity by Trevor Wishart, a composition for on the beach

2006-02-03T13:20:00.001-08:00

A short day for me

Had un poco clasa dÉspagnôl mañana then a long lunch so not much work today.
Only some admin for projects en Inglès. Also some practice with Flash for the interacitve mapa I will make with Jaime Iregui.

I think I am very lucky to have some time with Jaime here and all the other artists Ive met so far...

Saw a temporary video work, a tribute to the late Nam June Paik. Very nice to see some video arte a reference to Nam´s ¨Good Morning Mr Orwell¨ By Inti Guerrero and Maya Guerrero

Apologies for the poor image of their work I am using a mobile phone camera! Inti will post me a video clip which I will link to here soon...

Later I will see some more work at the Universidad... mucho arte!

2006-02-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

Preperations for Recording
Have been testing my audio file recorder: works pretty well, but had some problems with the flash card. Have recorded basic walking sound of my route to the university.

There is a nice point away from noise of students near the Music Labs overlooking the city Ive rocorded it at 11.30 and then I will record later: it is especially good at dusk when the building work stops and the city begins to change into night...

Day Recording overlooking builing site

Just getting ready to do some recording of the city next week with Jaime Iregui. Perhaps we should both take recorders and mics of different kinds. Will check with Suzannah who is in charge of equipment.

Went to a gig with Maria and Andreas at Mauricios EJE Records/Shop/Bar
Only watched the local support band and had to get back...Sorry Mauricio, missed the main band from Venezuala. My first introduction to the music scene of Bogota. Like Liverpool there is a reaction to electronic/house music Bogota is known for and so EJE have many new Live bands... Great place and very nice people

Looking forward to BOGOTRAX 2006 though: much good exciting stuff. Reminds me of the Hive Collective in Liverpool. Could imagine a music cultural exchange similar to what I am doing here but more in a festival type context. Know people in Liverpool like SoundNetwork, Globalgoon and HIVE that Im sure would be into this city...something to think about...

Was amazing to see the city at night from the hills, with a tower block covered with changing(?)coloured lights... like a giant graphic equalizer!

2006-02-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

Artists, Designers and the City: Awareness of Sound Background

The Urban Design Group had their annual conference at CUBE gallery in Manchester
in November 2004

Artist Daniel Barrett (aka Nunatak) organised an event where conference delegates on guided architectural and urban design led tours of Manchester recorded sound with lofi dictaphones as a way of exploring the various sites. These recordings were given to 5 sound artists working locally including myself. That night these recordings were transformed into new sound works on the theme of exploring urban space and played back to the conference. Finally a day later the 5 artists completed an improvised performance at ARUP UK Gallery in Manchester

This became the first event for Awareness of Sound, Ross Dalziel and Daniel Barrett's research group to find dialogue and collaboration between sound based art practice and acoustics, architecture and design.

Ross' work at Universidad de Los Andes will add to this research substantially before the next AOS event, Carbon Sink Workshops in Berlin in May (to be confirmed).

Heres the audio from my processing of delegates sounds from the first Awareness of Sound event.

I placed the delegate recording within a recording of the ambience of an Urban Splash development in Manchester between a canal and distant railtrack at 6pm

http://www.cheapjack.org.uk/Back Splash.mp3

2006-02-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Blog for artist Ross Dalziel's residency at Universidad de los Andes

I have now been here for a week and am finally settling in I think and slowly getting to know the University and the City.

My Residency aims to find ways for sound based art practice to interact, collaborate and cross with Acoustics, Architecture and Urban Design.

Bogota is turning out to be a fascinating site when thinking about the dynamics and design of a city. I have been reading some books on Constant Nieuwenhuys work and the Situationist idea of drift via a lecturer here Andreas Burbano.

In many ways its almost as if Constant's drift and urban design is already made real in Bogata. Indeed many cities may follow this. You could think of all the overlayered drifting changing structures of Constant as not just physical structures, but economical, sociological and historical: many of these structures change overlap and shift in a contemporary city.

This is how I am approaching architecture, but using sound as some kind of modelling or thinking tool instead of drawings or physical models
I intend not to just record and process sound in a anthropological way or to say this is the sound of the city, or to simply map
sound locations. I hope to work out how sound can be used to understand a city or a place.

I met yesterday with Jaime Iregui a fascinating well known Bogota artist and talked about this and showed him some recent work, particularly my Awareness of Sound work. He's taking me on a tour round some sites in Bogota and I will record 'slices' of sound and produce some kind of interactive sound map. This will be a starting point for my work here and a way of introducing myself to students and lecturers at the University.

Jaime talked of thinking about sites in the city as contrasting clusters. I was reminded of the use of tonal or microtonal clusters in composition: a way of approaching whatever sound works I will make at the end of the residency.

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Possible style of interactive map.

Universidad de Los Andes