Tuesday 30 June 2009

IRCAM call for projects

Call for Projects 2010: Musical Research Residency Program

Ircam (Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics and Music) offers a unique experimental environment where composers can expand their musical experience through the concepts found in new technologies. These technologies are developed as a result of challenges posed both by new musical ideas and new domains investigated by scientific teams. At Ircam, this interactive process is called “musical research”.

Ircam is inviting artists to submit projects for the first musical research residency program in 2010. The musical research residency program is open to international artists, regardless of age or nationality, who wish to carry out their musical research using Ircam’s facilities and extensive research environment. Candidates will be nominated through a selection procedure involving international experts, based on research background and musical motivation, as well as the quality of the proposed project through the online call for proposals. Preference is given to new personalities to the Ircam artistic scene. Upon nomination, each candidate will be granted a residency at Ircam during a specific period (three or six months) and in association with a team/project at Ircam. In addition, laureates receive an equivalent of 1200 Euros per month to cover expenses in France.

For the year 2010, we invite projects on (but not limited to) the following research themes:
• Spatial sound composition
• Compositional and high-level control of sound synthesis
• New paradigms for the gestural control of computer music
• Novel compositional approaches to voice processing and/or synthesis
In addition to the proposed themes, we encourage applicants with novel and unexplored research ideas to apply within the “open call” category. We strongly recommend candidates to consult current trends in musical research at Ircam and elsewhere by browsing through Ircam research department websites.

Submission Deadline: July 31, 2009
More Information and submission procedure:
http://www.ircam.fr/875.html?L=1

Tuesday 23 June 2009

Organised sound: Call for submissions

Call for submissions
Organised Sound, Volume 15, Number 3
Issue thematic title: Sound <–> Space: New approaches to multichannel music and audio
Date of Publication: December 2010
Publishers: Cambridge University Press


Issue co-ordinators: Scott Wilson and Jonty Harrison {s.d.wilson.1, d.j.t.harrison}@bham.ac.uk

In recent years the field of multichannel electroacoustic music and audio spatialisation has experienced something of a renaissance. In addition to the development and increased availability of new technologies (higher order ambisonics, vector base amplitude panning, wave field synthesis, various spectral diffusion approaches, etc.) we have seen multichannel presentation of electroacoustic music become standard in a way that it never was in the past. 'Eight channel is the new stereo,' one practitioner is known to have declared. At the bleeding edge of this trend we have seen the extension and development of large-scale multichannel systems for performance and research, such as the ZKM Klangdom, BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre), the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen's University in Belfast, and the Allosphere at UCSB in California.

Along with the possibilities presented by these techniques and systems come problems and challenges. Issues of accessibility, portability, and practicality arise. Historical problems (e.g. the need to adapt to less than ideal performance spaces, the cost of accessing the space for sufficient preparation and rehearsal time, the sweet spot issue, etc.) remain very much in play.

Issue 15/3 of Organised Sound will explore this growing field of multichannel audio and music in aesthetic and social, as well as technical terms.

Potential subjects include:

1) Aesthetics
- Historically one might roughly divide spatialisation approaches into two broad categories: the virtual (i.e. artificial reality simulation and holophony), and the pragmatic (i.e diffusion and other space and system adaptable and/or specific approaches). What value do these different approaches have in the current context? To what extent are they combinable?
- What are the aesthetic implications of different approaches? Which amongst the possibilities enabled by new systems and technologies are the most 'musically' relevant (in the broadest sense), and are these in any way distinct from those more suited for virtual reality applications?

2) Practicality and Portability
- How can pieces be composed to be adaptable to the growing variety of system configurations (rings of eight with various orientations, domes, spheres, 'horizon' approaches such as WFS, 'acousmoniums' like the GRM, hybrid systems such as BEAST, ad hoc non-symmetrical and/or non-homogenous setups; i.e. sound installations, etc.)?
- Can or should presentation systems be designed with maximum adaptability to existing formats/paradigms (stereo diffusion, quad, 5.1, ring of eight, massively multichannel, etc.) in mind?
- Is a spatial interchange format (e.g. the recent 'SpatDIF' proposals) practical and/or desirable? What are the implications of combining low level (i.e. implementation specific) and high level (i.e. human-meaningful) descriptors in a single format?

3) Techniques and implementations
- What are the current solutions to software control of (especially large-scale) multichannel systems?
- What future developments will be possible and/or desirable?
- What role should performance (in the broadest sense) play in spatialisation, whether for pragmatic or aesthetic reasons?

4) Accessibility
- To what extent do the new large-scale multichannel systems represent a return to the historical accessibility problems of electroacoustic and computer music? Are we seeing a return to the 'institutionalisation' of electroacoustic music and sound art? To what extent (if any) does the availability of relatively inexpensive commodity hardware (powerful computers, MOTU 24I/O interfaces, etc.) help with this problem?

5) Hybridisation
- Historically, different approaches and techniques have exhibited particular strengths and weaknesses, while attracting (sometimes almost religious) communities of advocates, who (perhaps for reasons of technical limitation as much as anything else) made use of these techniques relatively exclusively. Given the current state of the art, what advantages or disadvantages do hybrid approaches present to the user?

As always, submissions related to the theme are encouraged; however, those that fall outside the scope of this theme are always welcome.

Deadline for submissions is 15 January 2010. Submissions may consist of papers, with optional supporting short compositions or excerpts, audio-visual documentation of performances and/or other aspects related to your submission that can be placed onto a DVD and the CUP website for “Organised Sound”. Supporting audio and audio-visual material will be presented as part of the journal's annual DVD-ROM which will appear with issue 15/3 as well on the journal’s website.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15 January 2010

SUBMISSION FORMAT
Notes for Contributors and further details can be obtained from the inside back cover of published issues of Organised Sound or at the following url:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayMoreInfo?jid=OSO&type=ifc (and download the pdf)

Properly formatted email submissions and general queries should be sent to: os@dmu.ac.uk, not to the guest editors.

Hard copy of articles and images (only when requested) and other material (e.g., sound and audio-visual files, etc. – normally max. 15’ sound files or 8’ movie files) should be submitted to:

Prof. Leigh Landy
Organised Sound
Clephan Building
De Montfort University
Leicester LE1 9BH, UK.

Editor: Leigh Landy
Associate Editors: Ross Kirk and Richard Orton
Regional Editors: Joel Chadabe, Kenneth Fields, Eduardo Miranda, Jøran Rudi, Barry Truax, Ian Whalley, David Worrall
International Editorial Board: Marc Battier, Hannah Bosma, Alessandro Cipriani, Simon Emmerson, Rajmil Fischman, David Howard, Rosemary Mountain, Tony Myatt, Jean-Claude Risset, Francis Rumsey, Margaret Schedel, Mary Simoni

Architectones II conference 3-5 July 2009

ARCHITECTONES II (3-5 July 2009)
ROYAL SALTWORKS OF ARC ET SENANS, SOUTH EAST FRANCE

In July 2008, the first edition of Architectones brought together a number of leading artists, architects, curators and theorists for a two-day conference on sound art. The conference addressed topics such as sound and architecture, curating sound and the role of sound in contemporary art via presentations and discussions relating essentially to artistic practice. Architectones II will take an in-depth look at the topic that elicited the most interest among participants - the relationship between sound and architecture. It will do so not from the point of view of practice but by examining the theory and thinking underpinning these practices. The event will consist of a day-long discussion on Saturday 5 July designed to stimulate in-depth exchanges between the speakers and the audience. Each speaker will prepare a short text and five questions that will form the basis for the discussion. These will be posted on the Architectones website in the weeks leading up to the event.

The programme will include a sound walk as well as installations and film screenings on the subject of sound and architecture, taking place on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Speakers/moderators: Pascal Broccolichi (France), Gregoire Chelkoff (CRESSON) France, Seth Cluett (USA), Sabine von Fischer (Switzerland), Raviv Ganchrow (The Netherlands), Rahma Khazam (UK France), Claudia Martinho (PT France), Colin Ripley (Canada), Edwin van der Heide (The Netherlands)

Contact: www.architectones.net