[Nodar003] Three Years In Nodar Context-Specific Art Practices in Rural Portugal 315 pages full color catalogue Accompanying double CD with 20 sound compositions made in Nodar Price: 25 Euros + postage For orders, please contact info@binauralmedia.org The catalog includes essays, critical texts, field diaries, photographs and drawings of more than 40 artists who developed art [...]

Nodar: Collective Sound Installation Works by Maksims Shentelevs (LV), Aaron Ximm (US), Pali Meursault (FR) and John Grzinich (US) Estúdio Performas, Aveiro (PT) February, 17th – 27th 2010 This installation was developed at Nodar Artist Residency Center (Portugal) and reflects different esthetic and technical approaches towards Nodar’s sonic environment, ranging from pure field recordings, to [...]

Nodar Artist Residency Center and Teatro Viriato present:

Audio Installation
Works by Maksims Shentelevs, Aaron Ximm, Pali Meursault and John Grzinich
From 01 November to 14 December 08
1.00 p.m. – 7.00  p.m. and evenings in case of shows
Viriato Theatre’s Foyer

Viriato Teatro Municipal
Largo Mouzinho de Albuquerque
3511 901 Viseu
Portugal

This installation includes four works by sound artists Maksims Shentelevs (Latvia), Aaron Ximm (US), Pali Meursault (France) and John Grzinich (US / Estonia). All of them were developed at Nodar Artist Residency Center (Portugal), a rural media arts working and living space. These pieces reflect different esthetic and technical approaches towards Nodar’s sonic environment, ranging from pure field recordings, to field mixing, field improvisation and electroacoustic composition.

Nodar Artist Residency Center, run by the artistic collective Binauralmedia, has positioned itself in the forefront of the international reflection and praxis concerning the use of environmental sounds, having been hosted since 2006 around twenty of the most active sound artists.

Sound works:

Maksims Shentelevs: “Nodar Soundscape Mapping”

A sound project of field recording and mixing. Field mixing as a method opens up possibilities of learning space by inductive decomposing it into complement sonorous parts and selective recomposing of soundscape. Thus field mix resembles a cartographical approach to soundscape with the distinctive quality of intensive mapping expanded rather within determined territory than covering extensive vastness. In this case reconstructed soundscape represents map or a schema of a personal experience rather than display of objectivity. Despite its subjectivity, field mix as a documentation of research allows public access to hidden parts of soundscapes as a topographical map allows to navigate in expanse of terrain.

http://www.audiot.lv

Aaron Ximm: “As Paredes Têm Ouvidos” (“The Walls Have Ears”)

The project started from the perception of how difficult is for a foreign artist to access the sound from inside the houses, where at least half of the real life of Nodar happens, and also from the importance of the slate, the local stone, for building, walls and houses and the bridge and the terraces. Having these ideas in mind, Aaron Ximm developed a sound project that reflected on the interior / exterior dialectics. By putting microphones inside the Nodar walls, Aaron sought to capture how things would sound if we could be inside the walls, what they capture and keep, and not hear what gets away or is stopped by them.

http://www.quietamerican.org

Pali Meursault: “Walk[s]”

« Walk[s] » is a project of sound creation and also the research for a form of musical writing, through the meeting with an environment. This research used the techniques of field-recording, as well as improvisation with found objects, and mainly: walking exploration and encounters. All of this carried out with an extended idea of what an environment is, by questioning the sonorous specificities of space, as well as its geographical, temporal, social or political datum.

http://www.palimeursault.net

John Grzinich: “Nodar Flowlines”

A sonic survey of the landscape around Nodar through a series of site-specific recording sessions. In particular were compared and contrasted the geographic lines caused by the natural water flows towards the river at the bottom of the valley versus the man-made aqueduct that transverses the vertical lines and brings water into the village. Both of these phenomena actually rely on natural forces yet one was created for a specific purpose for the local inhabitants. The base sound material relies on the use of ambient sounds, found objects, (natural and man-made materials), and human intervention (improvisation and performance).

http://maaheli.ee/

We had the enormous pleasure of having Aaron Ximm a.k.a Quiet American in NOGS last April 2007. Apart from the great moments and insights we shared, it was a privilege for us to follow his work process. Some of our reflections on Aaron’s residency are here.

Aaron Ximm also left some wonderful recordings of Nodar. Here are two samples, the first with sounds presented in his installation “The Walls Have Ears” and the second with other recordings of Nodar:

Aaron Ximm: The Walls Have Ears Play Now

Aaron Ximm: Nodar Sounds Sample Play Now

NOGS Artistic Residency Program for 2007

Public presentation of two projects developed in the NOGS artistic residency:

28 April 2007 | 5.00 p.m.
Nodar, S. Pedro de Sul (Portugal)

Program:

5.00 p.m.
Dennis Báthory-Kitsz and Stevie Balch (USA)
Project: “Birth Song: Cross-Cultural Exploration of an Old Birth Art”
Electroacoustic Composition

6.00 p.m.
Aaron Ximm (USA)
Project: “Nodar Field Recordings”
Phonography, Sound Art