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“Hardware Hacking: The Ear Doesn’t Have Eyelids”
A workshop directed by Pablo Rega (ES)

Estúdio Performas, Aveiro (PT)
March, 15th – 17th 2010 (5.30 p.m.- 10.30 p.m.)
Pablo Rega’s concert: March, 18th 2010 (10 p.m.)

For inscription in the workshop:
http://www.performas.blogspot.com

This is the first activity of the cycle “Binaural: The Archaic Sound”, a set of workshops, concerts and installations proposed to Estúdio Performas for 2010.

A sound experimentation workshop based on building homemade sound devices. Motors, photo-resistances, microphones, oscillators and sound recycling in general will serve to spend a good time around cheap and innocent electronic scrap. The workshop is intended for any person interested in experimental sound practice. No previous experience is needed.

Pablo Rega (La Coruña, Spain 1971) has been focusing his activity in experimental and improvised music for about 15 years. He lives in Barcelona and works in various improvised music projects like “MUT” (extreme noise quintet), “Neumática” (electroacustic music) with Alfredo Costa Monteiro (with whom he created “Alludes” published by Creative Sources in 2006 and “Limiar” on Desetxo net label), “CAJA SORDA” (mini concerts for headsets), “Z1C0? (free-noise trio) with Tom Chant and Lar Lejido, “PROTOM” with Patxi Valera and Pablo Sax. He also collaborated with the Catalonian guitarist and electronic musician Ferran Fages and with numerous Spanish and international musicians.

He currently directs the improvisation orchestra O.M.E.G.A. based in Santiago de Compostela and formed by 20 galicians musicians and BIB (Improvisors Band of Barcelona), formed by 14 musicians. He also composed for O.M.E.G.A’s string quartet, creating pieces for quartet and quadrofonia

He also works in the construction of acoustic and electronic instruments, in his personal electroacustic projects focused on the construction and use of electronic sound devices and in pieces for electronics and computer, running various laboratories in these areas.

“Beehiving”
Binaural’s Collective Sound Piece

In the context of “ToBeContinued”

A 24 hour broadcast from Topolò (Italy) during the all day of March, 24th 2010

“Beehiving” is a collective sound piece concieved in response of Stazione di Topolò’s invite to a 24 hour web/live event intitled “ToBeContinued” that consists on a sound travel that will link artists/sounds from all over the world, intended to link science and art/creativity in order to inform the wide public on key issues related to health, well-being of physical and spiritual nature, prevention of diseases, medical education, environment etc utilizing artistic expressions as a conduit. Binaural’s sound piece will use beehiving activities around Nodar as sound reflection about both the therapeutic potencial of honey and the beehive as a metaphor for an effective and operative community.

Video Installation
“Cá”
Manuela Barile (IT/PT)

SALT Sound Symposium
Curated by Duncan Whitley
Organized by PVA Media Lab
Bridport, Dorset (GB)

March, 6th 2010

Part of the intermedia project “Locus in Quo“, “Cá” is a audio/video instalation created in the sequence of many travels to the abandoned villages of the Nodar region. The artist’s aim was to trace, catch and interrogate the signs of life and memory where everything seems over. Tracking the signs of memory means for me to take back our roots to reconnect us to a sense of authenticity that is being extinguished.

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 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.

For additional information on the sound pieces, click here and here (by selecting the corresponding artists)

Manuela Barile (IT/PT)
Rui Costa (PT)

First Cycle of Paivascapes #! Artist Residencies
Municipalities of Moimenta da Beira and Vila Nova de Paiva (PT)
16 – 28 February 2010

The Nodar Artist Residency Program for 2010 will have a single aggregating subject: the Paiva River. Throughout the year, from winter to autumn, several multidisciplinary art projects (having sound as a central element) will be developed in a context-specific perspective, interacting with the river’s different geographical areas, from its spring to its mouth. The first art projects to be developed are “Reia Zoontes” by Manuela Barile (voice, phonography and visual arts) and “Começar de Novo” by Rui Costa (sound art).

For further information on Paivascapes #1, click here

“Aldeias Sonoras”
Sound Installation
Library of São Pedro do Sul’s Secondary School (PT)
February 1st – 22nd, 2009

“Aldeias Sonoras” (“Sound Villages”), an educational project, coordinated by Binaural/Nodar that consists on the recording, editing and mapping of the acoustical heritage of Portuguese rural areas, finishes its fist cycle with a sound installation at São Pedro do Sul’s Seconday School, the institution that collaborated in the project and that involved 20 of their students and 5 teachers in the field recording sessions held throughout 9 months in 40 villages of the region.

http://www.aldeias-sonoras.org

Since the announcement of the end of Aldeias Sonoras’s (”Sound Villages”) first cycle, in December 2009, the Portuguese press has recognized the project as one of the most interesting to happen in Portugal throughout last year:

• The daily newspaper “Público” dedicated a full page article to this educational project on December 12th, 2009.
• Carlos Pinto Coelho, a veteran of cultural journalism in Portugal interviewed Binaural’s director Rui Costa about the project and this emission was broadcasted in about 90 Portuguese and Spanish radio stations between January 18th and 24th, 2009.
• One of the most recognized Portuguese web portal’s aeiou, has highlighted the project during the last week of 2009.
• Fernando Alves, a talented radio chronicler of Portuguese life, has dedicated a brief but magnificent emission, broadcasted on January 26th, 2010 at TSF’s “Sinais” program.

Here is the audio of both the interview with Rui Costa and Fernando Alves’s chronicle about “Aldeias Sonoras”:

 

 Aldeias Sonoras @ Agora Acontece Radio Show: Play Now | Download

 

 Aldeias Sonoras @ TSF's Sinais Radio Show: Play Now | Download

LOCUS IN QUO
Three audio/video installations by Manuela Barile
Cultural Forum of Cerveira (Vila Nova de Cerveira, PT)
18 December 09 – 16 January 10

Opening on 18 December at 9.00 p.m. (with a live performance by the author)

Locus in Quo – which means “the place where something happens” – is the general title the artist gave to a body of works based on a particular theme: the sense of places. The project consists of three audio/video installations (Pesa, Cá and Birdsoundcage) and a concert performance (Oikos). These components function both as interconnected, independent works and, as a single cohesive work.

Pesa (“nest” in Estonian) is a three-channel video installation conceived in response to a site-specific performance that Manuela Barile developed at Moks, an artist residency in Estonia between September and October 2008. It consisted on building a nest in several places where the artist felt a sense of belonging (the abandoned house, the abysses of the lake, the rock near the pond, etc). Pesa describes the approach of a person who leaves with sadness and deep awareness the place to which he is attached, to set off in search of his new “home.” Pesa is a project dedicated to the house, to the house of our childhood and to all the houses we have abandoned during our life. It is an interrogation on the feeling of abandon and melancholia. The sound composition is made by: sounds of the performer’s voice recorded live in places where the nests were constructed and then abandoned, field recordings made in the places described above and an abstract of an Estonian traditional song about the theme of the abandon.

Cá is a two-channel video installation developed as a consequence of the artist travels since March 2009 in search of abandoned villages in the region of São Pedro do Sul (Portugal), where she is been living since 2006. The abandoned villages are places with a strong identity, are places alive even if they are uninhabited, even if the nature has gradually absorbed them. They are places still alive because full of memory. They are a bridge with the past … our past. The artist aim was to trace, catch and interrogate the signs of life and memory where everything seems over. Tracking the signs of memory means for her to take back our roots to reconnect us to a sense of authenticity that is being extinguished. The sound composition is made by: sounds of the performer’s voice recorded live in the abandoned villages using a binaural microphone; sounds of the abandoned villages; sounds of other villages (like the sound of a celebration in a public square, of a window opening and closing); abstracts of traditional songs of the region where there are the abandoned villages (S. Pedro do Sul, Portugal).

Birdsoundcage is a sound and video installation. Is a cage for birds recreated through the medium of sound in an empty and sterile room. Inside of it, there is a body flopped to the ground, that in order to survive decides to make a custom-made cage made by prostheses. The prostheses are obtained setting white-patched twigs of wood on her lower and upper limbs. The organic matter, with which the prostheses are made, is the rest of a nest, a place of the past that no longer exists.

Credits

Original Idea and Artistic Director: Manuela Barile
Vocal Performer and Sound Compositions: Manuela Barile
Field Recordings: Manuela Barile, “Birdsoundcage” – Duncan Withley (England)
Video Footage and Editing: Manuela Barile
Camera Assistants: “Cá#1” João Rodrigues & Luís Costa, “Birdsoundcage” Luís Costa
Speakers: “Pesa” – Evelyn Müürsepp (Estonia)
Singers: “Pesa” – Anna Hints (Estonia), “Cá” – Traditional singers from the S. Pedro do Sul region (Portugal)
Sound Post Production: “Pesa” and “Cá” – Rui Costa (Portugal
Multichannel Audio Composition: “Birdsoundcage”- Duncan Whitley
Wardrobe: Creazioni Ranieri (Italy), Brazukinha (Brazil)
Artist Residencies: Moks (Estonia) and Nodar Artist Residency Center (Portugal)
Production: Luis Costa & Carina Martins (Binaural)
Support: Portuguese Ministry of Culture

On December 5th, 09 @ 7.00 p.m, Manuela Barile presents her video “Pesa #1″ in the context of “Off Minute – IV International Festival of Video Art and Digital Cultures” that happens at Primo Piano Living Gallery in Lecce, Italy.

Pesa #1 is part of a video installation conceived in the context of Manuela Barile’s art project “Locus in Quo” from a site-specific performance conducted during a residency at MokS, Estonia in October 2008.

Zepelim, an experimental radio show from Coimbra’s University Radio, recently proposed Manuela Barile a 55 minute radio piece. She took the opportunity to conceive an aural reflection on her artistic and personal life, where some of her recent pieces were mixed with sounds from her dearest ones and from some of her influences in art such as Carmelo Bene, Andrei Tarkovski, Maria Callas, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Anna Magnani, etc.

Listen to “Abbiamo Fatto 30, Facciamo 31″:

 

 Abbiamo Fatto 30, Facciamo 31: Play Now | Download