Call for electronic sound works for Zeppelin 2009 – Sounds of Power / Listening of Fear

We dedicate Zeppelin 2009 – Sounds of Power / Listening to Fear to thinking about issues that have been insidiously encircling us for some time. We are concerned about signs that might suggest we’re going backwards in terms of hard-won social and intellectual achievements and freedoms. This concern led us to pose the following series of questions, which we hope will go some way to inspiring the pieces presented:

1. What does it mean to receive and/or give an order?

2. The verbs ‘obey’ and ‘hear’ are known to be closely linked. How, then, should we view a society that appears increasingly ready to obey without stopping to think? What link is there between obeying and believing?

3. Why do we have a need for absolute truths, even where we know it’s impossible? Why do we think we already know everything? Do we need to learn techniques or not? Why do we think anyone can do anything? Shouldn’t we respect the ability to do things? To what extent is the term ‘art’ relevant or not?

4. In what sense have we moved from alienation at work to alienation in every, or almost every, sphere in life? Are we losing our awareness of alienation?

5. What does it mean to talk about control in the name of security? Don’t we feel safe? Why do we allow things to be done in the name of democracy that we’d condemn in a dictatorship?

6. Does a welfare society mean a growth society? (Cage said: “I don’t know if life is characterised by progress.”) Why do we think we live in the best of worlds?

7. What role or roles do sounds play in a welfare society and a growth society? Are they related to a loss of privacy? To what extent have neighbours become a new system of control in the hands of the state?

8. How do we view the fact that our instruments for organising sounds are linked to instruments designed to control? Is there a relationship between organising and controlling?

9. At a time when words are being chipped away at until they have a new meaning set down by law, and people who disagree with the criteria of others risk being branded as intolerant, how can we unmask this warped language without discrediting things further?

We invite people interested in sound to think about these questions and send us their sound works.

The pieces will be played through a system of eight loudspeakers on 10, 11 and 12 December 2009 at the Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

All works received will be accepted provided they meet the following conditions:

1. Pieces should be NO LONGER than ten (10) minutes.

2. The format for the pieces should be WAV or AIFF at 44.1 kHz and 16 bits. Pieces may have up to eight tracks. Each track should be in a separate file (so a piece with eight tracks should have eight files each containing a single track).

3. The following documentation should be included:
3.1. Comments on the piece.
3.2. An artistic biography of the author.
3.3. A document signed by the author either giving or refusing explicit authorisation for the piece to be posted on the internet.
3.4. A document signed by the author giving authorisation for the piece to form part of the Sonoscop sound art archive.

4. The pieces and documentation should be sent on a CD/DVD by 15 November 2009 to:

caos/ZEPPELIN/convocatòria
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
C/Montalegre, 5
Barcelona 08001
Spain

For more information, please visit http://www.sonoscop.net or write to caos@sonoscop.net

Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music and Technology

Call for submissions

Volume 15, Number 2
Issue thematic title: Organising Electroacoustic Music
Date of Publication: August 2010
Publishers: Cambridge University Press
 
Issue co-ordinator: Simon Emmerson (s.emmerson@dmu.ac.uk)

It is not possible to define ‘electroacoustic music’ completely – we include all its many genres with their incompatible descriptors – acousmatic, live electronic, interactive, algorithmic, installation, experimental, glitch, post-laptop, live coding – you name it. The range of possibilities for analysis are equally broad (as we see in Stéphane Roy’s L’analyse des musiques electroacoustiques and Leigh Landy’s Understanding the Art of Sound Organization) and more will appear. The field will remain very open. The following four areas are intended not to constrain but to suggest and provoke ideas.
 
• Who or what organises electroacoustic music?
 
It might be the composer, the performer, the listener, a ‘system’ (interactive or automatic, software or hardware) – all are potential participants. They may have different roles and relationships.
 
• How is the music organised?
 
You might like to examine the creator’s poietic world of intention and realisation, technique, system, method, approach, ‘language’. Or the relation of the creator to the technology, its use, interface, limitations.
 
You might like to examine a work on its own as an autonomous entity – the sound world, the organisation of its shapes, forms, relationships, functions, processes.
 
You might like to examine the listener’s reception of the music. The organisation may be imperceptible (why?) or immanent (how?).
 
Or the relationship of two or more of these, of course (the ‘intention-reception’ issue).
 
We also accept that a lack of organisation is, after all, a form of organisation. Also that organisation need not necessarily be of human origin.
 
• How does performance affect organisation?
 
The music might be affected by where it is composed or performed: a studio, a venue, the internet, a site.
 
It might be enhanced or (deliberately?) constrained by things mechanical: the instrument, the human-machine interface. Or the performance forces, the instrumentation, sound projection, venue disposition.
 
It might depend on audience interaction – how is this organised?
 
• The cultural, philosophical and aesthetic issues of organisation
 
You may like to question what are we examining. A ‘work’, a process, a performance? Is it fixed or open?
 
You may wish to discuss languages and models of thinking, either that have been used or that we need to develop, for analytical work in this field.
 
You may like to tackle the semantic aspects: how and what do sounds in electroacoustic music ‘mean’?
 
You might like to examine how the social and ecological dimensions of composition and performance influence organisation of the music.
 
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 for this issue is 1 October 2009. 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: 1 October 2009
 
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 <mailto:os@dmu.ac.uk> (not to the guest editor)
 
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
 

EXPO LEEDS – Call for submissions


Apologies for cross posting

This may be of interest to some of you if you have not seen it already.

http://leeds.expofestival.org/

and copy

Expo Leeds 24-29 September 2009 www.expofestival.org <http://www.expofestival.org>
Call For Submissions and Commission Proposals Now Open – closing date 29th May 2009

Expo is the hub and playground of the experimental music and sound art scene in the UK and beyond. The free weekend aims to highlight the broadest possible range of approaches and thinking that surround the sonic arts. We welcome submissions of all kinds.
 
As well as asking for all kinds of submitted work for its programme Expo Leeds is offering £4000 of commission money towards the creation of a new installation work that will sit within the Leeds Arena space at Leeds City Museum during the festival weekend.