On Location: Writers, Sounds and Places

A couple of weeks ago I took part in the ‘On Location: Writers, Sounds and Places’ event at the British Library, which was organised in collaboration with The Guardian and In The Dark.

The event explored British landscapes, both urban and rural, through a collection of sounds, words and film and included a panel discussion chaired by the Guardian’s Madeline Bunting. On the panel were writer Rachel Lichtenstein, T.S. Eliot prizewinning poet Alice Oswald and Professor of Literature at the University of Essex, Marina Warner. The event set out to explore how writers, filmmakers and artists explore and capture the essence of British landscapes within their work – and the different approaches they take to achieve their art. You can read a lovely write up of the event by Cherly Tipp here.

To begin the event, I composed several sound pieces, which were to accompany and compliment live readings from both Alice Oswald and Rachel Lichtenstein. These pieces were designed to augment the imagery evoked within the readings and provide a powerful listening experience through the combination of spoken word and abstract sound. The pieces were mixed live under the readings, which brought an element of performance to the soundwork - something which I'd not really explored before in the context of listening events. This also introduced some lovely moments of serendipity, as abstract sounds from the compositions aligned themselves with the words of the readers.

Listening to the landscape

In darkness, Alice opened the event with a powerful reading of her piece 'Sea Poem', which was followed by a piece composed from an old recording of Ted Hughes, reading his piece 'Wild Rock' (listen below):

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/wild-rock/s-cyRyg

After this came  ‘A Whitechapel Walk’ from Rachel Lichtenstein, which introduced the sounds of moden Whitechapel into the auditorium. This was then followed by the second and final reading by Alice, who finished off with a her piece 'Epileptic' a piece which brought with it the sounds of night, fluttering wings and the distant tide.

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/epileptic

You can hear the live recording from the event here: [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/54471239" params="auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=7e5f57" width="100%" height="18" iframe="false" /]

The tracklist is as follows:

1. Alice Oswald – ‘Sea Poem’
2. Ted Hughes – ‘Wild Rock’
3. Rachel Lichtenstein – ‘A Whitechapel Walk’
4. Alice Oswald – ‘Epileptic’

To close the event I'd composed a final soundscape which blended elements of both the rural and urban landscape, moving from the noise of the country into that of the city. With this piece I wanted to demonstrate noise as a feature of both the rural and urban soundscapes and so pulled out elements of both. This piece features a modified version of a previous work, 'The Dustbin Man Cometh' - which was produced for an In The Dark listening event back in March.

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/from-dartmoor-to-dustbin

In addition to the event are a series of podcasts over at the Guardian which continue the themes of landscape literature, dedicating an episode each to the works of Alice and Rachel. You can also view the short film 'Notes on Orford Ness' which was screened at the event here, an aurally rich portrait of this unusual location, featuring extracts from writer Robert Macfarlane's newly commissioned work, Untrue Island.

Audio piece: Porn Whales

From porn wails to porn whales

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/porn-whales

The idea for this piece fell out of a session playing around with audio samples taken from various pornography films, in a bid to produce something for an In the Dark listening event. After a while of manipulating and stretching out these smutty samples I was struck by how much the moans and groans came to resemble the calls of whales.

After a bit of whale sound research I worked to manipulate these sounds until they modelled the range of sounds associated with whales. From the high-pitched clicks, squeaks and squeals to the lower frequency rumbles. The sounds become slightly more unsettling when processed in this way (although out of context they didn't originally sound that nice to begin with), removing the visual element with which these sounds were originally presented with, definitely made them more sinister. The high-pitched screams are particularly unsettling on their own, baring very little resemblance to the original sample.

However for the event this piece was to be presented at we were keen to finish with something fairly light hearted and I thought it would be much more fun to experiment and explore the concept of 'porn whales' than turn this into something dark and foreboding - there was plenty of that featured at the event anyway.

The sounds of the sea were added to provide a little context (recorded in Brighton on a zoom H4n) and the gentle, soothing music came from Kevin Macleod.

The piece was featured and played as part of the In the Dark 'One Night Stand' listening event at the Clachan Pub, London 14/05/12.

An added bonus - I thought I'd also share with you one of Isabella Rosseliini's great Green Porno films - 'Whale Sex' :

http://youtu.be/A-zJ1hGm-F8

In the Dark: One Night Stand

Hardcore listening

The latest In The Dark listening event: 'One Night Stand' took an unusual step into the murky world of erotica, featuring pieces exploring sex across the animal kingdom; from humans, to snails, to fish and finally to whales. The night proved to be so popular that we had to put on a second sitting, suggesting that sex really does sell, even when it comes to curated listening events.

Sofia Saldanha and I mixed and compiled the audio for the night, including the production of new material to interweave and transition between pieces. Audio featured included a beautiful and emotionally charged interview from the Dialogue Project, a rather unsettling but humorous piece from Canadian radio show Audio Smut (about masterbating in public places) and and a personal favourite from Danish producer Pejk Malinovski whose piece made reference to the artist Matisse by exploring the reproductive behaviours of snails (can be heard here).

We were really keen to move past a linear playlist which simply presented the pieces rigidly, separated by silence. Instead we experimented in blending all the pieces together into a seamless mix. In many cases we produced short interludes and transitions to help take the listener smoothly from one piece to the next and to keep them immersed within the general narrative of the night.

Finishing off the event was 'Porn Whales' - an audio short I'd produced, manipulating the sounds of pornography to resemble the calls of whales (below).

Porn Whales

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/porn-whales

After a bit of whale sound research I worked to manipulate these sounds until they modelled the range of sounds associated with whales. From the high-pitched clicks, squeaks and squeals to the lower frequency rumbles. The sounds of the sea were added to provide a little context (recorded in Brighton on a zoom H4n) and the gentle, soothing music came from Kevin Macleod.

The Plankton Chronicles

A creative mix of beauty and knowledge

Recently on the Ri Channel we featured a new collection of videos from the Plankton Chronicles - a gorgeous web-video project created by research biologist Christian Sardet working in collaboration with Montreal production company, Para Films. Although I tend to refrain from reposting content from the Ri Channel on this blog, I'm really captivated by the work this project is producing, it's simply stunning - see below:

http://vimeo.com/15443242

The series takes you down into the dark alien world of plankton, a category of aquatic life that encompasses an incredibly diverse collection of organisms; one which includes animals, plants, bacteria and archaea. Each episode delves into the life of a particular organism - from iridescent comb jellies to gelatinous zooplankton - all presented through a stunning mix of high definition video, abstract sound design and narration to guide you along. The project aims to illuminate the hidden world of these bizarre creatures and 'magnifies our fascination for the wonders of underwater life'.

Easily the most attractive feature of this project is the incredible macro photography, with illuminated organisms scurrying across jet black backgrounds in exquisite detail. The sound design is also commendable, with synthetic bleeps and pulses underlining the 'otherworldliness' of this complex ecosystem (and is reminiscent of a particularly cherished episode from the BBC Blue Planet series). The videos have also been carefully scripted and tightly crafted for the 'quick-fix' web-audience, with episodes only running for around two minutes each. With this in mind it's important to note that these videos are beautifully paced - allowing the content to breath and flow under its own rhythm, and providing a delicate balance between eye candy and information.

The videos are all presented across an interactive web-platform which pulls together additional information, imagery and extended links. The videos are also available in a choice of either French or English - opening up accessibility further.

We asked project founder Christian Sardet for a bit more detail on the project and I've reproduced some of his comments below:

What are the aims of the Plankton Chronicles and what are you trying to achieve with it?

The series was conceived in the context of the Villefranche sur mer Marine Station an ideal place to study plankton and the Tara Oceans expedition devoted to exploring plankton in all oceans. This scientific adventure definitely raises ecological awareness. Plankton Chronicles deal with biodiversity, but focus mainly on the visual splendor of marine organisms. The series magnifies our fascination for the wonders of underwater life.

What challenges did you face capturing your footage, and producing the videos?

Catching and maintaining species in perfect shape is tough. Luck and patience are keys to success. Filming animal behavior and movements can take hours of trial and error. Use of dark field macroscopy and microscopy help reveal the exquisite patterns of transparent and gelatinous organisms. Filming requires lots of light and  sensitive cameras. We benefited from the great new SLR cameras able to film in HD format which just appeared on the market when we started the project.

What role do you think the internet and online videos play in today’s communication of science and education?

A major role. It is possible to produce quality documents like the plankton Chronicles episodes on a shoe string budget and make them accessible to large numbers of viewers. The ability to create a site with complementary videos, texts and photos is also a great advantage provided by the internet.

What makes a great science communication video?

A creative mix of beauty and knowledge

--

The project is continuing to update new content on a regular basis - check out a selection of works on the Ri Channel or visit the Plankton Chronicles directly to browse the full library of videos.

TED Ed have also made a great short using footage from this project:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFQ_fO2D7f0&w=560&h=315]

The Dustbin Man Cometh (again)

Following the recent In The Dark: Cityscapes event I was interviewed for the Monocle 24 radio show 'The Urbanist' - we talked about some of the pieces played, discuss the power of audio and explore the nature of urban soundscapes. You can have a listen below, although I admit, I much prefer being on the other side of the microphone.

Listen here: [audio http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13042873/Urbanist%20ITD%20interview.mp3]

The Dustbin Man Cometh was also featured featured on NTS radio by Graham Dunning on his show 'Fractal Meat on a Spongy Bone' - the show's a nice listen for anyone interested in avant garde audio, featuring a jagged mix of experimental music, sound art and sonic experimentation. There's a blog associated with the show here and you can catch the show every second Friday between 8-10am on NTS Radio. Recommended listening.

You can listen to the show below:

http://soundcloud.com/n_u_t_s/fractal-meat-on-a-spongy-6

basic.fm

I am delighted to have a selection of my audio works featured on basic.fm, a new broadcast project being undertaken by the Pixel Palace at Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle. Throughout the next couple of weeks the station will be playing a special eight hour show, composed from a collection of audioworks produced by international artists.

Have a listen - there's a great variety works being featured and the programme is continually cycling so you're always going to tap into something weird, wonderful and interesting.

You can browse the full schedule of participating artists and works here and tune in anytime here.

You can also listen to the pieces I have featured below:

The Trip

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/the-trip

Adam as Machine

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/adam-as-machine

Bury St Edmunds

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/bury-st-edmunds

Audio piece: The Dustbin Man Cometh

A processed and layered piece constructed from a single recording of a dustbin truck captured outside of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Headphones recommended. http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/the-dustbin-man-cometh

The piece was produced for exhibition at an In The Dark live listening event on Cityscapes and presented within the Glasshouse Bookshop at the Wapping Project on Wednesday 22nd March 2012.

If you have ever been woken up in the early hours by this sort of noise, I’m sure you’re aware of the complex mechanical racket that they make. It’s a great collection of sounds – clangs, squeaks and crashes - I really wanted to capture and then pull out elements of this noise, turning them into an evolving, glitchy cascade of sound that would fill the listening space it was to be presented in. Anyway, have a listen below.

In The Dark: Cityscapes

The Wapping Project Bookshop (21/03/12)

On Wednesday night I curated a listening event for In The Dark, held within the intimate confines of the Wapping Project's Bookshop, which just happens to be in a Glasshouse. If you've never been to an In The Dark event before, think of it as a film screening, but for radio, sound and audio stories.

The pieces chosen were all tied to the theme of 'Cityscapes', tapping into the many stories, textures and soundscapes that resonate from urban environments. The selection spanned a range of styles and formats, from more conventional narrative / documentary pieces to the more abstract, capturing the essence of urban decay through sound.

The features were also blended together with a collection of field recordings which I'd taken from around London, as well as those taken elsewhere, including a Parisian recording form Soundlandscapes blog.

Some notes on a few of the pieces featured:

Out of the Blocks

Included on the playlist was a 7 minute edit of 'Out of the Blocks', as recently featured on the Third Coast International site. Produced through a collaboration between radio producer Aaron Henkin and electronic / Hip-hop producer Wendel Patrick, the piece presents a sound rich documentary profiling of an entire city block in Baltimore, 'documenting the stories, voices, and people who populate the 3300 block of Greenmount Ave.'. What makes this piece stand out is in its interesting use of music, which was scored exclusively by Patrick adding greater texture to the voices and the stories they tell. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj0JQF63lZQ]

You can listen to the short edit on the Third Coast site where there's also a nice interview with the pair. To listen to the original full hour edit of the documentary go on over to Wendel Patrick's site.

Gateshead Multistory Car Park

Towards the end of the night we delved into the darker side of urban decay, with an excerpt from the Langham Research Centre's menacing sound profile of the Gateshead Multi-story Carpark, originally produced for Radio 3's Between the Ears.

The piece was recorded entirely on location and laid down on reel-to-reel tape, where it was manipulated further, slowed down and looped. Everything heard in this feature was derived from sounds captured within the Carpark and you can really get a sense of the menacing and repressive tone that this concrete behemoth exuded:

http://soundcloud.com/langham-research-centre/gateshead-multistorey-carpark

The Dustbin Man Cometh

One of the regular noises I come across living in a city, is the early morning mechanical chaos of the dustbin collection. To finish of the night, I played a piece which I'd produced specially for the event - a heavily processed sound piece created from the single recording of a dustbin truck collection.

If you have ever been woken up in the early hours by this sort of noise, I'm sure you're aware of the complex mechanical racket that they make. It's a great collection of sounds - clangs, squeaks and crashes - I really wanted to capture and then pull out elements of this noise, turning them into an evolving, glitchy cascade of sound that would fill the listening space it was to be presented in. Anyway, have a listen below:

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/the-dustbin-man-cometh

--

The next In The Dark event will be held on the 4th April, aboard the Lightship95 with guest curator Martin Johnson

Interview: Dr Matt Green and the Sound of Coffee

Before Christmas I started working on an ambitious new project for Unreal City Audio who are producing multi-part audio tours exploring offbeat strands of London history. I am currently helping to produce part of their Coffeehouse series, which will eventually end up as an interactive iPhone App.

The tours are being developed as a series of 'legs' with an emphasis on narrative and rich sound design, so are suitable for listening both on location or elsewhere.

The Coffeehouse tour currently in development guides the listener along a mysterious and often dark path of London history, tracing the rise of coffee into the forefront of mainstream culture. The main challenge (and joy) of this project is in recreating an authentic and immersive sound which will pull the listener into the rich narrative written by historian, coffee expert and project co-founder Dr Matt Green.

The tours aims to provide what Matt describes as a 'cathartic voyage of discovery' into an alternate London history, not often visited by mainstream guides or tours. You can hear more about these tours, including how each leg is developed and produced in an interview I recorded with Matt: [audio "http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13042873/Matt%20Green%20Interview%20Piece.mp3"]

You can listen to a brief extract from one of the pieces I've been producing which takes place in George Yard (see map below) - in it we hear the flames of the great fire beginning to engulf the streets of London. Suspicion has fallen upon Turkish coffee vendor Pasqua Roseé whose mysterious new drink has been generating a lot of unease with many of the locals (and it appears they're out to get him!) but not everything is as it seems...

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/37815988" iframe="true" /]

[googlemaps http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=george+yard+london&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=George+Yard,+London+EC3V+9DH,+United+Kingdom&gl=uk&t=h&layer=c&cbll=51.512614,-0.085837&panoid=57aJzD6wKh2ZrrbllJFKvw&cbp=13,36.59,,0,0.62&source=embed&ll=51.508903,-0.085874&spn=0.012821,0.036478&z=14&output=svembed&w=425&h=240]

In addition to the audio tours, Matt has also adapted the material into a series of 'live' walking tours, which he presents accompanied by actors and musicians, and are already being met with critical acclaim. He will be giving tours throughout March and April, to find out more and book a place drop by his website here.

You can also keep up to date with Unreal City Audio via their twitter (from which they also tweet unusual facts about London history).

The D-Word

Why is death such a difficult subject to talk about? From hospital mortuary to the grave, The D-Word explores our complex relationship with death through the perspective of those who deal with it on a daily basis.

Recently featured on Transom.org, The D-Word is an audio documentary I produced last summer on the subject of death. I'd urge you to visit Transom and explore their excellent site, but you can also listen to or download my piece below:

[audio "http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13042873/The%20D%20Word.mp3"]Download (MP3) (right click)

 View on PRX

The documentary was made in part for my MSc in Science Media Production and explores our relationship with death through the perspective of those who deal with it on a daily basis.

The piece experiments with a braided narrative weaving between interview and actuality recordings, taking the listener into a hospital mortuary, inside funeral homes and across a church yard to explore the concept of death from a number of personal perspectives.

This documentary is also a response to my own experience in dealing with the death of a close friend and you can read more about this in my article over at Transom.org.

In addition to this piece, I also produced two further shorts from the material recored for this documentary. These short audio vignettes experiment with form and sound to explore some of the themes touched upon by pathologist Dr Stuart Hamilton.

Adam as machine (more info)

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/adam-as-machine

Winters Rest (more info)

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/winters-rest

Chris Watson on Noise

Interview

Last year I interviewed sound recordist Chris Watson on the subject of noise for a piece exploring the use of birdsong at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool.

Chris is one of the worlds leading sound recordists and is well known for his work with the BBC Natural History Unit, including the recent Frozen Planet series.

There was a lot of interesting discussion during this interview about the nature of noise pollution and the considerable threat it poses to our quality of life. Worrying still, it appears that our noisy modern world is drowning out the natural soundscape and interfering with species of wildlife that rely on sound for communication.

What seems to be most alarming is that we're largely ignoring this problem - our world certainly isn't getting any quieter - and with more of us living in urbanised environments, noise pollution is fast becoming a significant health problem.

As only a portion of this interview was included within the Alder Hey piece, I thought it might be interesting to share some of the additional material. The interview was recorded at FACT in Liverpool, back in April of last year and explores some of the causes and concerns towards noise in the modern world.

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/chris-watson-on-noise

Additional info

• Further reading on the health effects of noise: a WHO report on the burden of disease from environmental noise

• Nature on BBC Radio 4 is recommended listening if you want to hear more of Chris and his stunning wildlife recordings.

• Touch Music also releases sound work by Chris, you can browse his collection here.

Audio piece: Winter's Rest

This is a short audio piece which was originally created for the In The Dark Christmas party - however it didn't quite fit the bill in the end, being as it is, devoid of any Christmas cheer. Anyway, I thought I'd better not let it go to waste and instead make it available on here - I suppose this is the obligatory Christmas themed post.

It's another short piece (see Adam as machine) which has fallen out of The D-Word, a documentary I produced over the summer which will be appearing on Transom.org early in the new year. This piece features pathologist, Dr Stuart Hamilton and was recorded in the mortuary at the Sunderland Royal Infirmary back in July. The material I recorded with Stuart at the mortuary only forms a small part of the overall documentary, yet I think it's interesting enough to justify an entire piece on it's own, maybe I'll get around to it one day.

Dr Hamilton explained to me how winter was a particularly busy period for the mortuary staff, with mortality rates increasing in the elderly over the colder months of the year. Another interesting point was that they tended to receive an increase in the number of decomposed bodies at Christmas, but I'll let you listen to the piece to find out why...

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/winters-rest

I'm not going to go into a massive rant on how important it is to make an effort to spend time with family, because I'm particularly guilty of not doing so. It just seems that the mortuary staff gain a depressing insight into the mistakes we make and how we choose to lead our lives.

Birdsong: An Escape From The Noise

I was interested to read today about a new research project being undertaken, to investigate the psychological impacts of exposure to birdsong. In particular the project will look at how birdsong affects our psychological state, including its effect on mood, attention and sense of creativity.

The research is being conducted as a joint collaboration between the University of Surrey, National Trust and Surrey Wildlife Trust. Researcher Eleanor Ratcliffe, highlighted that there was a real a lack of evidence on the effects of birdsong, stating:

"A great deal of anecdotal evidence suggests that we respond positively to birdsong. However, currently there is a lack of scientific research on the psychological effects of listening to birds."

You can find out more about the project here.

For me the sound of birdsong offers predominantly positive associations. Living in London, I’m now surrounded by a largely synthetic soundscape, which is strongly connected to the stresses and frustrations of city life (the daily commute, working long hours and a persistent sense of fatigue).

Living amongst this hubbub has unsurprisingly increased the value I attribute to natural soundscapes. Standing in binary opposition to the din of urban living, natural soundscapes offer potential for escape, not just from noise, but from all the negative associations paired with it.

It may be that natural sounds can help us escape from a chaotic lifestyle or at least provide a restorative effect from stress. Understanding the psychological impacts of birdsong will allow us to better understand how we respond to such sounds and perhaps learn more about this relationship. If birdsong really does improve our state of mind and / or sense of wellbeing then it could have real potential in it’s application as a therapeutic tool.

Birdsong as a therapeutic tool?

Back in April / May – I produced a radio piece which looked at the use of Birdsong in the healthcare environment. Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool has been experimenting with the use of birdsong to improve the experiences of it’s young patients.

Installed in the central corridor is a sound installation playing the beautiful birdsong recordings made by Chris Watson and Alder Hey patients. These recordings are also used with patients during traumatic and painful procedures, often as a way of calming them down or taking their minds off the situation.

Speaking to the hospital’s Arts Coordinator Vicky Charnock, I found out that there was already tremendous anecdotal evidence in support of birdsong as a therapeutic tool. They were also interested in setting up some form of trial in which to test the potential therapeutic benefits of birdsong.

You can listen to and download the piece here:

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/alder-heys-dawn-chorus

(Re)constructing Reality

Okay, so here are a couple of interesting videos relating to the field of photography (or digital image processing to be more precise) that I've come across over the last couple of months. Some of these have been around for a while, but I thought as a collection they were sufficiently interesting to post up on here. What I find interesting about them is the way in which they deconstruct or alter the way in which we relate to reality; slowing down time to observe imperceivable movements or reinterpreting images to reveal seemingly hidden information.

A trillion frames per second

The first is a video from researchers at MIT who've developed a trillion frame per second (fps) camera. That's correct - a trillion. So you're probably used to watching video in the region of 30 fps and that's fast enough to trick your mind into perceiving motion between frames.

However, this camera is capable of capturing light, as it travels from point A to point B. Although it doesn't seem to be able to capture the movement of individual photons, it does seem able to capture individual pulses of light, as they move across the frame or scatter as they interact with certain materials.

Interestingly, it's dubbed by it's creators as the world's 'slowest fastest camera' - despite being able to capture the speed of light, it can only record data in two dimensions and only one of these is spatial (the other is time).

So in order to record enough data to obtain a multidimensional movie, it must record the scene multiple times from slightly different angles and this takes time (up to an hour apparently). Anyway, the video below elaborates on this and features some of the incredible footage captured by the camera.

http://youtu.be/EtsXgODHMWk?hd=1

As the camera requires multiple takes to obtain enough data, it's seems that its applications are somewhat limited. However it's ability to capture light as it scatters across a scene is certainly valuable in the analysis of different materials and could even be used for what its designers describe as 'ultrasound with light'. Read more here and here.

The camera never lies?

The first time I saw this I was pretty stunned. This video basically outlines a new and simple method of realistically inserting objects into an image after it was taken (in post-production essentially). This is done without the user having to perform complex measurements with perspective or lighting - instead, with minimal annotation the user can place objects into an image and the system will work out all the necessary lighting conditions to which it should to conform to. The result, as you will see, is incredible - with the inserted objects appearing as if they existed in the original scene.

What's more, the researchers also found that subjects were unable to tell the difference between real images and images generated by their system. It's looks so good it's almost a little disturbing.

You sort of have to see it to believe it:

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/28962540 w=501&h=376]

You can read more about it here, or their research paper here.

Reconstructing reality?

The last two videos are also pretty smart, describing processes by which poor quality images can be reinterpreted or reconstructed using the information within them.

If you can get past the rather dry voice over, the first involves the reinterpretation of data within an image allowing one to:

"Decide later if it stays a photo, becomes a video or turns into a lightfield so you can digitally refocus"

http://youtu.be/mAS2IxieUj4

The final is one you are likely to have come across and details an extraordinary feature in the upcoming release of Adobe's photoshop series (CS6) - It's an image deblurring feature which seems to work remarkably well, able to pluck lost detail from what seems like nowhere:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q10kwKm77RY&feature=related

I definetely ran out of steam towards the end of this post.

Thanks.

Bury St Edmunds

An experimental sound piece which takes recordings made during a vist to Bury St Edmunds and weaves them into a surreal narrative, morphing between lakeside walks, market criers, street performers and birdsong. Recordings made using a Zoom H4n, edited and assembled on Ableton Live.

Headphones recommended.

[soundcloud width="100%" height="81" params="" url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/27315140"]

BOOM! - It's the Royal Institution

I've just finished my first month at the the Royal Institution where I've been helping with a new online project, which will hopefully be knocking everyone's socks off once it goes live. So watch this space. Today I popped into the lecture theatre to watch Professor Chris Bishop as he prepared for his upcoming 'Science of Fireworks' public lecture - this mainly involved blowing up balloons containing varying amounts of hydrogen. This produced a couple of rib rattling explosions like this... (obviously all in the name of science).

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwp36jqeXsM&w=420&h=315]

Bedtime stories for scientists

I remember listening to audiobooks as a child and there were years where I wouldn't sleep unless I had a tape playing in the background. To a child, silence can be pretty ominous and I suppose there is something comforting in having 'someone else' in the room with you, narrating a story as you fall asleep. Even now, when all I seem to crave is silence, there is still something comforting in putting on a pair of headphones and escaping into a world led by the voice of another.

A while back I recorded Lizzie Crouch reading a series of extracts from popular science books - intended as little audio 'bedtime stories' for scientists. At first we thought about adding in additional sound to enhance the recordings, but upon reflection it was clear that they worked a lot better on their own. There are thousands of great audiobooks out there, but I suppose very few cover popular science - so here's an attempt to bring you just that.

Lizzie is going to be posting a new one each week, you can hear the first one below (an extract from 'Trilobite!' by Richard Fortey), but listen to the rest over at her blog.

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/25348416"]

Making a racket on the Soundwall

So today I was very excited because I got the chance to play around with Lotto Lab's Soundwall - a mammouth interactive speaker array, currently housed at the Science Museum in London.

The wall features a total of 77 speakers and is controlled via the use of a handy touch screen interface. The interface allows the user to essentially bounce sound from three mono tracks (or up to 8 analogue inputs) across the wall in realtime, much to the delight, or perhaps annoyance of everyone in hearing distance.

The simple touch screen interface includes volume faders for each of the three tracks, which are subsequently represented by one of three coloured balls. These coloured balls essentially represent where the sound is localised on the speaker wall; so as the user moves the balls across the screen the sound on the wall pans accordingly. This allows the user to throw sound across the wall in all directions, just imagine a ball of sound bouncing about inside your head and you're almost there... It's certainly very cool to play with.

So I tried out a collection of 'racket' themed samples which I have prepared for use during next weeks Science Museum Lates:

[soundcloud width="100%" height="81" params="" url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/23921324"]

... and here's a clip of me standing infront of the wall as David Robertson throws the sound all over the place, you can hear an interview with David in the next episode of Tomorrow's Tentacles:

[soundcloud width="100%" height="81" params="" url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/23925050"]

Although the wall's functionality is pretty limited at the moment, it will be interesting to see how its use is expanded. It could certainly do with a few more features, perhaps expanding on the user interface to include a selection of tracks or the addition of effects which could be controlled via the touch screen. Its use as a performance tool is certainly very attractive and I'd love to experiment with it further! - Watch this space.

The Joy of Birds

Finally figured out how to embedd this video... This is a short video I produced last month with Nisha Ligon, Tom Welch and Camilla Ruz for the Guardian website. It features BBC wildlife presenter Kate Humble and Martin McGill who were promoting their new book 'Watching Waterbirds with Kate Humble' at the London Wetlands Centre.

We got really lucky with the weather. Turning up at Hammersmith station in the morning we were greeted with a torrential downpour - not ideal for shooting wildlife outside. Thankfully the rain subsided just as we arrived at the Wetlands Centre and we were granted with an afternoon's worth of sunshine to walk round the site and capture some of the wildlife on camera.

Check out the video below to have a look for yourself!

Watch here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2011/aug/31/kate-humble-birdwatching-london-wetland-video

... or below if it works:

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The London Wetlands Centre is an unusual oasis of wildlife and greenery which is situated surprisingly within the city confines near Hammersmith. It provides people with a great chance to break free from the usual urban surroundings and take in some of the natural scenery usually reserved to those living outside the city limits.

GO SEE.

http://www.wwt.org.uk/visit-us/london

Weather, walks and slugs

The Trip

An experimental sound piece I produced from recordings made whilst on a trip to Wales.

The piece was inspired and recorded during some coastal hill walking with my parents, and is a response to the peaceful stillness experienced whilst high up on a hilltop - the serenity of which invoked a rather dream like quality and as we looked downwards into the valley, the houses, cars and distant objects came to look like 'toys'...

http://soundcloud.com/eprosser/the-trip