SID VOLTER

2012-01-31T08:58:00.001-08:00

e: sidvolter (at) gmail (dot) com

t: +44 (0)7541 962 372

2012-01-31T08:58:00.000-08:00

Interview

2012-01-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

I started talking with someone who co-edits a underground "zine" on art, music & culture etc. I think they were interested in 'alternative arts' and wanted to know how new media arts could fit in. We did a sort of series of interviews, over a drink or over emails. As far as I know it was never published because they didn't have the space or any money or something like that.

It was much more of a two-way informal chat, but this is the write-up. It documents a bit of what I was thinking at the time, and it's pretty much the seed of what's happened since:

June 2010

I interviewed Sid Volter, a "media artist", to find out what's going on in the technical arts field. But, like many late-night conversations, we digressed into an interesting and – to be honest surprising - thought-provoking discussion...

2012-01-02T04:41:00.000-08:00

2011-09-19T01:35:00.000-07:00

Masters project available now at: unthinkingtechnology.blogspot.com

2011-05-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

FutureEverything, Victoria Baths, Manchester (May 2011)

Sound art design, performance & collaboration

"The Splash and A Last Drop" by Yu-Chen Wang

London-based artist, Yu-Chen Wang will present a site-specific installation to respond to the Victoria Baths’ history and its current architectural space. The project is based on the fictional story of Yu-Chen’s new experiment of creating “A Last Drop” in order to re-fill the pool in Victoria Baths and ensure the water will never dry up again.

Writer: Bob Dickinson

Film Crew: Daniel Hutchings, Rose Coxon, Ali McElhoney, Khieng Ly

Photo: Kris Extance

Sound: Sid Volter

Costume: Valpuri Vihriala, Aliyah Hussain

Performer: Katherine Godfrey, Tony Boffey, The Cavendish Singers

blenchen.

2010-10-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Blenchen from Sid Volter on Vimeo.

This was shown at the Hotspur Press, Manchester on 14th October 2010. Projected digital video, in an installation setting, set behind a window in the corridor.. This gave it another context, as opposed to viewing it as a linear digital film, so it had a different effect. (The sound incidently was taken from parts of The Emergent Sea and The Burning of Scholars) Images from installation:

Automatic, or asemic writing, shown alongside the video above:

2010-10-07T19:59:00.000-07:00

..Just noticed that the latest issue of The Wire magazine happens to have the same wireless symbol on the front cover..

2010-10-03T15:08:00.000-07:00

Analogue is the New Digital, AND Festival, Manchester

1st - 23rd October 2010

analogueuk.co.uk

18 artists were asked to respond to the theme 'Analogue is the New Digital' - creating analogue works that reference the digital. Curated by Simon Blackmore and Andrea Zapp, the works were to be shown throughout Manchester,amongst the city's networks. Oxford Road, for example, is the subject of new planning known as the 'digital corridor', in which high-speed broadband is delivered to businesses and locals. It is also the site of the BBC in Manchester, who will be moving from London to the 'Media City' on Salford Quays. Quoted from the website:

Interventions across Manchester with newly commissioned, inspirational and experimental artefacts that reflect on the invisible sub-structure of data that permeates our world. Featuring physical analogue works growing out of the invisible lines of technological communication in our everyday environment. The city’s networks and rich technological history become a gallery.

For more detailed information, including the research informing the work, click here.

How to make red ochre paint..

2010-10-02T05:48:00.000-07:00

2010-09-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

on Flickr

2010-09-02T06:21:00.000-07:00

festival pics

2010-08-28T05:23:00.000-07:00

Soundfjord have posted pics from the Dragonfly Festival on Flikr (they were in the Sound Art tent, naturally..)

I hope my music just happened to play at the same time as Jose Gonzalez..

New audio release: The Burning of Scholars

2010-08-26T05:44:00.000-07:00

[Click to Stream / Download Album]

Using computerized 'throat singing' and binaural beats. 'The Burning of Scholars' title comes from Emperor Qin Shi Huang's book burnings and burial of scholars. Almost entirely utilizing synthesized speech - by breaking down the phonetics and acoustics that form words and meaning, only the resonances remain.

2010-08-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

2010-08-09T07:34:00.000-07:00

things

2010-08-09T03:26:00.000-07:00

*things* by Sid Volter

Soundfjord & Dragonfly Festival

2010-08-02T00:37:00.000-07:00

A couple of tracks from The Emergent Sea were selected by Soundfjord, a new gallery opened in London dedicated entirely to sound art. 'Things Scatter' were played on the opening, and features on the 'Soundspiration' page on their website.

'A Seed Beneath The Ice' will also be going with them to play at the Dragonfly Festival in Sweden. I couldn't think of a better place for it! + I'm happy to be part of it. Curated by Helen Frosi and Andrew Riley. Here's the description from the Dragonfly website:

"In the centre of idyllic surrounds your ears will deceive you. From the tree's tropical birds shall sing of their home in the Amazon, industrial clanks and groans will ripple across the lake, whilst spectral voices will coo and woo us into their depths; doors will creak and slam where there are no openings, chinks of light will fall on pools of liquid ambience and abstract composition; muttering and laughing, preaching and monologues, all mingle with the instruments on the main stage, and the music of nature itself.

Be sure to follow your ears to the SoundFjord Sound Art Tent, to be found in the open field between the Art Hut and the Bronze-Age Bar."

Festival Pics:

Wait

2010-07-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

2010-07-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

Live in Manchester (p2) by Sid Volter

Here's a record of the performance at Princess St, Manchester on 7th July. It was part of a group exhibition, including photography, video art, projections etc.

I wanted to do something completely improvised. I made the sounds, Spyros dealt with the visuals to respond to the 'music'. I had a collection of samples, and used a netbook with midi controller. I also found a long cardboard tube on the day, which I used as a kind of 'digital didgeridoo' (!) by plugging a mic inside and adding lots of distortion.

All in all, it was great... Despite the dodgy electronics causing tripped switches.. resulting in being asked to turn the volume down! At the end of the night, everybody had moved to the opposite end of the room, and the people I was playing with had all abandoned the show.. leaving me by myself making noises at the dark end!

It was something I'm genuinely proud of. I get somewhat awkward during exhibitions, they're so repressed, no? It was quite a change to perform + make some noise!
(image courtesy of Sophie Pollock)

Live in Manchester (p1) by Sid Volter

2010-06-27T07:31:00.001-07:00

The Great Sea Serpent by Hans Christian Andersen. Read the story (link), it has a very interesting ending that links the old beliefs with the new technology.

Another link, the amazing John Jacob Niles singing 'Go Way From My Window'. Completely different lyrics from the European version I used, but there must be a connection. Did he make it all up or was it changed when it was brought over to America?

stones talking - experiment

2010-06-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

The Emergent Sea album trailer

2010-05-18T04:47:00.000-07:00

STREAM IT HERE

dirty.

2010-05-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

So I was at the dirty electronics workshop in Manchester with John Richards as part of the FutureEverything festival. We made this little toy, very simple but a lot of fun :)

A video of one of the performances: (although unfortunately the only one I wasn't part of!)

2010-05-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

Finally, the last track from The Emergent Sea is done, The Great Sea Serpent being the first. Only a bit of tweaking needed now (it comes in at a huge 77 minutes ;-) and then I can start working to get it released. It's been an experience making it, each track was made in order of the album. Despite being committed to other things, at the moment I feel most creative when making sounds, and this was a way to let it out. Otherwise I'd have felt paralysed! (Listen to the whole thing on this website here)

'Go From My Window' is an old folk song, which turned into a kind of 'cleansing' to mark the end of the album [and the sea!]. Thanks to Sarah, who made up the tune on the spot.

&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://sidvolter.bandcamp.com/track/go-from-my-window"&amp;amp;gt;Go From My Window by Sid Volter&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;

seamless

2010-04-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

HD version can be seen HERE

sound form

2010-03-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

Making new forms [of writing]. Making the acoustic form of words outweigh their interpretation.

A bit like spectrogram. See 'live' experimentation:

The Great Sea Serpent

2010-03-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

<a href="http://sidvolter.bandcamp.com/track/the-great-sea-serpent">The Great Sea Serpent by Sid Volter</a>

From 'The Great Sea Serpent', by Hans Christian Anderson.

Listen to the full album 'THE EMERGENT SEA' here

Talk

2010-02-06T08:28:00.000-08:00

A short presentation I made at Manchester Metropolitan entitled Mystery or Definition in Technological Artworks is available HERE. The talks were designed to include interesting things that other people may not have heard about.

Broad Key

2010-02-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

King Thamus

2010-01-18T16:49:00.000-08:00

A story that comes back to me again and again is the story in Plato's Phaedrus of King Thamus and the god Thoth-Hermes, who offers him the gift of writing. After thinking about it, Thamus rejects the offer, explaining that people will not rely on their memories anymore because they will depend on what is written down, what is accessible. 'They will seem to know many things, will have only the resemblance of wisdom when they are in actual fact ignorant.'

The story keeps appearing, because it is such an acute observation of the technological world. A thing only exists if there is a record of it, or if there is a name for it. I wonder if this will change in my lifetime. Will memory be something that just 'is', something implicit? Small murmurings of complaint that 'we have lost touch with the presence of things' might be a precedent. At the moment though, it seems that we don't have a clear idea of what an alternative might look like.....

2009-12-15T15:18:00.000-08:00

an 'experimental' video I made one afternoon:

The text is from 'The Thunder Perfect Mind', from the Gnostic gospels.

2009-12-15T05:07:00.000-08:00

boxed and bodiless

2009-11-09T15:13:00.000-08:00

After scouring through some old work I came across these forgotten characters. They were decapitated during WW2 and now reside hidden away and forgotten in the back archives of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The way that each persona was boxed, framed, and categorised appealed to me at the time. I took a lot of photos - here are some of my favourites. I think they'd appreciate the attention.

2009-11-09T11:05:00.000-08:00

Eventually within the next quarter of a century, the nostalgia cycles will be so close together that people won't be able to take a step without being nostalgic for the one they just took. At that point, everything stops. Death By Nostalgia.

- Frank Zappa '88

maps

2009-09-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

I've been told that the diagram I made on a previous post is similar to a 'self organising map', or a 'Kohonen map', named after its inventor (I found this article useful). In AI the problem arises of how learning and structured organisation can occur when there is no pre-programmed result (ie 'emergent thoughts'). So how do formations arise in, say, memory - the connecting / archiving of things; and how do these connections arise?

This is of course just speculative thinking, it doesn't at all make me a scientist and I'm not trying to be, but I do think it shows how artists can work with scientists because (I believe) they are 'nearer' to emergent creative thinking - the very thing that is apparently being studied.

"computing"

2009-08-04T07:34:00.000-07:00

When you use a computer, you give it the paramaters of your intention, then wait for it to perform it. I'm finding this quite irritating. My brain works immediately, but the computer works by having a pre-conceived idea, which is later realised. You can have as new technology as you like but it'll still work on this linear basis. Will the problem end when a computer process takes as quickly as a human thought? Not likely. Our brains don't work the same way, so it's incredibly unnatural, especially if you are doing something creative, which relies on quite spontaneous, abstract ideas which are based on a 'way', a thought 'process', and many relations - not boundaries and parameters.
I thought it would be an interesting project to imagine how a computer would work that did not rely on these principles. AI today has little to do with creating artificial consciousness, rather setting itself targets [ie RESULT = WALKING, therefore the project is to make computer walk according to established parameters]
From what I can see, some of cognitive science and the more imaginative scientists are starting to move away from a representative, A=B=C model.

I think that artists (potentially) have a very relevant voice in this area, because creative thought processes can be seen as emergent; they don't have a pre-conceived end-result and don't rely on a 'system'.

Linear computing:
'Non-linear':The computation is the form itself. It makes its own symbols/ forms/ representations, so doesn't rely on pre-assigned ones.
p.s.:

When asked when the simulation would come up with something artistic or an invention, Professor Markram said it was simply a matter of money..

Minsky ring a bell?

2009-06-25T08:59:00.001-07:00

Occultation (2009)

Digital Photography, 60 x 80

The Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London

A series of digital photographs continuing from the 'Four Walls' series. With Four Walls I wanted to depict environments, rooms, and our thoughts working beyond their confines. Occultation had a different tone. 'Occultation' is an astronomical term used to describe something being hidden from view, like a moon passing in front of a sun. I had a sense of there being something behind the image you are seeing.

It was also an opportunity to edit and construct the actual lighting, which is much harder to do than just straight 'Photoshopping'. Each image is constructed, but I tried to avoid it looking too 'false'.

Click on the pictures to view larger:

2009-06-21T04:39:00.000-07:00

Click on the picture to view larger:

2009-04-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

Details of Four Walls pictures. You can achieve a high level of detail with digital, even if you have a non/semi-professional camera.. They were exhibited a few times at different dimensions, but usually about 60x50.

Click on the pictures to view larger:

2009-04-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Four Walls (2008)

Digital Photography, 60 x 80

'life is within four walls, but the brain works beyond them'

The Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London

Tirana National Gallery, Albania

Click on the pictures to view larger:

2007-06-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

Mystery, Magic, Control, Communication (2007)

Live audio / visual performance

A performance involving live video and audio feedback. An attempt to ritualise technology and make it closer to human experience. The human and the technology merge, both communicating as one.

As a precursor, I sat motionless outside for 17 / half hours as preparation (see flickr pictures here for documentation of time passing!).

The installation involved a set-up as described in the diagram above. I rang a bell, which in turn affected an audio loop through microphone & speakers, which combined with recorded audio. A video camera in turn filmed light caught on water drops, and projected them straight onto the wall as they occured. Here is a short edited video documentation:

Mysterium, day 16 (for Alexander Scriabin)

I re-edited the video and audio taken from the performance & named it in honour of Scriabin's Mysterium project.

Puer Aeturnus

2007-06-07T13:52:00.000-07:00

2007. The series is called "Puer Aeturnus", and is 'mixed media' using (cameraphone) photography and drawings. The series was accompanied by a quote from a poem by Max Herrmann-Neisse, "Stadt Ohne Kinder" (City Without Children):

Läuft unser Leben noch im altern Gleise,
So ist ihm sein Verderben schon bereitet:
Die Kinder aber werden auf der Reise
Von ihren Engeln liebevoll begleitet.

Though our life still runs in the old groove,
its ruin is already brought about.
But the children on their journey
are lovingly accompanied by their angels

Exhibited at Modern Art Oxford, The Jam Factory, and Ovada's art throughout 2007

Click on the pictures to view larger:

Elemental installation

2007-04-13T15:54:00.000-07:00

2007

An audio/visual installation, where people were guided into an immersive constructed 'tent'. Visual images of fire, air, water, ice combined together, with specially-constructed and edited sound to provide a sensory experience. See video for documentation (web-quality - not high quality sound/video, but enough to get the idea)