Published
Intended as a late night listen that evokes the edge of consciousness, with Carlos getting as close as possible to a trance state during the actual recording and mixing, each of the eleven tracks transition into one another rather than being standalone discrete pieces, forming two side-long suites that proceed like stages of a dream.
Published
Note: This score invites you to have a gentle transition, listening between your dream, sleeping time, and your waking reality.
Notas: Este ejercicio te invita a tener una transición de escucha serena y fluida, entre tu tiempo de sueños y tu realidad despierta.
➝ Download pdf
➝ Listen
Published
Mikromedas AdS/CFT 001 is the concept-driven, new electronic album from Dr. Valery Vermeulen featuring music produced using data from one of the most enigmatic, exotic objects in space – black holes. With this album Vermeulen augments electronic music, art and science in previously unexplored ways.
Black holes were first theoretically discovered and proposed in 1916 by German physicist and astronomer Karl Schwarzchild. Their possible existence resulted from an exact solution Schwarzchild had found of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity published a year earlier. Being a long-contested concept, the existence of the first black hole, Cygnus X, was confirmed in 1971. Four decades later, in February 2016, science made another huge leap as the first merger of two black holes was observed by the LIGO – VIRGO telescope. This discovery announced a new exciting era in observational astronomy based on gravitational wave detection.
Using the latest technology, Mikromedas AdS/CFT 001 connects these fascinating scientific evolutions to the realm of electronic music. Having worked on previous astrophysics related musical projects, Vermeulen had the first idea for the album in 2016. It was not until 2018 that these conceptual ideas became a reality when Concertgebouw Brugge (BE) commissioned a new musical piece and live show for their Cosmos Festival. This work ultimately resulted in the album Mikromedas AdS/CFT 001.
The seven-track album is produced using data streams generated by various simulation models of astrophysical black holes and observational data of regions in space with extreme gravitational fields.
Data used for the realization of Mikromedas AdS/CFT 001 includes gravitational wave data, data generated by black branes (i.e. higher dimensional generalizations of black holes), neutron star data, data from white dwarfs and trajectory data of elementary particles near black holes.
As a mathematician and artist, Vermeulen effectively designed and programmed new innovative data sonification, i.e. the means to translate data into sound and music, systems and techniques. These were used to transform black hole data and their associated mathematical models into engaging, moving and multidimensional sound experiences.
Published
hello sleepers
i prefer to do this project slowly
there is no certain point to announce that it’s done
as we don’t know which point we fall into sleep
at this stage i upload all recordings to sleepingsorg.bandcamp.com
pls send me your sleep recordings: subjam at gmail dot com
with a large image, location (google coordinate or street name) and recording time
you can also write other information such as recording equipment, or whatever you’d like to share
for people who has no idea how to record:
1, use a recording app (“recorder” by loop sessions, on ios, for instance) by setting a high sample rate (48000 hz), high bit rate (24 bit) and choose wav format and stereo channels
2, use a recorder (for starter: tascam dr 44wl) for better quality
you will possess time while listening.
➝ Info
Published
lull, a sleep temple is an overnight musical work where artists Mendi + Keith Obadike create a sonic environment for rest. The 8 hour livestream is accompanied by a «dream kit» created by the artists.
This eight hour piece premiered in July of 2020 as a stream for the University of Chicago’s Gray Sound Sessions.
«We wanted a sleep piece for ourselves, so we decided to make it with the hope that other people would want to experience something like this, too. Our title, lull, a sleep temple, points both to a need for a pause, and to “sleep temples,” which are places to rest or dream. Historically, sleep temples were sites in ancient Egypt where people went and entered a sleep-like state for healing and dreaming. In our cultures (Igbo and African-American) dreams are still understood as extremely important. Sleeping and dreaming are understood as a way to connect to something larger than our conscious minds.»
➝ Info
Published
Isla es un álbum ilustrado onironauta con ilustraciones de Carlos López Magaña y texto de Patricia Arredondo.
Published
Hearing Gravity is a binaural sound experience. The work is an artistic exploration of black holes and the sculpting of time by gravity, developed in collaboration with relativity theorist André Füzfa. Bringing together sound storytelling, immersive theatre and spatial audio installation, the experience is for 1 person at a time and lasts 10 minutes per visitor.
Hearing Gravity relies on an intense audio illusion based on a bespoke binaural setup working in combination with a custom software. Binaural audio is a framework for the capture, process and restitution of hyperrealistic sound. 3D for the ears.
Developed in close collaboration with science, the artwork seeks to create new sensorial, emotional and mystical connections with a reality that appears out of reach to us, due to its astronomical proportions.
A technician is present at the entrance of the installation and gives headphones to the visitor. The visitor are instructed to follow a voice that will guide them throughout the experience, and enters a silent space with a faint light shining in a distant, and black volcanic sand covering the floor.
The headphones are augmented with a pair of binaural microphones, which magnifies the sound of the space in three dimensions. The listener discovers every audio detail (footsteps, breathing, rustling of clothes) in the infinite space they walk in, as they are woven into the audio narrative played in the headphones:
“Now that you’re standing here I will begin. This is a place that is in time. Slowly, make your way to the edge of the black pool ahead of you. Observe carefully the path that you are making with your feet. Notice the way each of your step is pushing the grains of sand to either side. Listen to how the sand crackles under the weight of your body. The more we learn about gravity the less we have come to understand about reality.
As they get closer to the source of light in the dark space, the visitor discovers a small black pool and a chair, on which the voice invites them to sit on. The voice tells the listener about what would happen if they were fall in a black hole, how their reality would distort like a trampoline under the weight go a heavy stone. They hear delicate sounds of wind brushing their ears. They walk in the sand, reach the black hole, we cannot reveal what will happen next…
➝ Info
Published
➝ Info
Published
Sleep is an eight-and-a-half hour concept album based around the neuroscience of sleep by German-British composer Max Richter. Sleep was conceived by Richter and his partner, the visual artist Yulia Mahr. It is targeted to fit a full night’s rest. Richter talked with American neuroscientist David Eagleman while working on the album’s piece to learn about how the brain functions during sleep.
Sleep was performed in its entirety from midnight to 8:00 AM at the Wellcome Collection in 2015 as the climax of the BBC Radio 3 «Science and Music» weekend. Audience members watched from beds instead of chairs. The performance set records for the longest broadcast and longest live broadcast of a single piece of music. The album was also performed at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2017, and outdoors in Grand Park, Los Angeles in 2018. The Los Angeles performances had 560 beds and were timed so the final movement, «Dream 0 (till break of day)» would occur at dawn.
Published
“Insomnia is not defined as a simple negation of the natural phenomenon of sleep. The dream is always on the edge of awakening, it communicates with the vigil while trying to escape it. The dream listens to the vigil that threatens him and calls him with request.” – Emmanuel Lévinas in “God, Death, and Time”
“Sleeplessness (Or when we’re sleeping, we’re still listening)” refers to the recording machine which has not slept during the process of recording of all recordings used in this work. “Sleeplessness” only contains recordings made in intimacy, mainly during the dream process. Some recordings have been made only with my presence, other recordings with the company of another person and other ones with the company of two or more people with or without my presence. Some nights have been recorded during the whole sleeping process and other nights all sounds, except silence, have been recorded. All recordings have been ultra-processed in different phases and in different ways to preserve our identity. Only us we know who we are.
14 nights were recorded between 2008 and 2020 in different beds, rooms, houses, cities, countries and people. 14 tracks with almost 30 hours for an ethereal listening during sleeping-time. Designed for high quality speakers, not for headphones. Edited and mastered at “H Studio” and published as 14 copies of SD-Cards (2020). Not for sale!.
“All the sleepers fall into the same, identical, uniform dream. This dream consists precisely in not differentiating. That is why the night, with the darkness and, also, the silence suits him.” – Jean-Luc Nancy in “Tombe de sommeil”
➝ Info