Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 3251: What's my name?
    Piece based on Muhammed Ali's headgear by Eva Quirentia Mansson.
    "Muhammad Ali, being one of the absolutely most fascinating people on earth, is someone I have admired all my life. I am not a fan of boxing. Not even interested in sports. 
    "But Muhammad Ali was so much more than his skills in the ring. When looking at his protection helmet, most probably used during a time when he was in the midst of deciding who he really wanted to be, I can only imagine his head being absolutely full of thoughts. Words would occasionally spurt out like from a volcano, perhaps only a fraction of what was really going on inside. 
    "His poetry predating rap, his words could become songs, his self esteem expressed with such self irony and wit. But under it all, the anger and frustration rising and manifesting itself along with the movement of Black Power in the United States."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    10 min
  • 3253: An Ode to Lady Day
    Piece based on Billie Holiday photo by Stephanie Merchak.
    "I've always loved jazz and when I saw that a photo of Billie Holiday was among the selection of items chosen for The Smithsonian Treasures project, I knew I wanted to compose a piece inspired by that photo.
    I wanted to create a jazz influenced piece that also included some electronic and experimental sounds and techniques.
    "Using the free iOS app "Beatwave", I wrote the bassline, saxophone and electric piano melodies.
    "In Audacity, I did data bending by importing Billie Holiday photo and exporting the resulting audio with 2 different encodings.
    I then imported those as well as the bassline, saxophone and electric piano melodies into Ableton Live where I completed the composition then mixed and mastered it."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    2 min
  • 3250: Armstrong 2020
    Louis Armstrong's trumpet reimagined by Simon Woods with Phil Nicholas.
    "On a walk through the Smithsonian Museum, a father and daughter encounter Louis Armstrong’s trumpet. The daughter mistakenly believes a trumpet sound is to be found on her mobile phone. The father quickly points out that this is what a trumpet sounds like before a blues begins with the ‘Louis Armstrong’ style trumpet played by Phil Nicholas.
     
    The recordings are not done in an old style, although there is a small amount of record clicks.
     
    ‘Is Louis Armstrong still relevant today?’
     
    ‘Yes.'"
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    3 min
  • 3249: Three Women
    Piece based on Bhairavi Ragini artwork by Marie-Cecile Reber.
    "I have used my field recordings for this piece. As a musical concept I have adopted the different levels of the image. It was also important to me to reproduce the calm that manifests itself in the picture. 
    "When I look at the picture, it triggers the following associations in me. It is a calm, peaceful atmosphere. Although it's hot, the shadow is there. 
    The vastness and different layers like sky, houses on the horizon, houses a little bit closer and the three women trigger silence, present and past in me.
    "I would like to reflect this atmosphere in my piece of music. The silence and peace, the purity and mysticism."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    9 min
  • 3248: Sonogram Manipulation of Patent Model for a Feathering Paddle Wheel, 1877
    Piece based on paddle wheel image by Dan Gusset.
    "I have used an image to audio converter to create eight audio samples for 45 degree rotations of the image of the Feathering Paddle Wheel. These have been manipulated these with various effects, stretching and layering to creating a looping audio piece. When viewed as a spectrogram it shows the rotation of the wheel."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    1 min
  • 3246: Frida Kahlo: a portrait in sound
    Piece based on Frida Kahlo portrait by Richard Gadd.
    "This portrait is unusual in that it is not a self-portrait, perhaps the form Frida Kahlo is best known for. It is what an other else in her. I am struck by her slightly severe expression and pouted lips giving her a birdlike appearance, the heavy close=knit eyebrows and a suggestion of a moustache.
    "We know she was a feminist and gender-fluid and relatively unsuccessful in her lifetime compared to the man, Diego Rivera, whom she twice married. Her most productive time was spent in San Francisco, and her body of work not fully recognised until after her possible/accidental suicide; she had spent most of her life in pain.
    "In this piece I have used a recording of a woman, possibly Frida, reciting a poem about Diego Rivera; a recording of a humming bird (see self-portrait with thorn necklace); recordings of a San Francisco cable car pulley and train crossing 16th St which I made and lastly, some electronic music I composed."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    8 min
  • 3247: Angela
    Piece based on Angela Davis poster by Keisuke Oki.
    "Angela Davis is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. The poster I selected from Smithsonian Treasures was made by the United Coalition for Angela Davis Day to demand bail for her. She was an icon of the 60s cultural and political revolution and is still radical."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    4 min
  • 3245: Singer Song
    Piece based on Singer sewing machine by Dave Webb.
    "I liked the idea of the repetitiveness of a sewing machine but as it is hand cranked, it will be a little arrhythmic. 
    "As I don't have access to a hand cranked machine to sample, I went to freesound.org and found a great sample pack from Juskidink."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    5 min
  • 3244: The Stock Ticker in Times of Change
    Piece based on stock ticker by Jukka-Pekka Piimies. 
    "The stock ticker has an interesting relation to time: as a machine, it revolves at a set pace, but the events that it stamps in the ticker tape are more random in the short term. 
    "In addition to the momentary pulse of the stock market, you also have the cyclical ebb and flow of the real economy. You do not know at any single moment to what extent the real economy drives the financial world. 
    "In my composition, I try to capture glimpses of the mechanical and the informational; the real economy juxtaposed to the virtual one. 
    "I reconstructed one 'stock ticker' instrument out of typewriter samples played through a virtual drum machine following polyrhythmic instructions. A telegraphic printer and other industrial sounds from http://www.soundsofchanges.eu/ (Creative Commons licence) were treated to provide more themes, variations and 'countermelodies'. The NYSE bell competes with the foghorn."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    2 min
  • 3243: Charlie's on the 'H'
    Piece based on Charlie Parker's saxophone by Daryn Brown.
    "Charlie Parker was a legendary saxophonist but also a massive heroin addict. What I tried to do with this piece was blend two saxophone solos, the one the audience heard and the one that Charlie was hearing in his heroin-infused brain. 
    "I approached this project as an improvisation, very quick, one take and no editing. Everything in this piece is taken from a Charlie Parker solo apart from the drums and applause."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    4 min

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Cities and Memory remixes the world, one sound at a time - a global collaboration between artists and sound recordists all over the world.