Neural.it :: new media art, electronic music, hacktivism

. sound

ambient . drone . experimental . glitch'n'cuts . microsound

Michael Santos - The Happy Error

CD - Baskaru
Extremely delicate harmonic passages, "clicky", dense and slightly "gummy" acoustics, interwoven with expanded patterns, with an almost oneiric quality in the juxtaposition of crackle and melody, finally combining to give a melancholic and fluctuating character. Textures are sensibly organized and diluted ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 10:31 AM - Nov 15/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

acoustic/digital . audio art . experimental

Frank Rothkamm - Opus Spongebobicum

CD - Flux
Frank Rothkamm is always surprising, attaching curious anecdotes to his projects, which are sometimes biographical, or - as in this case - focused more on the genesis of his work and ideas, creating compositions based on clearly conceptual mental processes. 'Opus Spongebobicum' although ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 09:59 PM - Nov 13/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

drone . experimental

Black to Comm - Fractal Hair Geometry

CD - Dekorder
"Fractal Hair Geometry" has been conceived by Marc Richter, head honcho of Dekorder. Under the moniker Black to Comm, he introduces a multifaceted blend of effects, sounds and drones - often innate and mutoid - built for deep processing with the help of a Farfisa, a keypad and a Casio SK-5 (the ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 10:15 PM - Nov 12/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . experimental . microsound

Alva Noto - Unitxt

CD - Raster-Noton
This latest Alva Noto production is quite excited and rhythmical, especially in the first part (tracks 1 to 10), shaking the audience through multiple communication codes, modulated in sound frequencies that are always well synchronized, touchy and reactive. This seems to be the ultimate recording; an ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 07:42 PM - Nov 11/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . experimental . field recordings . microsound

Simon Wickham-Smith - Love & Lamentation

CD - Pogus
With a degree in English literature at King's College in London, Simon Wickham-Smith is certainly not concocting. In his album's title he places a fairly explicit reference to the "lamentation" genre, a literary and musical style in vogue between the fourteenth and the sixteenth century, mainly in Europe, which ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 07:14 PM - Nov 10/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . experimental . microsound

Andrea Polli & Joe Gilmore - N.

CD - No Label
As in an ageless world, thwarted by indecipherable atmospheric energies, the diaphanous sounds of Andrea Polli & Joe Gilmore, digital translations of weather station calculations near the North Pole, are supporting the imaginary generation of images with empty and completely uninhabitable spaces. ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 10:15 PM - Nov 1/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

abstract . audio art . drone . experimental

Martin Neukom - Studie 18

DVD - Domizil
In "Studie 18", a work by Martin Neukom, series of sounds are constructed in a regular pattern through space and parametric sound space. There are simple rules that generate the various pitches, frequency spectra, time and location of individual sounds. Although simple, these rules allow structure to emerge ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 11:11 PM - Oct 30/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

breakcore . electro . gabber . rave . techno

Otto Von Schirach - Oozing Bass Spasms

CD - Cock Rock Disco
In the most extreme electronic dance music scenario, new street-oriented impulses are "floating" irresistibly in the air. Deeply sensual and metropolitan, soaked in technoid wisdom and ultra-low frequencies, these sounds have embraced digital hyperbole, creating sensational passages of music. They ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 06:41 AM - Oct 29/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

acoustic . audio art . experimental . field recordings . free form . impro

Kiko C. Esseiva - Sous Les Etoiles

CD - Hinterzimmer
Oblique, hollow melodies, horror-movie-style audio samples, suspended atmospheres, elegant iterations, intermezzo organ, voice experiments, and - unmistakably - a taste for a certain pure mental automatism, which pierces the free flow of creativity. There are strong references to the historical avant ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 10:42 PM - Oct 14/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . drone . experimental . field recordings . free form

Various Artists - Berlin Electronics

4 miniCD - Absinth
This album's artwork is immediately striking and very original: it is made of a foldable cardboard of good quality, hand shellacked by Renkel (with a dense acrylic bluish color), supplemented by four mini-cd's in a diamond shape. It seems almost a punishment – the cd's are identical, there is no further ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 07:00 AM - Oct 13/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

acoustic/digital . audio art . experimental . field recordings . free form

Yoshio Machida - Hypernatural #3

CD - Baskaru
This is the third and final episode of the Hypernatural series, which is inspired by research into Far Eastern organic sounds. It is distinguished by sensitive audio "transparencies", obtained through the interweaving of recordings, which are often ethereal and abstract. Yoshio Machida is incredibly skilled ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 12:45 PM - Sep 26/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . experimental

U.S.O. Project - Unidentified Sound Object

CD - Synesthesia Recordings
Self-published by authors Federico Placidi and Matteo Milani, a.k.a. “Unidentified Sound Project”, this album opens with a section entitled “Quantum Dripping” (three tracks), which relays their non-compromising sound research that deals with stylized interferences. Nervous sound structures ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 04:58 PM - Sep 25/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

breakcore . experimental . industrial

Somatic Responses - Digital Darkness

CD - Hymen
“Faceted” juxtaposition of rhythmic structures, technoid and “stepped”, catering to Industrial and Breakcore taste with intricate textures, changing atmospheres, digital “darts”and excesses. Welshmen John and Paul Healy (known as Somatic Responses) have been using dissonant mixtures for the last ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 06:18 PM - Sep 19/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

experimental . free form . impro

Kenneth Gaburo - Maledetto Antiphony VIII

CD - Pogus
'Maledetto Antiphony VIII' is a project dating back to second half of the sixties. It is split into two tracks of dissimilar composition, which both experiment with complex interweaving and fascinating symbolic textual expressions within an improvisational framework. The author is Kenneth Gaburo, a radical ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 07:21 PM - Sep 18/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . experimental . field recordings . soundscapes

Janek Schaefer - Alone At Last

CD - Sirr
Oneiric sequences, field recordings and tonal harmonies, disruptions and modulated restarts. Sensitive settings, audio fragments, sound excerpts from an old Spanish movie. A virtuoso flamenco guitar and delicate yet invasive drones, like entering the core of a sophisticated abstract map with multiple ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 04:19 PM - Sep 17/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

acoustic/digital . audio art . electronica . experimental . free form . glitch'n'cuts

A_dontigny - Geisteswissenschaften

CD - No-Type
Aim&execute; Dontigny is based in Quebeq and is certainly a compositor who can't be easily categorized. He is the founding member of the free noise collective Napalm Jazz, and the animator for the No-Type label, which has released his second album. This is a work that brings together a decade ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 08:45 PM - Sep 16/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

abstract . audio art . drone . experimental . laptop . microsound

Machinefabriek - Mort Aux Vaches

CD - Mort Aux Vaches
Very dilated and ethereal atmospheres, micro-sonorities, "urgent" improvisations and thorny textures. Then, melodic snippets, drones, harsh and distorted sequences. Rutger Zuydervelt, aka Machinefabriek (a moniker that would mislead if associated with industrial attitudes) structures three long suites in this ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 04:51 PM - Sep 2/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

abstract . acoustic/digital . audio art . experimental . free form . noise

Erratum #4. Sound Review. Noise + Art + Poetry

3 CD - Erratum
An anthological release, yet still very interesting, “Erratum # 4. Sound Review. Noise + Art + Poetry” was edited by the homonymous transalpine magazine and was compiled by Joachim Montessuis. This three-disc compilation brings together a consistent set of abstract and experimental sequences, which ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 09:11 AM - Aug 27/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

abstract . audio art . experimental . industrial . noise

COH aka Ivan Pavlov + Cosey Fanni Tutti - COH Plays Cosey

CD - Raster-Noton
It remains surprising to recognize in this album booklet Christine Carol Newby, aka Cosey Fanni Tutti, in the clothes of a very stiff contemporary English gentlewoman, being embraced by the 'youngster' Ivan Pavlov. Although it seems ages since Throbbling Gristle and those vehement sessions of post-punk ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 05:32 PM - Aug 5/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

abstract . acoustic/digital . experimental . field recordings

@C - Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom

CD - Cronica
This atypical album is divided into four tracks of unusual and disparate lengths - the first lasts more than twenty minutes, the second and third are less than two minutes long, and the last stretches out to more than forty minutes. 'Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom' by Miguel Carvalhais and Pedro ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 05:00 PM - Jul 31/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . drone . experimental . noise

Helmut Schafer & Zbigniew Karkowski - Eminent Risk Factor

CD - Alku
Started more than ten years ago, the collaboration between Helmut Schafer and Zbigniew Karkowski yielded various performances and musical projects and ended in 2007 with the death of Schafer. Now, after one year since the sad event and in order to honour the figure and work of the experimenter, the ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 05:08 PM - Jun 28/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

drone . experimental . field recordings . microsound

BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa - Passing Out

CD - The Helen Scarsdale Agency
A crepuscular and minimalist project focused on the effects produced by natural sounds on human beings and on the perception of time and space, here conceived in the precise terms of a 'hangover experience', really first drinking, getting intoxicated with alcohol and then 'passing beyond' with a ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 06:20 PM - Jun 27/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . drone . experimental . glitch'n'cuts . microsound

Silvia Fassler & Billy Roisz - Skylla

CD - Mego
The sonorities, on the whole very invasive and digital, as well as the crackles, drones, intermittences, fluxes and skipping frequencies, together with other refined forms of auditive microemergencies, give merit in 'Skylla' for the rigorous application to Silvia Fässler and Billy Roisz, who are not new to the ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 12:36 PM - Jun 25/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . electronica . experimental . field recordings . glitch'n'cuts

Critikal - Graphorrhea

CD - Graphorrhea
Different electronic experiences converging into a single 'ensemble', a project wanted by Andrey Kiritchenko, Jeff Surak and Jonas Lindgren (then substituted by Dmytro Fedorenko and Tobias Åström), all of them very skilful electronic experimenters as well as able to remanipulate each other’s sounds in ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 08:03 PM - Jun 18/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . experimental . free form . noise

Davor Mikan - Täushung

CD - Cronica Electronica
Graphic tools and granular synthesis: this is Davor Mikan's compositional horizon, with twisted, surly and abstract radical sonorities, but once more modulated to construct a narrative with strong emotional characteristics. This seems to be the result of the arrangements and their complicated structures, ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 08:33 PM - Jun 13/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

audio art . drone . experimental . laptop . microsound

Josh Russell - Music For Geiger Counters

minicdr - Koyuki
Texan producer Josh Russell manages micro-sonorities, ambient electro-acoustics and audio deconstructions through the tangles of an ultra-minimalist aesthetics, which wavers between quiet clicks and rarefied as well synthetic drones. It's the evolution of sound inspired by accidental daily ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 06:04 PM - Jun 12/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

. GO TO SOUND ARCHIVE

. media culture

art . book . music . sound

Edited by Paul D. Miller aka Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid - Sound Unbound, Sampling Digital Music and Culture

The MIT Press, ISBN 9780262633635, U.S.A, 2008
Music beyond composing. Dj Spooky edits an anthology about "music as one of the most immaterial of artforms" that is worth a careful reading to open one's mind with real food for thought. "Dj is writing" he stated in his previous book "Rhythm Science" (2004), and the selection of texts in this new one ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 09:59 PM - Nov 13/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

art . tv . video . visual

Smiles Less Noise, smile as interface

Smiles Less Noise, Daito Manabe, smile_less_noise.jpg

"Smiles Less Noise" a recent work by Japanese media artist and interface designer Daito Manabe, is part of a series of experimental technology works exploring cybernetics and the relationship between sound and physical expression known as the Taico Club Art Project. Always asking their trademark question, "What makes you smile?", this work ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 08:51 PM - Nov 11/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

book . hacktivism . net

Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker - The Exploit: A Theory of Networks

book - Univ Of Minnesota Press - ISBN: 9780816650446
Manuel Castells once offered the provocation, "the network is the message". Networks, he claimed, have become the dominant mode of organising the social. While discourse on networks has only proliferated since Castells, there has been little critical engagement with the network form in its own right. In "The ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 06:22 PM - Oct 22/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

art . software . sound

Taiwa Hensokuki, two machines speaking each other

Taiwa Hensokuki, Mohri Yuko, taiwa_hensokuki.jpg

Seeming somewhat gimmicky at first, "Taiwa Hensokuki," a 2006 work by Mohri Yuko, is comprised of two IBM laptop computers that have speech synthesis software installed - one set to move from text to speech; the other set to speech recognition. Mohri's work, included in the ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 11:20 AM - Oct 20/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

art . hacktivism . science . software

Goldbergian Voting Machine, analog voting machine reinvents modular computing

UCLA Design Media Arts program, Goldbergian Voting Machine, goldbergian_voting_machine.jpg

The "Goldbergian Voting Machine", built over an eight week period by a group of students at UCLA's Design | Media Arts program, is a fully functional voting machine constructed from 20 individual modules, with each module designed and built by a different student in the program. The ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 11:11 AM - Oct 7/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

art . performance . robot

Machines that Almost Fall Over, la vita in una metafora meccanica

Michael Kontopoulos, Machines that Almost Fall Over, machines_that_almost_fall_over.jpg

Machines that Almost Fall Over di Michael Kontopoulos é una scultura fatta di diverse tavole angolari con un semplice meccanismo ad orologeria montato su che alza e poi lascia cadere un martello sulla parte piatta della tavola centrale e verticale. Ciascuna delle scultura dondola lentamente su un punto che fa cardine, quasi cadendo in avanti, poi dondolano all'indietro e si ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 09:36 AM - Oct 3/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

art . hacktivism . performance . robot

Double-Taker (Snout), surveillance meeting humor and randomness

Golan Levin,Double-Taker (Snout), double_taker_snout.jpg

Media artist and Associate Professor of Electronic Time-Based Art at Carnegie Mellon University Golan Levin, has created the "Double-Taker (Snout)", an interactive installation that examines the connections between trans-species eye contact, gestural choreography, subjecthood, and autonomous surveillance. The project consists of an ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 05:23 AM - Sep 30/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

art . music . performance . software

Physical Sequencer, sequencing and performing on stage

Physical Sequencer, Enrico Costanza, physical_sequencer.jpg

Enrico Costanza, PhD student at the Media and Design Laboratory of Lausanne's Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale, has focused his research on designing objects that can bring digital and physical worlds closer. His "Audio d-touch" project, developed with Simon Shelley, is a clear example of this ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 12:45 PM - Sep 26/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

art . sound . theatre

AEO, auditory design performance

AEO is a sound collective undertaking new directions in performance and instrument development formed by rogue engineers Kazuhiro Jo (SWO), Taeji Sawai (Golden Pink Arrow) and Eye Yamatsuka, part of the seminal Japanese noise punk ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 04:08 PM - Sep 17/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

art . book . software

(edited by) Matthew Fuller - Software Studies: A Lexicon

Matthew Fuller, Software Studies, A Lexicon, matthew_fuller_software_studies.jpg

book - MIT Press - ISBN 9780262062749
Some years ago, Lev Manovich called for "software studies" to be established as an interdisciplinary field capable of re-thinking programmable media at the interface of cultural theory and computer science. Conceived partly against so-called speculative accounts of virtual reality and cyber-identities, this ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 08:45 PM - Sep 16/2008
email this | + digg | + del.icio.us | TrackBacks (0)

. GO TO MEDIA CULTURE ARCHIVE

. Sponsor

. random from the bookshop

catalogue: adonnam.mp3, filesharing the hidden revolution in the internet

. awards

Neural.it got an Honorary Mention in
Net.Vision / Prix Ars Electronica 2004

. project

Sonic Genoma
Suoni Futuri Digitali
Wicked Style
nordiC (Dissonanze)
Tecnologie di Liberazione (2001)
Virtual Light (1995)
Internet Underground Guide (1995)

. colophon

editor in chief:
Alessandro Ludovico

assistant editor:
Aurelio Cianciotta Mendizza

contributors:
Valentina Culatti
Francesca Tomassini
Francesca Colasante
Vito Campanelli
Tony Canonico
Jonah Brucker Cohen

infrastructure design
and consulting:
Paolo Cirio

translations:
Roberto Orsini

technical consulting:
Paolo Mangraviti

. friends