Specialising and Exhibiting
Week3-Sound Arts Lecture Series
Johann Diedrick is an artist, engineer, and musician that makes installations, performances, and sculptures for encountering the world through our ears. He surfaces vibratory histories of past interactions inscribed in material and embedded in space, peeling back sonic layers to reveal hidden memories and untold stories. He shares his tools and techniques through listening tours, work-
shops, and open-source hardware/software. He is the founder of A Quiet Life, a sonic engineering and research studio that designs and builds audio-related software and hardware products for revealing new sonic possibilities off the grid. He is the Director of Engineering at Somewhere Good, a 2022 Future Imagination Collaboratory Fellow at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, a 2021 Mozilla Creative Media Award recipient, a 2020 Pioneer Works Technology resident, a member of NEW INC, and an adjunct professor at NYU’s ITP program. His work has been featured in Wire Magazine, and Musicworks Magazine, and presented internationally at MoMA PS1, Ars Electronica, Somer-set House, and multiple NIME conferences, among others.
I am very interested in Johann Diedrick’s project called “A Quiet Life”. And I was looking at what small sounds he would investigate.
Some examples of quiet sounds that he has come across include:
The reverberations of street life transduced through a hollow pole/ The piercing pitching of neon signs/The rhythmic knocking inside of cross-walk buttons/The brushing of ripples against a lake’s shore/The soft patterings of light February snow
I supposed it is very interesting to see how he is developing his project from step to step. First looking at the Deep fake birding which unites art with science to inquire about the electrical nature of lifeforms and to push the envelope of artificial intelligence. Then it is more about how he developed his idea in Japan with knowledge of natural field recordings, building up Aeolian Harp with real bamboo, and doing some soldering about the mobile listening kit workshop. After that, he made it into a mobile software called NO.1: a novel optical sound experience that consists of an iPhone application and visual scores. For this project, I developed an iOS application that turns the iPhone into an optical sound device and visual scores/installations.
Rocket Hanabi by Tujiko Noriko
ベッドにねころがり
テレビを見てたら
とつぜん爆弾
私に落ちできたよ
ドカン、バダン、ピクァン、ポクァン
眩しくひかるよ
While I was lying on my bed
watching television,
a bomb suddenly came
and dropped down on top of me.
Ba-boom, Ba-boom, Ba-boom, Ba-boom
Such a radiant light…
私のお尻は
かけてるんだけれど
そこにばくだんを
すっぽりつめこんで
From below
I start to rise, but
From the explosion
The heat starts to fill everything
お尻をもやして
天にまいのぼるよ
From below I start to burn
Into the sky I ascend in a dance
眼下にはいつかの
草原ひろがる
緑揺れる緑
芝はなびくなびく
I’ll look down from below someday
The green land spreads out below
The green starts to shake and waver
The green land flutters and waves…
いつかの見るなら
のはらに集まり
はしごにん登って
お空の私に
If I see someday that,
At a gathering on the fields
People are ascending on a ladder
Towards me, somewhere in the sky,
優しく手を振る
優しく手を振る
I’ll gently wave my hand…
I’ll gently wave my hand…
わたしはロケット弾
花火を見せるよ
I am a rocket
Show me the fireworks
飛ぶは。。。
飛ぶは。。。
飛ぶは。。。
なみだながれても
Flying…
Flying…
Flying…
The tears stream down, and yet…
わたしはロケット弾
花火を見せるよ
I am a rocket
I want to see fireworks
飛ぶは。。。
飛ぶは。。。
飛ぶは。。。
なみだこぼれても
なみだこぼれても
Flying…
Flying…
Flying…
The tears start start to overflow, and yet…