halffloor: Recent Episodes
halffloor
60 second sonic artworks podcast. By artists from everywhere. A new one every second week.
crew: Marie Gavois+George Kentros+Susanne Skog
“Dream_1” by Mirjam Bakerengl. translation of the vocal text:“…and then there was a rampant fire, and..I call the rescue service first because maybeand then I call the fire department because if there's nobody up therethen I have to pay a fine or somethingOK ( yawn) and then there was this paramedic guy who actually just wanted to see his girlfriend (yawn) …maybe she was somewhere....ahhhhh... maybe she was somewhere in a shed or by chance somewhere behind a rockor they were able to save themselves and then they survived... miraculously survived yes... can be”
How do you end the Season that has everything? With a bang, of course. Season 7 began with snow, angst, and sound art. It ends with summer warmth, angst, and sound art. Plus ça change and all that. Today we are proud to present the all-around cool person Sol Andersson and her 60 seconds of electronic gold titled ”guerilla setup”. And soon, although it can never be soon enough, we will return with Season 8, continuing to supply you, dear listener, with bi-weekly high octane sound art. You know the drill: click on the link in the comments to come to our Soundcloud. Or surf on down to halffloor.com, where this and more than 100 other artworks are yours for the clicking. Have a smashing interregnum!
"Aviary" is a sonic journey that weaves intricate synth textures, creating a radiant soundscape reminiscent of a vibrant bird-like sanctuary, evoking both the sense of freedom and constraint.
Awakened by the sound coming through the open window, he went out to see the ceremony of the longest day. In the cloud, most of the people seemed happy and excited, whistling, greeting, hugging. One child was crying and covering his ears with his hands. He himself was much older than the child, and yet he did not know why he was trembling. Only in the water could he be himself.
Rasenstücke aka Rasenmähersymphonien, Gabi Schaffner (2011/23) Hier Variante #12 aus der Serie „Rasenstücke“. Der Titel ist NATÜRLICH Albrecht Dürers Zeichnung entlehnt, und es handelt sich um finnische Rasenmäher, mit denen gemäht und gemischt wurde.
Pieces of Turf aka Lawnmower Symphonies, Gabi Schaffner (2011/23) Here is variant #12 from the series "Pieces of Turf". The title is NATURALLY borrowed from Albrecht Dürer's drawing, and these are Finnish lawnmowers used for mowing and mixing.
Climate Justice is an audio excerpt from the drawing animation film "I ride to the edge of the atmosphere in a half hour on my bicycle it's only 8.7 miles".The film was drawn outside the UN climate change conference COP15 in Copenhagen 2009.
A small excerpt from "nuechternheit und kultur", a performance I'm preparing with excerpts from "Moskau-Petuschki" by the Soviet underground author Wenedikt Jerofejew. He speaks here himself in one of his last interviews before he died of throat cancer ... too much alcohol ...
”Muttering and Shouting is a piece created by a zoetic engine (see https://vimeo.com/690171411, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Kg81jMX4U) consisting of three "creatures" I built on the Synthi 100 at the Radio Belgrade Electronic Studio in 2021, interacting with each other. I extracted the first part of their performance which nicely fitted the 1 minute frame.”
In April I wrote a short sonic poem for Halffloor inspired by the Frankfurt Guleut area. Spending time here, on this little piece of Earth squeezed between the railway tracks and the Main river, allows me to shift between worlds within minutes. This is Frankfurt to me: rich and poor exist in close adjacency and there is not an awful lot in between. For me, being in Frankfurt means navigating a relatively empty territory between polarities.
I made the sound piece 'Guleutviertel' with a simultaneous feeling of dislocation as well as nostalgia towards this neighborhood. A bit broken and forgotten by the world but still living and life doesn't stop until it is over.
This is a sacred chant for the city of Duisburg, Germany. With the voices of Christina Böckler, Eva Elena Busch, Johanna Yasirra-Kluhs and Marie Gavois.
The piece lotus2_hf is a fraction of a distorted speech about peace and forgiveness which was sent through a feedbacking mixer with a vibrato effect. Hints of voice arouse curiosity. Distortion does the dynamics. Noise starts to relax. Its almost arcane.
Engl. This is a flock of sheep coming back to the yard in front of their barn after a day on the vast lush green pastures in easternmost Turkey close to the Georgian and Armenian borders. Behind the gate the hungry lambs are already waiting. The turkey gives the start signal and each lamb finds its mother. This happens surprisingly quickly and ends in pleasurable smacking.
Deutsch. Dies ist eine Herde Schafe, die nach einem Tag auf den weiten saftig grünen Weiden in der östlichsten Türkei nah zur georgischen und armenische Grenze zurück in den Hof vor ihrem Stall kommen. Hinter dem Gatter warten schon die hungrigen Lämmer. Der Truthahn (Turkey) gibt das Startzeichen und jedes Lamm findet seine Mutter. Dies geht erstaunlich schnell und endet in genussvollem Schmatzen.
subtitles:
OK, I’m going up a hill now, I see something up here … sticking out of the snow /… / If I stand there … and then look in that direction … / … / and what is that over there, then? … There is the entrance, you can see that, then … /… / Oh, right.
with Algis Kizys (who’s voice you can also hear in an earlier podcast, ”radioOradio”) and Eric Hubel, this time as the constellation Hallicrafters, on shortwave radios, one from 1946 and one from the 1960's, with Jonathan Bepler as a guest performer on wind and reed instruments. They have set up an an antenna outside, through a side 2nd and half floor window. We can hear shortwave radio, pulse burst generators and effects.
The title "Kyr-kor" is a play on the Swedish words for churches (kyrkor) and cows (kor). The material used for this very short dreamscape features church bells and cowbells recorded while hiking in two small villages in Bavaria: Roßhaupten and Oberaudorf respectively. Today, these types of sounds are probably associated mostly with rural charm. But they also have a long tradition in music history. Mahler, for instance, was particularly fond of cowbells. However, both of these bell sounds also connote domestication and power. Church bells once demanded that villagers attend church services, and cowbells are a means of control. The large bells worn around the neck of free-roaming livestock help herders keep track of their cattle, but have in recent years been considered harmful to the animals' hearing and feeding habits. The edited snippets used in the collage reflect on these different aspects and are furthermore combined with the ringing sound of rain recorded on my home block in Stockholm, just opposite the Högalid Church and the columbarium where a dear and deeply missed friend of mine is resting.
Amaranthine 2011 is an unreleased piece from the archive of Lisa Stenberg, composed in October 2011 utilizing the 90’s software MetaSynth, synthesizing images and photos. The piece consists of an ongoing stream of sound in process, in flux, linking the past with the present.
K O Y O
ett stritt regn har fallit i norrland finns stora skogar väldiga
vattenfall pojkarna bör själva undersöka varje växt huset byggdes
av skog gången rensades en ny väg har anlagts ett stritt regn har
fallit
.
a heavy rain has fallen in norrland there are large forests huge
waterfalls the boys themselves should examine each plant the house was built
out of forest the path has been cleared a new road has been laid a heavy rain has
fallen
This project is associated with the presence of melancholy in the transformation of public spaces. Problematizing the process of displacement, sanitization, and privatization of public spaces, Tsuchimoto creates a performative farewell to the disappearing places with the production of drawing and video.
The sound was originally recorded for the video work. Narration: Daniel Konar Sound design: Alexandra Nilsson
Produced with support from: IntraGalactic arts collectivePublic Art Agency Sweden/Statenskonstråd
Dedicated to Östersund busstation
This track is written with analog synthesizers, by playing with timing and shifts, without any definite beginning or end. I wanted to express the abruptness and craziness of social life in general and particularly the tension of the previous year. 2020 swept like a haywire computer game, like a game in which it is impossible to win. At least because not only the rules have changed, but also the essence of the game. It seems like now it's not about winning, but about something else. We can smell it, but we cannot say anything definite about it yet. My minute on the podcast is about the process of this shifting. through the beat. as I felt it. as it poured through my filters. /Rzeng
(recorded live at Tempelhof Airfield, Runway 27) Instrumentation: amplified Tennis Racket, Megaphone
The original sound source was part of my field recording regarding my project about lighthouses. I had a chance to meet and interview a lighthouse keeper in Spain; we talked about different soundscapes in the ports nowadays, even though some lighthouses keep functioning visually. An operating foghorn is not mandatory anymore in the EU, therefore most lighthouses don't use it anymore. The lighthouse keeper was very kind and re-triggered for me the foghorn circuit, which is located underneath the lighthouse and which produces a morse-code sound (PP : Porto Pi) through a large horn situated 1km away at the entrance to the port.
The 1 minute of sound consists of layers of two clips of different lengths: the foghorn at the Porto Pi port, and a circuit lever which triggers the compressor but which is physically in a remote place from the actual sound. As the foghorn generates the sound in a certain frequency, overlaid self-originated tracks intermittently generate resonant effects and it amplifies itself.
Zafire Vrba works with queer lineage, feminist echo, revolutionary time and states of trans.
Firedragon
The Chinese Firedrake Jammer is a commercial AM broadcast jamming signal run by the Chinese government. The jamming signal (12 Chinese folk songs) transmit on the same frequencies as radio stations that China sees as unfavorable. You can hear the jamming signal while I scan different frequencies on shortwave radio.
Hilde Rough As Fuck + The MRI Scan From Homerton Of My Ear _ Lore Lixenberg by halffloor
a walk with the fish (transition to greatness)
it’s a transition to greatness legendary and very talented there is a tremendous energy magnificent we’re doing very well, very well it’s a transition to greatness legendary and very talented there is a tremendous energy tremendous reputation wonderful extraordinary it’s a transition to greatness the greatest anywhere in the world tremendous reputation absolutely incredible great business wonderful transition to greatness absolutely incredible great victory fantastic extraordinary the greatest anywhere in the world magnificent fantastic better than ever it’s a transmission to greatness good shape, getting better better than ever incredible transition to greatness it’s a transition to greatness transition to greatness
(corona summer 2020)
sexandbeauty is a sound piece based on S voice samples and the ideas of sex and beauty translated in numbers.
"One day a young beautiful man entered my friend's restaurant. He opened and unfolded a case. By his looks, I was sure, that someone had sent an assassin to me and now he would unpack his 12 knives to kill me. Somehow surprised and fascinated I watched the scene, realising that he had 12 flutes in the case. We became friends for a day and later on, recorded him playing in a backroom of the restaurant."
March 21 2020 Southern Spain
We unfolded a huge Neo baroque house facade in a roundabout. Guardia civil passed by, impatient about our lack of Spanish language - a casa! A casa! How to understand? There was a beautiful house lying on the floor between them and us
In search for a place to stay over night, we drove down into a dried up river At night, in the dark, the coyotes were howling by climbing and hunting they caused stone avalanches right in front of us,
At 9 pm, we heard people clap their their hands, and drum kitchen pots in the nearby village Demanding to shift the royal Saudi Arabian bribe money, to Spanish public health care
we woke up to the scent of thyme and rosemary bushes We drove some kilometres in the river bed pulling an 80 m2 advertisement poster of a yelling woman, behind our car Let’s call it: calypso - banana - hallelujah - online -shopping
h a l f f l o o r p a l o o z a ! All pods from year One in one minute, by Vinyl Terror & Horror, Midori Mitamura, Marja-leena Sillanpää, Ida Lundén, Fredrik Olofsson, Mattias Petersson, Lisa Domin, Qarin Wikström, Magnus Bunnskog, Dave Procter, Jesper Norda, Åsa Stjerna, Achim Zepezauer, Lise-Lotte Norelius, Frauke Berg, Michel Korn, Rees Archibald, Alexandra Nilsson & Halffloor Crew: George Kentros, Marie Gavois and Susanne Skog
one minute and goldilocks.
it can’t be too hot or too cold. it must not be brewed too strong or too weak. it can’t be too spicy or too sour. it can’t be venus or mars. it must be like the earth. but not the really cold parts or the hot parts.
it must be just right.
it should be a bit unstable but balanced just right.
pina coladas at the beach.
A mechanical assist high density storage system is controlled by the operator rotating a spoke-like handle.
Mobile Shelving gets rid of stationary aisles between shelves by condensing the shelves together and creating a movable access aisle. Michel was recording 10 rows of empty Mobile Shelving In the basement of the abandoned Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Sounds from a construction site recorded on the Gowanus Canal in New York City and interweave into a short swelling stream, blended with human noise.
Researching on the term „one minute“ I found an excerpt from the „World Economic Forum“, in which then President of Israel Schimon Peres just finished his talk and Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkish Prime Minister at that time) asked for „One Minute“ to reply on that. What you hear in the sound-file, is Erdogan’s sampled voice and the translator.
Ogijima in the Seto Inland Sea, Japan. A tiny island with about 150 people, 200 cats and 300 wild boars. Ten years ago: not one single boar. Ogijima is not close to its neighbours. Only a very skilled ocean swimmer would even think of crossing the distance between the islands. But they did. The boars. They came swimming.
One minute from Mare Balticum (2015). An artistic exploration of the underwater soundscape of the Baltic Sea in the Anthropocene era.
”A sine wave is the purest form of sound, its waveform is characterized by two perfect semicircles. It is possible to recreate any sound using the correct number of sine waves. You'll just have to find the right number of frequencies and the right volume ratio between them. Sound waves spread as microscopic tremor in all matter. Everything tremble. Sometimes the sound hits an eardrum, travels trough to the small fine bones to the cochlea, sets the cilia in motion - and, just before it hits the auditory center in the brain: it has become electricity again. In this piece I have used 17 different sinuswaves to recreate the sound of mains hum.”
Materialet för detta enminutsverk, skapat för Halffloor 2019, består av två kontrasterande fältinspelningar. Den första kommer från den postapokalyptiska gallerian Carlos III i Havanna, Kuba. När man befinner sig på lägsta planet är man som i en gryta – likheten med ett Dantes inferno är slående – och blickar upp mot våningsplanen som stiger i cirklar. Här installerades en gång moderna rulltrappor som slutat fungera sedan årtionden. Jag satt mittemot livsbutiken som bevakas av beväpnade poliser, och bakom mig ett myller av barnfamiljer och blinkande, mekaniska bilar och sagodjur som barnen betalar för att sitta på ett par minuter. En överhettad pojke vrålar "pendejo!", en förolämpning med många betydelser beroende på var du befinner dig geografiskt. Den andra kommer från Skälsmara, längst österut på Ingarö i Stockholms mellersta skärgård, och är inspelad nattetid. I närheten hörs skällande dovhjortar. Arten kommer ursprungligen från medelhavsområdet, men har därefter inplanterats i länder över hela världen – inte minst på kungliga jaktområden. Skallen är handjurens brunstläten. Carlos III (1716-1788) var det Spanska imperiets regent från 1759 fram till sin död. Efter att Havanna invaderats 1762 av Portugal och Storbritannien återtogs staden av Spanien året därpå i utbyte mot att Florida tillföll britterna. Ett porträtt av Charles III vid 11 års ålder av den franske konstnären Jean Ranc (1674 -1735) uppvisar en ung man vars liv står långt från den pojke som skriker ut sina förolämpningar i gallerian som nu bär regentens namn. Jag föreställer mig att det är honom pojken skriker åt, genom tid och rum.
Artificial sun in science and in daily life. Interview with 80 years old, sauna and solarium expert, Herr Päffgen. Music extracts by Esther Quade feat. Michael Quade.
This is Ines and Madonna, the only thing they have in common is that I like them, as voices and humans. I also happened to meet them the same day. I met Ines on a birthday party, we ended up talking about the german word Spießig. Translations say that Spießig/ Spießigkeit means something like bourgeois / stuffiness, but Ines had a lot more to say about it; we made an appointment to meet again the week after, the result was an interview of 40 min on the Spießig. I met Madonna at his work, in a low price fashion boutique located on the big shopping street in Dortmund. Madonna has a very special job. Every day, when the shop is open, he announces the products in the shop, live, with a lavaliere microphone, you can hear his voice from a loudspeaker placed at the entrance by the handbags, pointing into the shop. If you move towards the leather belts and Madonna has his eyes on you, most def you will get a poem about belts and their special prices, if you happen to be close to the staircase you will get a personal message about shoes, just for you, if you walk down the stairs. You can also hear various kinds of comments from Madonna, comments on small happenings around the daily life of this shop, and sometimes he is singing a bit.
Marie Gavois