Since the late '70s,
Gordon Monahan has been
making a
career of extracting the unheard from pretty much anything he can get his hands on.
Monahan's works for
piano, loudspeakers, video, kinetic sculpture, and computer-controlled sound environments span various genres from avant-garde concert music to multi-media installation and sound art.
Such pieces include
long string installations activated by wind (Long Aeolian Piano, 1984-88), by
water vortices (Aquaeolian Whirlpool, 1990) and by
indoor air draughts (Spontaneously Harmonious in Certain Kinds of Weather, 1996). His work for
electronic tone generators and
human speaker swingers (Speaker Swinging, 1982), is a hybrid of science, music, and
performance art, where
minimalistic trance music based on the Doppler Effect contrasts with issues central to
performance art such as physical struggle and '
implied threat'.
John Cage once said, "
At the piano, Gordon Monahan produces sounds we haven't heard before."
[more inside]
posted by wcfields
on Apr 29, 2011 -
4 comments
Introducing the
Gamelatron, "the world's first and only fully robotic gamelan". Brought to you by the Brooklyn-based League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, affectionately known as
LEMUR.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Jan 18, 2009 -
29 comments
Spend a bit of your Sunday getting a little more acquainted with Indonesian musical culture.
Balinese gamelan. And a little
more. See how they make some of those fabulous-sounding
gongs. And here's the fabulous
Kecak. And more
Kecak. And just for good measure, howsabout a little
Angklung karaoke? Meanwhile in Sumatra the gals are playing the
dishes!
[all links YouTube]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on May 13, 2007 -
25 comments
Bali is an island in Indonesia that attracted
Walter Spies, a Russian born, German artist who settled in the colonial Dutch East Indies from 1923 on. Adored by the Balinese, Spies was the co-founder of the
Pita Maha artists' cooperative, he shaped the development of contemporary Balinese art and established the West's image of Bali that still exists today. [more images and background inside]
posted by nickyskye
on Jul 29, 2006 -
15 comments