Each week on Friday at noon MT, Currents will release a theme related to a 5-week cycle. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a short sonic piece on this theme.
Yes, It can be music. Yes, it can be spoken word. And yes it can be both music and spoken word and sound scenes and other wonderful sound art.
Don’t feel limited by your equipment! This is about creating and sharing based on an idea, and even the most available equipment (i.e. a smartphone or computer mic) will be sufficient. No age limits or geographic boundaries – creators of all ages wherever they are can participate.
5. embroidered
– Create a sonic artifact that is gilded, quilted, lined, woven, or mended with threads of gold. Incorporate voice in any manner, and if possible, include a bit of a work (or works) from the previous 4 weeks of soundscapes that is not your own. Find works on Currents New Media playlists or search #CurrentsSoundscapes. Please do respectfully ensure proper attribution of any and all creators as per the Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International — CC BY-NC 4.0. Maximum length for this final piece of this cycle is 5 minutes.
The final theme is due at midnight next Thursday, then we will get to work curating the final album of all the wonderful work we have received. Be sure to #Currentsoundscapes!
4. mine own hands
– Conceive a piece in 3 acts or chapters, where the last chapter does not have to be the end, and the first act is not necessarily the beginning. Include in this piece at least one sound or musical phrase created by you, either with an instrument or with an object of any kind you have. You may also include spoken word. Maximum length of the finished piece is 3 minutes 30 seconds.
Submissions are due by next Thursday 5.7.20 at midnight, and don’t forget to hashtag #CurrentSoundscapes!
Translation provided by Fernando Hernandez:
Me invitaron a ser curador invitado de la galería digital sonora #currentsoundscapes. Donde cada semana al mediodía del viernes se lanza un tema sobre el cual puedes hacer una pieza de arte sonoro.
Este proyecto, iniciativa de @msmagswildwood es una gran oportunidad para amateurs y profesionales que crean, viven y experimentan el sonido.
Esta semana 4, el tema es: MINE OWN HANDS
Concibe una pieza en tres actos o capítulos donde el último capítulo no tiene que ser el final, y el primer acto no tiene que ser el comienzo de tu pieza. Incluye en esta pieza al menos un sonido o frase musical creada por ti, ya sea con un instrumento o con un objeto de cualquier tipo que tengas. También puedes incluir palabra hablada. La duración máxima de tu pieza es de 3 minutos y 30 segundos.
Tienes hasta el jueves 7 de mayo a la medianoche para subir tu pieza (instagram, soundcloud, etc) y no olvides ponerle el hashtag #currentsoundscapes
Estoy muy emocionado de seleccionar grandes expresiones de creatividad al lado de @genesxipshirey@dayfound y @digimaja
Ya les contaré por acá cuáles fueron las piezas finales que seleccionamos y por qué.
Más información al correo calex@currentsnewmedia.org o al dm de instagram @currentsnewmedia
3. cavum clouds
– For this piece, please include multiple recorded or created ambiences. Use 3 – 5 ambiences layered and arranged to provide a clearing for a brief solo moment. Ambiences can include conversations (make sure people give permission for recording), musical phrases, spoken word, captured moments, audio diaries, and sound scenes. Maximum length for this piece is 4 minutes 30 seconds.
2. ever finer details
– Get a short recording of a loved one(s) in your household (or outside your household if you already have a recording —or if they can record themselves and send to you) and incorporate voice in any manner: (even hiccups, laughing, yelling, singing, talking, etc) into your work —anything goes as long as you have permission from your person. Maximum 3 – 43 seconds of voice to be used in this piece. Maximum length for the total work 4 minutes 30 seconds. Submissions close at midnight next Thursday, April 23. Tag your tracks #CurrentSoundscapes to be featured!
1. velocity vs boredom
– Find and record a percussive and/or repetitive sound from your environment and incorporate it into your piece at two different speeds or pitches. Please do not source a sound from the internet, but rather, find and use one from your surroundings. Maximum length for this first piece is 180 seconds total. Submissions close at midnight next Thursday, April 16. Tag your tracks #CurrentSoundscapes to be featured!
Megan Jones
Producer & Curator, #CurrentSoundscapes
Megan Jones has a thing for audio. Along with her day job, she’s been an audio and digital producer for nearly ten years – public radio, podcasts, corporate audio gigs, and live storytelling shows. She previously produced at The Moth, Hachette Audio, Radiotopia, Epic Digital, Al Jazeera Media, and consulted with independent podcasters and producers. For a couple of years, Megan was also an instructor at University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism for a podcast program. She’s been a guest speaker at Google, IDEO, Designers + Geeks, and other companies and conferences. Occasionally she and her partner, Les Stuck, collaborate on artistic and commercial projects. Megan currently works at Meow Wolf in Santa Fe.
Sxip Shirey
Sxip Shirey is a composer/producer/curator/performer based in NYC.
He is the composer and music director for the theater/circus arts production “LIMBO”, produced by Melbourne based Strut N Fret Productions House and London based, Underbelly and South Bank Center. LIMBO and it’s sequel LIMBO UNHINGED have been touring internationally for six years to great acclaim, appearing in venues and festivals that include: Sydney Opera House, London’s Southbank Center, the Bogota International Theater Festival, and a special performance at Madonna’s 57th Birthday Day party. Shirey teaches workshops in “Text and Object Oriented Composition” at Norwegian Theater Academy in Fredrickstad, which Shirey considers “The Black Mountain College of NOW.” Shirey’s immersive choral works, “The Gauntlet”, developed with his wife and artistic partner Coco Karol, have been performed at Rockefeller Center and The Sydney Opera House. Shirey toured as the opening-act for the Dresden Dolls and has collaborated often with Amanda Palmer. As member of Luminescent Orchestrii, Shirey has played Appalachian music for gypsies in Transylvania and gypsy music for Appalachians in West Virginia. Shirey has presented at TED (2008), is a 2011 United States Artist Fellow, and has been an artist curator (2016) and artist in residence (2017) at National Sawdust, Brooklyn. Shirey composes for film —including the short film “Statuesque” written/ directed by Neil Gaiman and starring Bill Nighy, which premiered on Christmas Day on SKY TV, UK (2009). He created music for the electronic book version of Shaun Tan’s book “Rules of Summer,” Lothian Children’s Books, 2013. Recent projects include a collaboration with composer Paola Prestini for the opera “Stellet Licht”, workshopped last summer at BANFF, composition for choreographer Dan Safer for the Chekhov play “The One You Feed” at M.I.T. (October 2020) and composition for playwright Lisa D’Amour for the piece “Ocean Filibuster” to premiere at the American Repertory Theater Company (Cambridge, 2020).
www.sxipshirey.com
instagram: @genesxipshirey
YouTube: sxipshirey
Maja Thomas
Maja Thomas is an award-winning audio producer, director, and innovator.
She created audiobook divisions for Time Warner and for Hachette Book Group, both in the US and the UK. Currently she is the Chief Innovation Officer of Hachette Livre. While working as an executive, Maja pursued creative projects, producing and directing all David Sedaris’ audiobooks and his award-winning live show albums. Under her direction Hachette Audio received fourteen Grammy nominations. Maja’s passion for storytelling—and the future of storytelling– animates everything she does. She works internationally, facilitating collaboration with start-ups and established global players to get books into the hands, phones, and ears of readers. The team she leads designs and creates experiments with augmented reality, tap-to-read interfaces, social messaging platforms, bots, and voice assistants, and pilots projects to use machine learning and big data in publishing. Most recently, Maja collaborated with the sound artist Melissa McGill, recording the guide to her Constellation project, a public artwork on an island in the middle of the Hudson River, and audio for The Campi project, which debuted at the Venice Biennale in 2017.
Leila Day
Leila Day is bi-coastal in New York and San Francisco reporting and producing for The Stoop podcast (where she is a co-host with Hana Baba) and Pineapple Street Media.
Previously she worked as a senior reporter and editor at KALW public radio in San Francisco. Leila has produced content for NPR, AARP, USA TODAY, and various podcasts. In 2015, Leila was the recipient of the USC Annenberg Reporting on Health Journalism Fellowship, reporting on mental healthcare within black communities. Her work has garnered national and local awards through the Society of Professional Journalists, NorCal, and PRINDI. Leila has a degree in anthropology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and studied documentary radio at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Before radio life she spent four years in Havana, Cuba, where she developed a dance intensive program and was a frequent contributor to Cuba’s national newspaper, Juventud Rebelde.
Twitter: @leiladayleila
The Stoop podcast: http://www.thestoop.org/ Instagram: @dayfound
Fernando Hernandez
Fernando Air-Nandez is a radio and podcast producer whose work can be heard in Mexico as
well as in the United States – including public radio station KCRW, Latino USA, America the
Bilingual, and Snap Judgment’s Spooked podcast among others.
He’s the host and founder of Esto no es radio, a podcast production company specializing in storytelling. He thinks no one should be neutral in the pineapple pizza debate.
You can listen to his podcast here: https://audioboom.com/channels/4952051
More about his work on
twitter.com/estonoesradio and twitter.com/microgdl
