Arizona, current field for SOUND NOMADS explorations.

SEP 03	Art Performance: 'Sound Pets'
Location	San Francisco, CA/USA
Timeframe	1 day | ??:00 min. Video Runtime
Preparation	AUG 31-SEP 02 [2 1/2 days]. MAX/MSP, sound editing, track composing, pet construction, callibration
Challenges	police, weather conditions

Video Clip: Coming soon!

This time one of SOUND NOMADS' fundaments to reflect on situations of everyday life and the surroundings as directly as possible should be transferred. The 'Sound Pets' were born. Creatures fed with sound samples are playing their own rhythms based on the city's intensities of light and shadow.

Technology: Two light sensors - each mounted in a handsized transparent cube - are brought to life. A day around San Francisco with the two unconventional pets. Software development for a certain level of autonomous intelligence and precise calibration allow these pets to emit beats and recordings of sound huntings along the way. Beat – car wash sound pet 1 - beat – motel sound pet 2 - beat ... Light intensity (shadows of buildings, time of day, etc) as well as movements are responsible for the selection of samples out of the two sound pools. The stopping of a pet manifests itself as the momentary arresting of the rhythmic chain.

Finally, Victor alias 'the great soft-hearted car' gets his long overdue car wash in return for his 24/7 service. OK sure, sound recordings inclusive. But boy, you look so great!! Thanks goes to Gary and Michael (Elephant Car Wash Rancho Mirage).

AUG 15	Art Performance: 'Black Balloons'
Location	Cholla Cactus Garden/Joshua Tree NP, CA/USA
Timeframe	8:30-10:30 AM | 2:30 min./4:50 min. Video Runtime
Preparation	AUG 09-14 [3 days]. camping dinner recordings and splash huntings, track composing, balloon research, sensor callibrations, software development/adjustments
Challenges	car breakdown - one day overdue/second take necessary, bursting balloons (tent solution), tricky mounting and callibration of sensors, heat

Deserts as environments of extreme heat may cause serious stresses and fragilities in different manners. Contrasts of vulnerability and eternal unbreakables. The appearance of balloons and cactuses side by side, a love-hate relationship with dangerous consequences.

Technology: When balloons burst/explode, sensors on the inside of the balloons become exposed, leaving sounds behind. Out of complete silence, a soundscape gradually emerges. Light sensors power the master track ... One of the balloons differs from the others, simulates, by means of a distance sensor, a water balloon, now silent due to the explosion and lost water. RT sound processing from the assessed sensor data.

AUG 14: Big eye Joshua Tree stowaway (we adore her eyes!!) in spite of our increasingly risky rides. (We did it again - flat tire deluxe.)

AUG 12	Art Performance: 'Shoot Down Out'
Location	Palm Court Inn. Room 205/Palm Springs, CA/USA
Timeframe	6:00-9:30 PM | 4:00 min. Video Runtime
Preparation	AUG 12 [1 day]. sensor callibrations, software development/adjustments, instrument triggers
Challenges	room size, cpu power, MAX/MSP stability issues

A motel bathroom - a hidden place for poor clothes shootouts. No pre-composed audio tracks at this time, a peaceful realtime living system on its own. Quietness, slowness. Continuous rhizome multi-channel instruments, only disturbed by human impact. Artistic reflections on the recurring contrasts between nature and urban environments and the American historical efforts to control nature. Cities represent the most intensive human modifications of the physical environment.

Technology: A variety of distance sensors combined with software settings form an autonomous system. Through external interferences, sensor calibrations become confused for a moment and affect clear/orderly tones of the VSTis. Thereafter the system returns to a seemingly chaotic autonomous state.

AUG 9: San Diego - Anza-Borrego Desert State Park - Palm Springs.

Sensor equipped drawers pushed to their limits in yesterday's nightly actions.

Victor lost his rear tire. Sabotage seems to be continued. The E-mail subscription service for v-a-m-p.com site update alerts is currently down: Yutter experienced a a chain of events these days. BTW, the 'compromised credit card'-tour of the thief so far:

Date	Store	City	Amount
AUG 01 2006	Rite Aid Store 6016	Sonora/CA	USD 291,89
AUG 01 2006	Indian Creek Carwash	Sonora/CA	USD 12,95
AUG 01 2006	Indian Creek Carwash	Sonora/CA	USD 20,32
JUL 31 2006	Longs Drug Stores 233	Jackson/CA	USD 321,43
JUL 31 2006	Shell Oil 57441212107	Pollock Pines/CA	USD 33,49

JUL 05: Troubleshooting in the waves. Sunny. Boy!

Hey dude, go out for a bowl. We did so yesterday at Santa Monica's Bay Shore Lanes. Sure, we couldn't leave our hands off firering up our recording devices.

Back in L.A. for some days: Somebody crashed into our car, several criminal cases and guess what, Malibu without sun ...

Yesterday: Cool refreshing bath at 10,000 feet (ca. 3000 m) in the High Sierra after days without showers.

JUL 25	Art Performance: 'Viva la Hetch'
Location	Hetch Hetchy Dam/Yosemite, CA/USA
Timeframe	3:00-7:00 PM | ??:00 min. Video Runtime
Preparation	JUL 22-24 [3 days]. Yosemite sound huntings, tunnel recordings, FM recordings, track composing, sensor callibrations, software development/adjustments
Challenges	very limited power supply/battery backup, small time slot, no official permission, pedestrians on the dam, rangers repeatedly on site, issues with cable connections over long distances, power supply for preparation activities in the wilderness

Video Clip: Coming soon!

The US-Mexico wall seems to grow and become more emotional every minute; according to the very few available radio channels in Yosemite, Mexico comes faster into reach as it is supposed to; in our eyes the parallels of the Mexican border and the controversial Hetch Hetchy Dam seemed to be a perfect match as it comes to the theme and location of this very first large scaled SOUND NOMADS performance ...

Technology: A dam extensively linked as a playground for the first sound nomads performance. The introduction of the basic rhythms by the rappelling of a sensor down the wall, a light sensor on the other side of the dam which can be played by bending over. The summoned Mexican sounds here are somewhere else at the same time, capable of being manipulated in pitch by the modulation of a pressure sensitive cravat. In an area defined by distance sensors the master track becomes further controllable by jumps. The whole thing's over with the weight of the "anchor".

JUL 22: During the SN preparations for the Hetch Hetchy performance we were pleased with the results of this excellent sound machine - the tube.

JUL 22: Sound huntings under extreme conditions. Hours of midday heat, tons of equipment, gallons of water and ways to go. Climbing up to the Upper Yosemite Fall; Abstieg. Audio track: Available now!

JUL 21-26: Exotic tourist birds instead of bears. Rainy trees instead of heat. Nevertheless, most of the time lonely wilderness.