SEP 19: Pools, sun, lights, nights, party, slots, splash, poker, roulette, siegfried & roy, casino, pools, girls, buffets, skin, lights, folies bergere, money, ... nope, not for us. SN performance #7.

Welcome Nevada. One night in Valley of Fire State Park under the stars. Next stop: Vegas.

Much of the time in Utah was spent with travelling, but lots of ideas and additional energy emerged in this desolated region.

SEP 16: An incidental meeting with rodeo riders at the gas station brought us to the today's rodeo high school event in Cedar City for SOUND NOMADS field recordings.

SEP 16	Art Performance: 'Play'
Location	Cedar City, UT/USA
Timeframe	13:00-16:00 PM | 2:00 min. Video Runtime
Preparation	AUG 31, SEP 07-09 [3 days]. MAX/MSP, sound recording and editing, track composing, callibration, props

Entertainment can have positive impacts on us, it can destroy and break. Unachievable fantastic sim worlds, growing frustrations, offendings, suppressions of problems ... Play!

Technology: Live pitching of audio sample with distance sensor on the ground. Sensor equipped rocking dog as music score controller.

SEP 14: Appropriate for the harsh monsoon weather we've currently settled down in a cabin near Torrey/UT.

SEP 12: As it gets more difficult to explore new sounds to work with in these areas, we are ready to give up these awsome landscapes for Vegas.

SEP 12: After our short trip to Arizona, breathtaking views (and sounds?) in Utah.

SEP 11	Art Performance: 'What the Fuck'
Location	Kanab, UT/USA
Timeframe	7:10-9:15 PM | (Pre) 2:13 min. (Post) 3:40 min. Video Runtime
Preparation	SEP 06-08 [1 1/2 day]. MAX/MSP, sound recording and editing

Native Americans are living in fenced Indian reservations in times when signs of the brutal history completely disappeared. Monuments remembering the loss are rare and voids remain. For two hours an empty billboard in Utah converted into an ephemeral interactive memorial. An investigation of history and memory, meaning and interrelations. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Technology: In covering up sensors hanging off the billboard with the palm of the hand, single syllables are unveiled.

The lower canyon: Navajo's Hasdeztwazi, or "spiral rock arches".

Only a few places find their way into performances ...

Next SOUND NOMADS performances in pipeline. Search for further sound sources and playgrounds. Long trips.

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.