Opsound

Opsounders! Have something to say?

Sat, 05 Aug 2006 15:40:12 -0700

Opsounders! have something to say about music, life, participation, open systems, open source, collaboration, cooperation, play, or anything at all?

This summer and fall you are invited to contribute to the creation of an open-access publishing house, a "Free Press," to be launched at Röda Sten contemporary art center in Göteborg, Sweden. A project of Opsound founder Sal Randolph, Free Press will accept all kinds of writing from the public; contributions in any language can be as short as a single word or as long as an encyclopedia and can include manifestos, statements, documentations, studies, stories, recipes, poems and whatever you can imagine.

"Even in the age of the internet, book publishing is a walled garden where editors and commercial interests filter out most of what is written," says Randolph. "To publish is to 'make public,' and the published materials of the world create their own kind of public space, a city of books where readers and writers are citizens. Free Press aims to open up access to that public space. Like any city, Free Press is bound to include both ugliness and beauty, though the definitions of each will certainly differ."

All participating manuscripts will be published as printed books in the Free Press series, available in the project's library and reading room at Röda Sten, where events and discussions will also take place. Additional copies will be placed on shelves in local bookstores and libraries. Readers will be able to download copies from the website and order them at cost from an internet book printer.

The Free Press exhibition will take place from September 16 - October 15, 2006 at Röda Sten.

Call for Participation

Free Press is looking for writing of all kinds - any language, any style, genre or subject matter, experimental or traditional, unpublished or previously published.

Manifestos, artists statements and conceptual/experimental texts are especially welcomed, as well as writing about gifts and gift economies, open systems, freedom of expression, censorship, surveillance, intellectual property, the commons & the public domain, anarchy, cooperation, political philosophy, alternative economies, public space, urbanism, situationism & psychogeography, conceptual, performance, and participatory art, graffiti and street art, distributed creativity, social software, virtual worlds, open source, happenings, the 1960s, the future, utopian and postutopian visions.

All material included in the Free Press project will be released under Creative Commons licenses which will allow the texts to be printed and freely shared.

Deadlines: Texts will be accepted through the Free Press website starting August 1, 2006 continuing through the end of the exhibition on October 15. However, if you wish your text to appear as a book in the gallery, please allow for publication time (2-4 weeks) and send it as soon as possible. If you want your book to be there at the opening (September 16), send your text now!

free press

Summer Sounds

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 15:13:27 -0700

Lots of new artists are coming into Opsound - check them out on our New Music page. There's some sweet pop sounds, dance music, and blues arriving just in time to take to the beach - collect all the latest opsounds from our New Song Podcast or you can pick up a podcast from any genre or feed page - just scroll down to the bottom and look for the podcast badge.

And just to let you know, the Opstream's down for now due to some catastrophic hardware failure, but there's a spiffy updated version of the stream in the works - more on that soon.

An Opsound Point of View reaches PBS

Tue, 09 May 2006 06:47:03 -0700

Six Opsound artists provide the music for "Selling America" a documentary by Gregory Warner, produced for PBS's web series, P.O.V. Borders. Congrats to Hijiyama Project, Markovitch/AMP, Phantastica Kontrobanda, Aminos, Manolo Camp, and cjacks. Watch & listen from here, more info & credits here.

Start Your Own Opsound

Sun, 02 Apr 2006 11:07:16 -0700

Creative Commons has just announced the release of CcHost 2.0 - this is the open source software that powers their popular CC Mixter project. If you've ever had a yen to start your own multimedia sharing site, this is the software to take you there. Congrats, friends.

And also in from CC, there's still time to participate in Remix Reading - a show of CC licensed art in many media to be held at the Riverside Museum at Blake's Lock in Reading, UK -- deadline April 6.

Opsound Sparks!

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:06:18 -0800

A one hour show of some the newest songs and artists in the Opsound pool is being featured on Spark Radio, the the radio channel of the 2006 Spark Festival of Electronic Art and Music in Minneapolis, February 22-26. [more info including a complete playlist with download links]

listen to the Spark Radio Stream (Feb 22-26 2006)

Roll Out the Welcome Mat

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 12:29:35 -0800

This just in: an invitation from our friends in Paris to help spread the word about your music. Antonia, the energetic team who kindly tapped Opsound for the Palais de Tokyo's radio stream (still online) has started up a new project called the Media Lab -- a philanthropic project to help promote new artists. They've already worked with opsounder _aa_ and they have lots more projects in the works. You're all invited to contact Antonia, introduce your sounds to them, and see how your music might fly outward to new audiences in Paris and beyond.

Hello Podcasters!

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 10:38:37 -0800

Podcasters of the world, unite! As things heat up in the podcast-o-sphere, Opsound music is cropping up all over, on podcasts large and small including Engadget, the PRX podcast, Audiolingo, Love & Radio, bazoocast, bonchiast, senzavolto, normcast, Getting a Leg Up, and Two Minute Photoshop Tricks. Podcasters need music that is free to share ('podcast-safe') so Opsounders are starting to get some serious airplay.

And while we're here, congratulations to our friends at Anal0g on their second release in as many months. The first, Wires is a compilation featuring Opsounders _aa_, the baloonist, and Sleepy Rabbit, along with other Anal0gers and their friends. They've just followed it up with a solo album from Sleepy Rabbit called the big let down. Think of them as Christmas presents: all CC licensed and ready for your download. And for a bonus, check out Sleepy Rabbit's site, thearmyoflanternfaces for lots more music downloads and wonderful drawings.

Goodbye Boston!

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 16:22:49 -0800

We wrapped up our show in Boston with a great closing party (see pics below!), so now we're back to our regularly scheduled program of open-eared listening. If you're tired of holiday music piping through malls, refresh your auditory nerves with some new music from the pool.

Eric Raz

Mobile Symphony by RZ1-tek

Closing Party for Open Sound Exchange: Boston December 11

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 18:23:12 -0800

Opsound is delighted to announce an exciting line-up for the closing party of Opsound's Open Sound Exchange and Glowlab's Open Lab to take place Sunday, December 11 from 4-8pm. Performances in the gallery will include a live video and audio stream by LoVid, an interactive audio piece for mobile phone handsets by RZ-1 Mobil Tek, plus experimental ambient live music by Boston resident Eric Raz and New Yorkers Brad Bordine and Weapons of Mass Destruction who will incorporate local field recordings and environmental city sounds.

[directions and complete lineup information]

Boston Sounds

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 09:11:12 -0700

Live from Art Interactive gallery in Cambridge, a special edition of the Opstream, featuring sounds recorded in the gallery as well as contributions by Opsound artists cold_elf, Gregory "Tha Silent Partner" Davis, Grey Socialist Masseuse, Jay Critchley with a host of collaborators, situational audio logic, and Weapons of Mass Destruction:

[ UPDATE: the show's over, so the stream is now offline ]

And since we've had a little bit of difficulty with the stream's stability, here's an alternate link to try if you need to:

[ UPDATE: the show's over, so the stream is now offline ]

Take a look at the individual contributions by checking out our boston tag page or get them by podcast:

We'll be adding sounds from all sources for the next nine weeks, so it's not too late to add your boston sounds -- just put them in the pool and tag them with "boston" - scroll down for details.

Here's a couple of pics of the opening. Everyone had a great time. Thanks for stopping by!

Join me at Opsound's Open Sound Exchange: Boston

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 13:26:25 -0700

As you've likely heard, beginning October 14, Opsound will be part of Glowlab's "Open Lab", an exhibition and festival of psychogeographic explorations headquartered at Art Interactive. Opsound will be collecting and generating a sound portrait of Cambridge and Boston through recordings in the gallery, sound gathering walks through various neighborhoods, and via contributions from sound artists and musicians over the internet. All the collected material will be broadcast as a 24/7 internet radio stream -- a special edition of the 'opstream' -- that will grow throughout the exhibition.

I'll be in residence several weekends of the show, and I'd be delighted if you stopped by to have some coffee, chat, contribute sounds, and walk with me through interesting parts of the city.

Opsound Schedule:

Oct 14 6-9pm Opening!
Oct 15-16 noon-6pm Opsound open lounge, sound collection walks at 3pm
Oct 29-30 noon-6pm Opsound open lounge, sound collection walks at 3pm
Dec 10 noon-6pm Opsound open lounge, sound collection walk at 3pm
Dec 11 2-8pm Opsound performances in the gallery, and closing party

Many additional events by other artists every weekend of Glowlab's Open Lab
[schedule]

Directions and Information:

Art Interactive" is open Saturdays and Sundays from 12 - 6pm or by appointment. The gallery is located at 130 Bishop Allen Drive, at the corner of Prospect Street in Cambridge, MA. 617-498-0100 info@artinteractive.org Subway: Central Square [map/directions]

And even if you can't be there in person, please contribute to the special Boston opstream by adding Boston sounds of all kinds to the pool, and simply tagging them with the word "boston" -- scroll down for details. All contributing artists will be featured as part of the exhibition, and their sounds will be heard at the gallery, and of course in the stream.

Site Updates

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:43:14 -0700

You may have noticed a few more additions to the opsound site appearing quietly over the past few days. We now have a news feed for the front page, and podcast feeds for every genre and tag. Most exciting, we have a special podcast feed for all new Opsound songs so you can keep up to date with what's new in the pool.

Also, the forum is back -- with new topics for feature suggestions (and bug reports). You'll notice some new forum software (we've moved to the very sleek PunBB which I was introduced to over at Textpattern). We've transfered over all the posts and user accounts, but everyone with an existing account will need to reset their password (in the forum, go to 'login' and follow the 'forgot your password? link). (Forum accounts are completely separate from the new Opsound user accounts.)

And a reminder to all you Opsound artists: it's easy to manage and update your existing Opsound info -- just create a new user account and drop me a quick email with your new username and the name of your bands/artists -- I'll link you up in a jiffy.

Opsound at Art Interactive: An Invitation to Participate

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 16:58:19 -0700

This fall Opsound will be part of Glowlab's "Open Lab" exhibition at Art Interactive gallery in Cambridge/Boston. We'll be setting up a workspace and lounge in the gallery for the duration of the show and generating a special edition of the opstream focusing on the sounds of Boston. Everyone is invited to participate by adding 'Boston' sounds to the pool (we mean this quite broadly! everything from field recordings to Boston band pop to fantasies of what Boston's soundscape might be).

How to participate:

Opsound's "Open Sound Exchange: Boston" is gathering material for an open pool of sounds relating to the city. Boston real and Boston imaginary, Boston past and Boston now: yelling cabbies, Rat new wave, Fenway Park crowds, sunday afternoon string quartets, harbor noises, sidewalk folk singers, Composers in Red Sneakers new music, banker high heels, museum whispers, Media Lab algorithms, Big Dig construction, student arias. every city is a world of sound -- help discover Boston's by creating a kaleidoscopic sonic portrait. Contributions can include work from, about, or inspired by the idea of Boston. Boston sounds, including field recordings from various parts of the city, are already in the pool and available for remixing.

To contribute, simply add your sounds to opsound, and tag them with the word "boston."

Opsound's "Open Sound Exchange: Boston", at Glowlab: Open Lab, October 14-December 11, 2005, Art Interactive gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Welcome to the New Opsound

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 10:00:00 -0700

Greetings, friends, and welcome to the new Opsound. You'll see many changes, and you can get more info about them in our changes faq. Among our new features are podcast/rss 2.0 feeds for every artist (thank you webjay!), and a new genre and tagging system to make browsing browsing the opsound pool a richer and more interesting experience. Think of the new site software as a public beta, actively under development - your feedback is welcomed.

News From Our Friends

Wed, 17 Aug 2005 12:52:00 -0700

While Opsound is coding through the dog days of summer, here's a rundown of some great projects our friends are up to:

Opsound loves field recordings, and the new Soundtransit project is a wonderful way to listen to them -- you 'book a transit' through the soundtransit site, complete with departure and arrival city and stopovers, and they build you a journey in sound for you to play or download. A joy. And for all you phonographers -- upload your own sounds to Soundtransit or collect field recordings for your mixes (everything on Soundtransit is released under the CC Attribution license). For more field recordings (or other bits of sound), check out Freesound's new geotagged sound map -- choose your sounds by their map location. The Freesound Project is collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under the CC Sampling Plus License. You can add your own samples of all kinds, and find bits of sound to incorporate in your music using their intruiging 'sounds-alike' browser.

Fans of databending, microsound, algorithmic and generative composition, and experimental electronic music in general are sharing their sounds, software tools, and ideas on Ruccas.org. Great stuff for open-eared listening and inspiration.

Opsound's Scott Waddell has put up a page of helpful links for free and CC licensed material on his site need-name. Opsounder John Hollwach has started a new project, Commons Music to promote voluntary collective licensing for music. And while you're at it, check out his band Try^d's new CC licensed album, Public Domain -- support the band buy buying a copy for only $8.88, or download it free from the Try^d site (the band also includes Opsound's rjmarshal and Andrew Vavrek).

Opsound, Animated

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:00:00 -0700

Creative Commons Australia has released a nifty cartoon that explains cc licenses and mentions Opsound. [see the quicktime]

Opsound at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris

Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:00 -0800

Opsound at the Palais de Tokyo! On April 5th, the Palais de Tokyo (Paris' "site for contemporary creation") will launch Tokyo Ozone, its new internet project, with a day of art and wifi, and the Opsound Pool will provide the music for their Tokyo Radio. If you're in Paris, stop by the palais on April 5th for some great live performances at the launch party, and if you're elsewhere, check out the Tokyo Radio stream, online starting April 5. Like the Opstream, Tokyo radio will be streaming the whole pool (up through march 2005) - more than 1000 copyleft songs, or 3 and a half days of free music. [more info - en francais]