audioscan®

the installation

The installation looks as a video operated by a touch-screen dashboard working in two different ways:

a) sound map: the sound of Milano

The map allows to explore every street of the town, listening to its audio while displaying the related analytical data (sound pressure and sonograph).

b) musical instrument: Milano transformed

The noises, processed in musical loops, can be freely mixed by the audience. Likewise, the projected images will turn from scientific data into graphic evolutions interacting with sounds.

The installation will be presented at Palazzo Reale from May 20th to May 30th.

Promoted by Assessorato alla Cultura del Comune di Milano.

live electronics

The music has been entirely produced transforming the city noises with custom Max/MSP

softwares. The musical performance, realized, composed and played by Giorgio Sancristoforo and Giuseppe Cordaro, is accompanied by images generated in real-time by the video-artist Quayola. The concert will be presented Thursday May 27th, 2010 at Palazzo del Ghiaccio as inauguration of audiovisiva 6.0 festival, a production by esterni in collaboration with Frigoriferi Milanesi and Open Care

CD+book

The CD containing the music is completed by a book deepening some of the leading themes from new, unparalleled perspectives, thanks to the contributions of Vittoria Broggini (curator of MAGA museum), Marco Fringuellino (acoustic physicist at Istituto di Misurazioni di Torino), Simone Tosoni (Sociologist at Università Cattolica di Milano).

Postmediabook eds. Edited by Vittoria Broggini.

the production

First stage: mapping, April-June 2009

The very first step has been recording sounds and measuring sound pressure levels with professional equipment in 1.580 streets and squares of the city, collecting the samples during the weekdays and always at the same hour, i.e. 8.00 am, aiming at gathering data in the most homogeneous conditions.

Second stage: music and video production, July 2009 – January 2010

After having been catalogued and analyzed, the noises have been patiently transformed into musical instruments, by means of ad-hoc tailored software. An enormous sound design work, taking seven months.

Giorgio Sancristoforo and Giuseppe Cordaro have realized with this instruments an ambient music suite. The video-artist Quayola has contextually produced the clips.

Third stage: realization of the installation, spring 2010

Final realization of the interactive installation – contextually conducting an in-depth analysis of the work and its themes – production and rehearsing of the live performance.

audioscan is an artistic project conceived by Giorgio Sancristoforo, produced by AGON in collaboration with basemental. The project has received the support of Regione Lombardia and Fondazione Cariplo, Young Creativity call for bids. It consists of a multimedia interactive installation and of a live performance combining music and video. Both are based on the sound mapping of Milano.

At the basis of audioscan there are 1.580 recordings and phonometric surveys gathered within the perimeter contained in the main ring road of Milano. audioscan puts itself up as a chance to reflect on the features of the sound surrounding us and the spaces we act in. A process of meeting and exchange between contemporary art, music and environmental themes, a meditation on soundscape and the auditive dimension of human experience, both on an aesthetic and a social perspective.

An ambitious cataloguing work and an environmental awakening project through the transformation of a waste product of technological society – noise – into an artwork.

Milan May 20th-May 30th 2010

extended till June 6th 2010