Sunday, November 28, 2010

contact microphone recordings on 'hidden sounds'

i have some contact mic recordings featured on 'hidden sounds':

Gene Pool#34: Hidden Sounds

these are stereo contact mic recordings made of hollowed out concrete light poles on toronto's leslie spit.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

eindhoven GLOW festival


my piece 'champs de mars' is the soundtrack for teresa mar's 'equilibrium' installation @ the GLOW festival of light in art and architecture in eindhoven:

http://www.gloweindhoven.nl/glow2010/projects/proj_06/6_index_gb.html

http://www.gloweindhoven.nl/

http://www.teresamar.com/

'listen to the weather' track is up

my piece 'august drift' is now up on the 'listen to the weather' website:

http://soundcloud.com/listentotheweather/august-drift-michael-trommer


August Drift - Michael Trommer by listentotheweather

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Thursday, September 16, 2010

upcoming shows:

i'll be performing 'greyfields' live at the following festivals: 

september 29th: spark festival, university of minnesota, minneapolis.
11pm @ 'lovepower church', 1047 south washington avenue

http://spark.cla.umn.edu/

october 2nd: pixilerations (with vj nokami), brown university, providence, rhode island.
8pm @ grant auditorium, hope st., /young orchard ave.

http://www.pixilerations.org/

musicworks interview




i've been interviewed for the 'lok8r' article in the spring 2010 issue of 'musicworks' magazine:



http://www.musicworks.ca

audiovoltaics interview


http://www.audiovoltaics.cc/?p=802

Saturday, April 17, 2010

sans soleil - live in kitakyushu









Live in kitakyushu - october 09 by sans soleil


A stripped-down, hardware-based set done in support of the 'simple machine' release on fountain music...performed with an Akai MPC1000 / Dave Smith Mopho/ Dave Smith Evolver/ 2 x Korg Mini-Kaoss pads.

sans soleil - live in eindhoven

Friday, April 2, 2010


Icefield (Wake Turbulence) from vjnokami on Vimeo.


Wake Turbulence is a music visualization based performance that uses sound and midi data as input for the graphic display of air travel related information graphics. 

The sky is filled with aircraft that transport people from place to place, perform utilitarian duties, assist in communications, and enact military missions. Wake Turbulence combines science, statistical display, and contemporary art by presenting these mechanical patterns and behaviors as a dynamic visual experience. The artwork is intended to be viewed as a live performance with video projected on 3 independent screens (16:9). 

The visual composition consists of 2 parts:

The first part is comprised of a graphic interface providing visual technical references to a variety of data environments, such as air traffic control, weather systems, GPS positioning, etc. The graphics are built into a 3D stage in quartz composer as "composition" and loaded in VDMX for  live manipulation in the X/Y/Z axes. This part will not be interacting with the sound, but will be manipulated by the visual performer using various bluetooth electronic devices for spacIal positioning.

The second part will be integrated into this 3D environment and will consist of several quartz composer paths. Each path will be loaded into VDMX for live manipulation and will interact with the music (sound and/or midi data driven). The content of these compositions will consist of visual data used in air space technology, such as air traffic control information, weather systems, flight vector information, etc. This content will respond to various input variations, affecting parameters such as zoom, positioning (x,y,z,), size, colour, layer triggering, layer fading, etc.

Friday, March 19, 2010

greyfields - TD PATH




Greyfield land is a term used in the United States and Canada to describe economically obsolescent, outdated, failing, moribund and/or underutilized real estate assets or land. The term was coined in the early 2000s as a way to describe the sea of empty asphalt that often accompanied these sites, which may also be referred to as "dead malls" or "ghostboxes".

'Greyfield' is an ongoing project which investigates the acoustic trace of these spaces; its most recent incarnation is based on sounds recorded in Toronto's downtown underground pedestrian network. This network, known as the PATH system, is recognized as the world's largest underground shopping complex. It traverses the entire downtown core and interconnects many notable buildings, including Mies van der Rohe's Toronto-Dominion Centre complex and Santiago Calatrava's BCE Place galleria.

My fascination with the PATH network stems from its haunting/haunted atmosphere - the high tech cathedral of branding stripped entirely of its human element.. For this reason, the recording sessions for the project occur late at night or on Sundays, when the network is virtually empty. At these times, the predominant sounds are those of the climate control systems and electronic banking and communications networks, these accompanied by the soft haze of muzak. 
Though the intent and sound of the pieces may reference sound art, the techniques employed in the creation of the pieces bear similarities to those of a live remix. Sounds are collected using a variety of dynamic and contact microphones, and immediately downloaded to a laptop where they are processed; the final pieces are then improvised on location as a soundtrack to the space's apocalyptically empty, surreal cinema.





'greyfields' being performed @ pixillerations, brown university, providence RI:








greyfields from michael trommer on Vimeo.