News

Black’s work featured in “Neue Radiokunst International XXIII” (SWR2, Germany)

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:00:28 +1100

Black’s work Soundprints: The Prague Pressings was featured in SWR2 ars acustica’s Neue Radiokunst International XXIII produced by Andreas Hagelüken.

Neue Radiokunst International XXIII is an anthology of new international radio art made for SWR (South Western German Radio). It explored recent developments in radio art and works which cross-over with radio drama, acoustic ecology, improvised and electroacoustic music.

Programme details;

SWR2 ars acustica
Neue Radiokunst international XXIII
Eine Anthologie von Andreas Hagelüken
Realisation: Andreas Hagelüken
(Produktion SWR 2009 - Erstsendung)

More information can be found at
http://www.swr.de/swr2/programm/sendungen/ars-acustica/-/id=660734/nid=660734/did=5708250/1cfmpfk/index.html

A podcast of the programme is available until 18th Janaury 2010 at http://www.swr.de/swr2/service/audio-on-demand/-/id=661264/did=5843306/pv=mplayer/vv=popup/nid=661264/156mn4f/index.html

Image by Sindre Skrede (Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain)

2009 Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:28:28 +1100

Black presented his paper “Radio Art Sound-Composition: Exploring A Dualistic Binaural Sonic Interplay” at the 2009 Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference (THNMF).

The THNMF conference is a fully DEST refereed conference presented by Tura New Music, in association with the Faculty of Education and Arts, Edith Cowan University, including the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

http://www.tura.com.au/events/totallyhuge/2009/conf/index.html

Black travels to Cottbus and Bautzen to make location recordings for a new work.

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 18:20:15 +1100

Black gathers location recordings around Cottbus (Chóśebuz) and Bautzen (Budyšin) in Lusatia (East Germany) for a new major project entitled Kilian's Antipodean Dream.

Black is pictured here in front of Weigersdorf church (near Bautzen).

Black at the Berliner Phonogramm Archive

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 21:40:11 +1100

As part of pre production for Black’s new major project entitled Kilian's Antipodean Dream, Black visits the Berliner Phonogramm Archive to selects historical German recordings for inclusion in the new work.

Black is pictured with Albrecht Wiedmann and Dr. Susanne Ziegler at the Berliner Phonogramm Archive.

Black at the BBC

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:24:51 +1000

Black at the BBC with Philip Tagney

Expo Leeds Unconference

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:09:03 +1000

Black presented his work at the Expo Leeds Unconference in Leeds (UK) which was part of the 2009 Expo Leeds.

"The passion from attendees was evident when internationally acclaimed composer, sound artist and producer, Colin Black presented his commission for Deutschland Radio, still jetlagged from travelling all the way from Australia. The project explored the interaction between the environment and the creation of sound. Extending a guitar string horizontally and attaching to a pole, the movement of the surroundings played harmonious sounds amongst bird song. Named the Enviro-Guitar, it demonstrated the creativity that brought fantastic productions to life."
- The Leeds Metropolitan University,
http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/news_57295EA85D73439A95CE6AF5763DD734.htm

“No Radio Silence For Colin’s Soundscapes” - Australian Music News Bulletin

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:55:57 +1000

Australian Music News Bulletin (Music Council of Australia) reports, "No Radio Silence For Colin’s Soundscapes"

“Colin Black, continues to impress the listening public around the globe with his evocative soundscapes ...”

To read the full news article online goto: http://www.mca.org.au/web/content/view/378/2/

Soundprints: The Prague Pressings broadcast on Kunstradio (Austria)

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:16:05 +1000

ORF’s Kunstradio programme broadcast Black’s Soundprints: The Prague Pressings and excerpt from Longing, Love & Loss.

For more information see
http://www.kunstradio.at/2009B/26_07_09en.html

Soundprints: The Prague Pressings broadcast on Cafe Sonore (The Netherlands)

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:44:29 +1000

VPRO’s Cafe Sonore programme broadcast Black’s Soundprints: The Prague Pressings.

For more information see
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/cafesonore/afleveringen/41947487/

http://cafesonore.radio6.nl/2009/07/19/576/

Black Presented Paper at 4th Media Art Scoping Study Symposium

Sat, 4 Jul 2009 18:43:35 +1000

Black presented his paper “Radio Art: An Acoustic Media Art Form” at the 4th Media Art Scoping Study Symposium in Melbourne.

For more information please see http://mass.nomad.net.au/

Conference photos; http://mass.nomad.net.au/images-from-mass-saturday-july-4/

Download full conerence proceedings 2.6MB

Above image is dedicated to the Public Domain, see http://mass.nomad.net.au

Black’s work at the IMEB Oeuvre Ouverte concert

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 18:07:18 +1000

Black’s work “A Human Explication from Nature” will be part of the IMEB Oeuvre Ouverte concert

For more info see;
http://www.imeb.net/MFLi/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1114&Itemid=329

The above image is a work of the National Institutes of Health, part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.

ABC to include Black’s Prix Italia-winning radiophonic work The Ears Outside My Listening Room on its classic/amp website.

Thu, 28 May 2009 20:39:07 +1000

Australian Music Centre
News (Australian) Articles

“Australian music on ABC Classic FM in June 2009”
“ ... visit classic/amp to listen to the latest additions of audio-on-demand, including Colin Black’s Prix Italia-winning radiophonic work The Ears Outside My Listening Room and archival recordings of orchestral works by Helen Gifford and Margaret Sutherland.”
- Stephen Adams
http://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/article/australian-music-on-abc-classic-fm-in-june-2009 (accessed 28 May 2009).

The Ears Outside My Listening Room can be found on the ABC classic/amp site at http://www.abc.net.au/classic/australianmusic/stories/s1523799.htm
The composer recommends that you listen to the work using the Window Media Player option as this will give you better quality audio and it will be in stereo (not mono as with the RealPlayer option).

For more info about The Ears Outside My Listening Room see;
http://web.mac.com/blackcolin/Site/Works/Entries/2002/8/5_The_Ears_Outside_My_Listening_Room.html

Black’s work included in the Radiophonic Creation Day project.

Sat, 23 May 2009 21:30:40 +1000

Radiophonic Creation Day is to be held on the 23rd May 2009.

“The objective of the festival is to enhance the visibility of European radio art pieces. To gather together all those scattered creative initiatives. To reveal those radios which do engage in radiophonic creations to each other, and sensitize millions of every day radio listeners who never really hear them. To inspire the production of creative programmes amongst the European radio stations.” - The Organization JEL website.

For more info see;
http://www.shakerattleroll.org/project_eng.html

[ Above image courtesy Association JeL, France ]

Black Records in the Anechoic Chamber at the University of Sydney.

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:07:14 +1000

Black records in anechoic chamber at the University of Sydney for 5.1 surround sound work.

Black’s Work Released on Czech Radio’s rAdioCUSTICA 2008 Sampler CD

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:57:01 +1000

rAdioCUSTICA 2008, a new CD sampler will be released as an annex to the May issue of HIS VOice magazine.

The new CD sampler rAdioCUSTICA 2008 (In The World and Your Ears) is included with the May issue of HIS VOice magazine:

You will hear acoustic compositions by:
Colin Black (Soundprints: The Prague Pressings), Ladislava Železného (Before During After), Petera Machajdíka (The Healing Heating) and Miloše Vojtěchovského (Co je uvnitř drátů).

rAdioCUSTICA 2008 is the sixth CD sampler from Czech radio’s rAdioCUSTICA programme.

For more information see;
http://www.hisvoice.cz/

in Czech;

“rAdioCUSTICA 2008 - nový CD sampler jako příloha květnového vydání časopisu HIS VOice

Nový sampler rAdioCUSTICA 2008 je na světě a k uším vašim se tentokrát dostane v květnovém vydání časopisu HIS VOice:

Uslyšíte akustické kompozice:
Ladislava Železného (Before During After), Colina Blacka (Soundprints: The Prague Pressings), Petera Machajdíka (The Healing Heating) a Miloše Vojtěchovského (Co je uvnitř drátů).

rAdioCUSTICA 2008 je už šestým CD samplerem.

jarní pozdravení”
Michal Rataj
16th April 2009

Installation chosen for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Open Day

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 12:28:53 +1100

Black’s installation entitled Alien In The Landscape: The Extended Enviro-Guitar (XEG) has been selected for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Open Day, between 10:00am to 2:30pm, 27 March 2009. You can find Black’s sound installation in ROOM 1046

The Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Program of Events suggests that you can “ ... Immerse yourself in this audio and visual experience and be transported to another dimension.”
- http://www.music.usyd.edu.au/news_events/Open_Day_Program_of_Events.pdf

About The Installation:
The ‘Extended Enviro-Guitar’ (XEG) utilises 3 – 15 metre long strings or ‘Enviro Enhancers’ attached to the conventional guitar strings. These ‘Enviro Enhancers’ are attached at various positions or nodes along the guitar strings to enhance the various harmonic overtones of each of the six strings.

Combining synchronous conventional X-Y configured stereo recordings (using a Rodes NT4 mounted inside a Rycote windshield) and the XEG stereo multi-instrument installation in alignment with each other results in a binaural sonic interplay between the two sources. Sound, space and place encoded in the interface of these two recordings.

Soundprints: The Prague Pressing broadcast on RTR FM 92.1

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:32:04 +1100

Black’s Soundprints: The Prague Pressing was broadcast on RTR FM 92.1’s Difficult Listening programme.

“... Quiet an accomplished work and quiet engrossing, listen carefully, Soundprints by Colin Black.”
- Bryce Moore, 15th Feb. 2009

For more info see
http://www.rtrfm.com.au/shows/difficultlistening/date/2009-02-15

‘Radio Art: Broadcast or Outcast’ published in Music Forum, Journal of the Music Council of Australia.

Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:06:06 +1100

• Black’s “Radio Art: Broadcast or Outcast” explores what is radio art, its origin, examples of Australian experimental radio work and current situation. You can find “Radio Art: Broadcast or Outcast” in the February - April 2009 issue of Music Forum, Journal of the Music Council of Australia. For more info see http://www.mca.org.au/

[above picture] Tesla demonstrating wireless transmissions during his high frequency and potential lecture of 1891. After continued research, Tesla presented the fundamentals of radio in 1893. (This image is in the public domain in the United States).

Black in New York

Fri, 3 Oct 2008 18:33:28 +1000

Black travels to New York to research, write and record.

Black presents at Radiotesla im Ausland (Berlin)

Thu, 2 Oct 2008 21:50:16 +1000

Radiotesla im Ausland

“Australian Radio Art” by Colin Black

Australian 2003 Prix Italia Award winning artist Colin Black will present Alien in the Landscape. The world premiere of this piece of radio art was on 2nd March 2007 at 0:05am airing on DeutschlandRadio’s Kultur program, Götz Naleppa beeing its Executive Producer. In addition Colin Black will discuss the history radio art in Australia with a focus on the activities of the famous ABC Listening Room program. During the presentation Black will play short examples of Australian radio art and talk about the present state of radio art on Australian public radio (ABC Radio). Finally, future perspectives of the ABC radio's engagement with radio art will be explored, including recent internet experiments.

For more info
http://ausland-berlin.de/node/1596

Soundprints: The Prague Pressing broadcast on Czech Radio

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:51:36 +1000

Soundprints: The Prague Pressings was broadcast on Czech Radio’s Radiocustica program on the 27th Sept. 2008.

"I value the first listenning experience (even though I´m going to listen definitely more times) and I feel this is a deep emotion what I´ve been listening to - which has been structured by impressions, but it´s not kind of narration - for me it goes far deeper toward a complex set of emotional polyphony, multilingual story which goes across traditional radio expressions"
- Michal Rataj, Executive Producer, rAdioCUSTICA,
Czech Radio , 17th June 2008

For more info see http://www.rozhlas.cz/radiocustica/portal/

http://www.rozhlas.cz/radiocustica/projekt/_zprava/490227

Czech Radio’s podcast can be found at
http://www2.rozhlas.cz/stream/00772432.mp3

Black presented his paper “Alien In The Landscape: Distillation and Filtration of Soundscapes” at Sounding Out 4

Fri, 5 Sep 2008 21:57:46 +1000

“Alien In The Landscape: Distillation and Filtration of Soundscapes” paper was presented by Black at Sounding Out 4 (An International Symposium on Sound in the Media, 4th - 6th September 2008,) at the University of Sunderland, UK.

Black wishes to thank Dr. Götz Naleppa, Deutschlandradio
Kultur, Yanna Black, Len Taylor, Caama Radio and Kakadu
National Park, his supervisor Dr. Anthony Hood and
acknowledges the support received from the Sydney
Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney through its
Postgraduate Research Support Scheme (PRSS).

Black receives ICMC Student Scholarship

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:20:33 +1000

Black receives a ICMC Student Scholarship form the International Computer Music Association

Black awarded scholarship

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:03:29 +1000

Black awarded the Albert Travelling Scholarship.

Installation at Sydney Conservatorium of Music

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:06:33 +1000

Black’s installation entitled Alien In The Landscape: The Extended Enviro-Guitar (XEG) has been selected for the Australasian Computer Music Conference 2008, which was held at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney between 10th - 12th July 2008.

About The Installation:
The ‘Extended Enviro-Guitar’ (XEG) utilises 3 – 15 metre long strings or ‘Enviro Enhancers’ attached to the conventional guitar strings. These ‘Enviro Enhancers’ are attached at various positions or nodes along the guitar strings to enhance the various harmonic overtones of each of the six strings.

Combining synchronous conventional X-Y configured stereo recordings (using a Rodes NT4 mounted inside a Rycote windshield) and the XEG stereo multi-instrument installation in alignment with each other results in a binaural sonic interplay between the two sources. Sound, space and place encoded in the interface of these two recordings.

‘Long, Loving & Loss’ nominated for the International Society for Contemporary Music's 'World Music Days' competition.

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:46:47 +1000

The Australian Music Centre has nominated Black's 'Long, Loving & Loss' for the International Society for Contemporary Music's 'World Music Days' competition.

This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, it's arts funding and advisory body.

Black’s Work at SYNTHESE 2008, IMEB Bourges, France

Sat, 7 Jun 2008 23:06:00 +1000

Black’s work “Radio Art: Psychological Environment I” was performed as part of the WORK OVERTURE PROJECT in the 38th FESTIVAL SYNTHESE BOURGES 2008

More info please see
http://www.imeb.net/MFLi/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1050&Itemid=262

Sverges Radio's P2 Monitor programme broadcast ‘Longing, Love and Loss’ across Sweden

Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:00:55 +1000

RADIOKONST: LONGING, LOVE & LOSS AV COLIN BLACK (AUS)

Onsdag 4 juni 21.30 (Saturday, 29 August 2009 at 21:30)

Monitor presenterar den australiensiske ljudkonstnären Colin Blacks helt nya radiokomposition "Longing, Love & Loss".
Monitor presenterar den australiensiske ljudkonstnären Colin Blacks helt nya radiokomposition "Longing, Love & Loss".

Monitor är tillbaka igen i P2 och vi inleder storslaget med ett alldeles nytt och unikt radiokonstverk av den australiensiske radiokonstnären Colin Black. En radiokomposition om längtan och kärlek. Longing, Love & Loss heter stycket som är en fascinerande resa genom en mängd kärlekshistorier. Colin Black har intervjuat en rad personer om kärlek och längtan och tillsammans med deras svar och historier har han skapat en sinnlig ljudresa med skådespelare, sångare, en ensemble och elektroniska klanger.

Colin Black vann Prix Italia 2003 med sitt radiokonstverk ”The Ears Outside My Listening Room”. Black arbetar i första hand med radiokonst men har även skapat uppmärksammade ljudskulpturer och ljudinstallationer i Australien. Han har även komponerat musik till en rad långfilmer, TV och till andra digitala medier.

LONGING, LOVE & LOSS - komponerat & producerat av Colin Black

Skådespelare:
Berättaren: Andrew McLennan
Den fallande mannen: Samuel Hayden-Smith
TV-presentatören: Yanna Black

Följande människor har intervjuats: Katie Turner, Ellie Winter, Halina Czernuszyh-Robinson, Margret Holt, Po-Hsun Wen, Norma Anderson, Richard Salvatico, Bernie Hobbs, Valentino Arico, Nicholas Kargilis, Rob Baker, Zoe Caswell, Grace Taylor, Michael Davies, Christina Turner, Oscar Ford, Peter Wilson, Shiela Smith, Neil Aykan och Iryna Burkhan.

Sångare: Clive Birch (bas), Richard Black (tenor), Nicole Thomson (sopran) och Ruth Kilpatrick (sopran) under Roland Peelmans ledning.

Musiker: Igor Ustavschikov (violin), Victoria Shkit (violin), Jaroslav Venger (viola), Dmitro Gluschenko (cello), Natalja Kyryschevska (piano) och Dmitro Synenko och Myckola Tomashyshyn (slagverk).

For more information please see http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/p2/program/arkiv.asp?ProgramID=2098&formatID=116&Max=2008-06-04&Min=2004-12-08&PeriodStart=2008-06-05&Period=3&Artikel=1973213

This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, it's arts funding and advisory body.

ABC Classic FM (Australia) broadcast Colin Black’s new 53 minute musical work entitled ‘Longing, Love and Loss’

Sat, 24 May 2008 10:33:35 +1000

Black’s new work ‘Longing, Love & Loss’ weaves together love stories in a sonance of text, musical composition, electro-acoustic composition and sound design to reflect our deepest human desire, our core emotional need… the constant inner cry to find, to hold and to keep love. Apart from the fictional character of ‘The Falling Man’, all of the text of this script has been gathered from real people, past and present. This work explores this theme in three movements; Longing, Love and Loss, or, the search for love, being in love and the inevitable loss of love.

Special guests for ‘Longing, Love and Loss’ includes the ABC’s Bernie Hobbs and Andrew McLennan joint with the Song Company singers and Samuel Hayden-Smith as the falling man.

To catch the world première of ‘Longing, Love and Loss’ and on-air interview with Black, tune into ABC Classic FM’s ‘New Music Up Late’ program from 10:30pm (Sydney, Australia) on Saturday 24th May 2008.

Also if you miss the program live then you can access the program on line on the New Music Up Late website from the 25th May for 4 weeks at http://www.abc.net.au/classic/newmusic/

For more information see;
http://www.abc.net.au/classic/newmusic/
http://www.abc.net.au/classic/daily/stories/s2217925.htm#uplate
http://web.mac.com/blackcolin/Site/Works/Entries/2008/2/14_Entry_1.html

This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, it's arts funding and advisory body.

Black’s article ‘Is Anyone Listening’ published by RealTime Magazine.

Fri, 4 Apr 2008 13:40:26 +1100

Black’s article entitled ‘Is Anyone Listening’, which addresses his fears & hopes for australian sound art was published in the April-May 2008 issue of RealTime Magazine.

You can find this article online by going to
http://www.realtimearts.net/article/84/8967

Deutschland Radio airs Black's major Sound Art/Musical work entitled ‘Alien In The Landscape’

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:56:23 +1100

How does an Alien in the Landscape adapt to the environment and is the environment also changed by the intrusion… forever? “Alien in the Landscape” expresses the psychological, physical and spiritual osmosis of this exchange between the enigmatic explorer, Ludwig Leichhardt and the ancient Australian Landscape that he ventured into and eventually became a part of.

This sound art work reaches into the locations that Leichhardt passed through, spiritually tracking the residue left by this alien in the landscape with the “Extended Enviro Guitar”, an adaptation of the traditional guitar that is played upon by the environment. Through text from the “Journal of Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt’s Overland Expedition to Port Essington in the Years 1844 - 45”, first published in 1846, this sound art work plugs into the mental impressions made by the Landscape and its indigenous peoples upon the alien Leichhardt.

Producer, composer and sound artist Colin Black conceived and created the “Extended Enviro Guitar” which has additional 2 -15 metre strings attached to the conventional guitar strings and is played by the environment and processed by various effects. This traditionally European instrument when enhanced and extended (into the ‘Extended Enviro-Guitar’) acts as an audio interface with the Australian Outback sonically tracking sites traversed by Leichhardt.

Leichhardt’s mysterious disappearance plagued the minds of the other early Australian explorers, and over time his legend grew to iconic, almost mythological status within Australian culture having towns, highways, rivers, fauna and flora named after him.

This new piece works with indigenous Australian language, location recordings of remote sites once visited by Leichhardt and his own words/thoughts from his historical journal. Colin Black then uses the 'Extended Enviro-Guitar' as a sonic metaphor of Leichhardt’s physical, psychological and spiritual metamorphosis, resulting from his continuing exposure to the Australian Outback landscape.

He is still out there somewhere and his atoms, being the first white man’s to have ever journeyed to these regions, have changed the composition of the Australian Landscape forever.

DeutschlandRadio Kultur broadcasts ' Alien in The Landscape (Extended Enviro-Guitar)' on 14th March 2008 at 0:05am.

Click here on 14th March 2008 at 10:05 am (Sydney Australia time) to listen in online.

For more information see http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/klangkunst/733220/

Black’s work at Zeppelin 2008, Spain

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:33:45 +1100

Black’s new work ‘Deafness: We hear what we think we hear’ will be programmed as part of the Zeppelin 2008 festival in Barcelona, Spain. The Festival runs from 13th to 15th March.

http://www.sonoscop.net/zeppelin2008/sorderas/

"A Tale from the Ukrainian Underworld" on Swedish Radio P1

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:05:38 +1100

Email received 31/3/08 10:28 PM

-------------------------------
Dear Colin Black,

On the 29th of February, we broadcasted your production "A tale from the Ukrainian Underworld" on Swedish Radio (+ 2 extra broadcasts after that). We would really like to pay you for this ...

All the best,

-------------------------------

Black’s ‘Soundprints’ broadcast at the 2008 AV Festival, UK

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:20:39 +1100

‘Soundprints’ broadcast as part of the AV Festival 08.

AV Festival is an international festival of electronic arts featuring visual art, music and moving image. A biennial event, the festival takes place in Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough in the North East of England between 28 February - 8 March 2008 and has the theme of Broadcast

The Ears Outside My Listening Room is to be preserved at the Australian National Film and Sound Archive

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:15:05 +1100

Black’s Prix Italia award winning work which won the 2003 Best 'Music-Composed Work' is to be archive at the National Film and Sound Archive.

The National Film and Sound Archive's primary aim is to develop a comprehensive collection of Australian works and materials representing the history, technology and culture of the audiovisual media, from their origins to the present time.

National Film and Sound Archive File Ref. 05/0578-02

Black masters 'Longing, Love and Loss', a new major musical, sound art work at Sony Mastering

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:47:00 +1100

Black has recently mastered his new major musical, sound art work at Sony Mastering, Sydney.

About the work

"Longing, Love and Loss" (duration 52 minutes) is a new major musical/sound art work that searches for love through classical text, historical text, science and contemporary oral histories. It weaves together love stories in a sonance of text, musical composition, electro-acoustic composition and sound design to reflect our deepest human desire, our core emotional need the constant inner cry to find, to hold and to keep love. This new work explores this theme in three movements; Longing, Love and Loss, or, the search for love, being in love and the inevitable loss of love.

This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, it's arts funding and advisory body.

Colin Black’s works chosen to be preserved at the National Library of France (Bibliothèque Nationale de France).

Sun, 9 Dec 2007 17:54:29 +1100

“Considering the interest we have for your works …” Françoise Barrière director of the Institute de Musique Électroacoustique de Bourges said “… We insist again that each work should be digitalized”.

Black’s work will be part of the Institute de Musique Électroacoustique de Bourges / Bibliothèque Nationale de France Collection project. This Phonothèque is planned to include biographies, program notes and audio recordings in an interactive data base which will be made public both at the National Library of France in Paris and the Zurich University of the Arts (Switzerland). In the near future this Phonothèque will also be available online from these institutions.

Loop Magazine Interviews Colin Black

Mon, 5 Nov 2007 18:53:03 +1100

Black talks to Loop's editor Damian Castaldi about Prix Italia, his working methods, collaborations, a recent work and events overseas.

Black’s interview can be found in Loop Magazine, Issue # 5 which came out on Monday 5th November, 2007

For more info see http://rougemedia.com.au/loop_mag_07/loop5/colin_black.htm

Black’s Work Premieres on Swedish National Radio

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:04:12 +1100

Black's new work "Dancing Hammers" premieres on Sverges Radio's P2 Monitor programme.

Photo by Guillermo, 2002

Shooting “The Falling Man” at NIDA for Longing, Love and Loss

Sat, 6 Oct 2007 18:18:58 +1000

Black shoot scenes for Longing, Love and Loss at NIDA’s Reg Grundy’s TV Studio with actor Samuel Hayden-Smith as “The Falling Man”

Studio Video Crew:
Video Director/Dramaturge: Yanna Black
Technical Assistant: Len Samperi
Director of Photography and Sound Recordist: Colin Black
Casting: Yanna Black
Boom Operator: Philip P H Wen

Special thanks to all of the studio crew

This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, it's arts funding and advisory body.

‘Longing, Love and Loss'

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:56:33 +1000

Black has recently finished recording the Song Company singers for his 'Longing, Love and Loss'.

"Longing, Love and Loss" is a new major musical/sound art work that searches for love through classical text, historical text, science and contemporary oral histories. It weaves together love stories in a sonance of text, musical composition, electro-acoustic composition and sound design to reflect our deepest human desire, our core emotional need the constant inner cry to find, to hold and to keep love. This new work explores this theme in three movements; Longing, Love and Loss, or, the search for love, being in love and the inevitable loss of love.

The Musicians:

Igor Ustavshchikov (Violin I),
Victoriya Shkit (Violin II),
Yaroslav Venger (Viola),
Dmytro Glushchenko (Cello),
Nataliya Kyrychevs’ka (Piano),
Dmytro Synenko (Marimba),
Myckola Tomasyshyn (Vibraphone)

The Song Company has recently made a guest appearence recording for Black's 'Longing, Love and Loss' project

The Song Company’s singers at Ramrod Studio (Sydney) Clive Birch (Bass), Richard Black (Tenor), Nicole Thomson (Soprano) and Ruth Kilpatrick (Soprano) with Roland Peelman (Artistic Director of The Song Company)

Support and Acknowledgments so far:

ABC Radio, Australia
YLE Radio, Finland
The Song Company, Australia
‘Lemma’ Recording Studio, Ukraine
Olga Ligus
Oleg Stuka
Cydonian Sounds, Australia

Thanks to everyone who have so far agreed to be interviewed for this project.

This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, it's arts funding and advisory body.

Black's work studied in Australian Universities

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:52:27 +1000

.
Black's work is to be included in an honours thesis at LaTrobe University, Melbourne, while UTS students in Sydney currently study Black's work as part of their course notes.

"Butter Churn" sound sculpture launch

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:49:20 +1000

Black’s "Butter Churn" sound sculpture installation was launched in Lismore's Heritage Park on Friday 27th July 2007 .

The "Butter Churn" sound sculpture installation aims to sonically animate and resonate the Norco "Butter Churn" sculpture which is located in Lismore's Heritage Park.

The work explores the idea that the "Butter Churn" is a metaphor for the evolution of the local colonised rural culture of Lismore. Just like the fluidity of the cream it churned into butter, this churn helped to changed the uncertain liquidity of the Lismore economy into a stable community.

As all enclosures inherently have predominantly resonating frequencies, Colin Black with assisting artist Yanna Black explore the Butter Churn's latent sonorities with the creation of the sound installation’s "I Am Sitting In The Lismore Butter Churn" movement. Combining Alvin Lucier like recordings techniques with spatialised electroacoustic composition that payes homage to early electronic music, the work rings out the object's dimensions within its landscape and sonically impacts on the culture that it has helped to shape in the past. The idea is to give this object a voice after years of silence and inactivity, opening up the dialogue between the the past and the present while investigating how this object continues to influence the evolution of the local culture of Lismore.

Visitors to the site will be able to activate the "Butter Churn" spatial sound sculpture installation between the hours of 9am to 9pm.

For more info see Northern Rivers Echo & Lismore Council News

Special thanks to Lismore City Council

ABC Executive Producer Robyn Ravlich Includes Black's 'Ears' in Audio Talk at Toronto

Sat, 26 May 2007 13:25:51 +1000

ABC Radio, Music Unit, Executive Producer, Robyn Ravlich includes an extract from Black's Prix Italia winning work 'The Ears Outside My Listening Room' as part of her 'Antipodean Sounds' talk and presentation at the Deep Wireless 2007 conference.

The Deep Wireless conference is an annual event held in Toronto by New Adventures in Sound Art and is part of their month-long celebration of radio and transmission art, radio artists, sound artists and sound installations. For more information and mp3 extract of Black's 'The Ears Outside My Listening Room' please see the Deep Wireless 2007 blog at http://www.transom.org/blogs/specialfeatures/pages/000291.php

Black Presents His 'XEG' Research Paper at Conference in Amsterdam

Tue, 8 May 2007 13:07:20 +1000

Black presents his paper 'The Extended Enviro-Guitar (XEG): A Mobile Acoustic Profiling Resonating Filter' at the 4th International Mobile Music Workshop, The 2007 workshop was hosted by STEIM ( (the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) and Waag Society in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Black’s XEG was included in a review of the Mobile Music Technology Fourth International Workshop that appeared in the Amsterdam Weekly ( Volume 4, Issue 19, 10-16 May 2007, p. 5 )

Atau Tanaka (Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris) and Colin Black
at the Mobile Music Technology Fourth International Workshop.

"My recent major work ‘Alien In The Landscape’ involved the development of a mobile binaural resonating acoustic profiling filter/instrument to facilitate the creation of work’s diverse site specific sonorities" Black said. "As a new stage in this development I have been initiating research into physical spatialised multi-instrument installations exploring a sense of detachment through the creation of multiple resonating 'sonic spectroscopic' spaces. I attended the Mobile Music Technology Fourth International Workshop in Amsterdam and present a poster that documents this work-in-progress. In addition to the poster session I also submitted a paper entitled 'The Extended Enviro-Guitar (XEG): A Mobile Acoustic Profiling Resonating Filter' which explores my initial research and development regarding the XEG as a type of resonating acoustic profiling device

For more information see http://www.mobilemusicworkshop.org

Supported by ANAT (Australian Network for Art and Technology) through the Professional Development Fund. ANAT is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through th Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Black’s work included in Swedish Radio’s interactive “Limbo” web site.

Sat, 5 May 2007 13:59:02 +1000

Sveriges Radio (Swedish Radio) includes Black's 'A Tale From The Ukrainian Underworld' in their interactive 'Limbo' web site.

‘A Tale From The Ukrainian Underworld’ combines a treated audio documentary of descending deeper and deeper into the Earth on one of Kyiv’s high speed subway escalators with an oral history from a small village in the northern region of Ukraine.

This Ukrainian tale, which tells of making a pact with the Devil is placed inside the descending soundscape to illustrate this downward pathway in parallel motion.

Ripping across the sonority of moral decay is a recording of the composer aggressively playing a house brick by a wood saw.

‘A Tale From The Ukrainian Underworld’ could seem like a folk story until you realise that this is in fact a personal testimonial.

Contributors:
Interviewee and Female Voice: Vira Levkivska
Electro Acoustic Realisations, Sound Design: Colin Black
House Brick played with a Wood Saw: Colin Black

‘A Tale From The Ukrainian Underworld’ has been included in Sveriges Radio's SR c 'Limbo' interface. The 'Limbo' interface can be found at http://www.sr.se/p1/src/limbo/

Germany's National Broadcaster, Deutschland Radio airs Black's major New Sound Art/Musical work entitled 'Alien In The Landscape (Extended Enviro Guitar)'

Fri, 2 Mar 2007 18:58:01 +1100

How does an Alien in the Landscape adapt to the environment and is the environment also changed by the intrusion… forever? “Alien in the Landscape” expresses the psychological, physical and spiritual osmosis of this exchange between the enigmatic explorer, Ludwig Leichhardt and the ancient Australian Landscape that he ventured into and eventually became a part of.

This sound art work reaches into the locations that Leichhardt passed through, spiritually tracking the residue left by this alien in the landscape with the “Extended Enviro Guitar”, an adaptation of the traditional guitar that is played upon by the environment. Through text from the “Journal of Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt’s Overland Expedition to Port Essington in the Years 1844 - 45”, first published in 1846, this sound art work plugs into the mental impressions made by the Landscape and its indigenous peoples upon the alien Leichhardt.

Producer, composer and sound artist Colin Black conceived and created the “Extended Enviro Guitar” which has additional 2 -15 metre strings attached to the conventional guitar strings and is played by the environment and processed by various effects. This traditionally European instrument when enhanced and extended (into the ‘Extended Enviro-Guitar’) acts as an audio interface with the Australian Outback sonically tracking sites traversed by Leichhardt.

Leichhardt’s mysterious disappearance plagued the minds of the other early Australian explorers, and over time his legend grew to iconic, almost mythological status within Australian culture having towns, highways, rivers, fauna and flora named after him.

This new piece works with indigenous Australian language, location recordings of remote sites once visited by Leichhardt and his own words/thoughts from his historical journal. Colin Black then uses the 'Extended Enviro-Guitar' as a sonic metaphor of Leichhardt’s physical, psychological and spiritual metamorphosis, resulting from his continuing exposure to the Australian Outback landscape.

He is still out there somewhere and his atoms, being the first white man’s to have ever journeyed to these regions, have changed the composition of the Australian Landscape forever.

DeutschlandRadio Kultur broadcasts ' Alien in The Landscape (Extended Enviro-Guitar)' on 2nd March 2007 at 0:05am.

Click here on 2nd March 2007 at 10:05 am (Sydney Australia time) to listen in online.

for more info http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/klangkunst/590676/

'Damaged Memories' in Mexico City

Tue, 9 Jan 2007 19:37:11 +1100

Black's 'Damaged Memories' was selected for the 2006 possibleworlds.org media & autonomous server project in mexico city.

‘Longing, Love and Loss'

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 12:22:49 +1000

Black has recently finished recording musicians for his 'Longing, Love and Loss' project in Kyiv, Ukraine.

"Longing, Love and Loss" is a new major musical/sound art work that searches for love through classical text, historical text, science and contemporary oral histories. It weaves together love stories in a sonance of text, musical composition, electro-acoustic composition and sound design to reflect our deepest human desire, our core emotional need the constant inner cry to find, to hold and to keep love. This new work explores this theme in three movements; Longing, Love and Loss, or, the search for love, being in love and the inevitable loss of love.

The Musicians:

Igor Ustavshchikov (Violin I),
Victoriya Shkit (Violin II),
Yaroslav Venger (Viola),
Dmytro Glushchenko (Cello),
Nataliya Kyrychevs’ka (Piano),
Dmytro Synenko (Marimba),
Myckola Tomasyshyn (Vibraphone)

More photos can be found at http://homepage.mac.com/blackcolin/PhotoAlbum10.html

Support and Acknowledgments so far:

ABC Radio, Australia
YLE Radio, Finland
The Song Company, Australia
‘Lemma’ Recording Studio, Ukraine
Olga Ligus
Oleg Stuka
Cydonian Sounds, Australia

Thanks to everyone who have so far agreed to be interviewed for this project.

This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, it's arts funding and advisory body.