SOUND NOMADS

ABOUT SOUNDNOMADS
The surroundings as DIY music instrument.
Ger Ger's SOUND NOMADS project is comprised of a combination of sound art, music, public art, performance, interactive installations as well as video. The constant search for noises, sounds and rhythms lies as central to SOUND NOMADS as the creation of ephemeral interactive sensor based playgrounds.
SOUND NOMADS actions mainly consist of three steps:
COLLECT site specific sound huntings/field recordings on and off the nomad way
PROCESS creation of sound/music scores, programming, hardware settings
REFLECT backtrack compositions, art performances/video.
Entire squares, hotspots, fields, meadows, ponds and patterns from day to day life are instrumentalized, and played. Surrounding objects get networked. Manholes become recording studios; hot tubs, resonating objects; the movements of persons, time bases; lampposts or mailboxes take the place of instrument strings and keys. The actual noises of objects lose their meaning and get replaced by triggered melodies/samples or generated tones. Contrasts, oppositions, and irritations are being created.
Complex high- tech settings and precise triggering of sensors lead to SOUND NOMADS performances. Their realtime generated sounds are part of the resulting videos. The technical equipment mainly consists of sensors, midi/audio interfaces, laptops, software, microphones, props, photo and video gear.
SOUND NOMADS ventures to artistically reflect on situations of everyday life and site- specific impressions as directly as possible; acoustically, aesthetically, and in respect of content. This project should not be an influenced work AFTER a trip but rather should facilitate a constant and authentic/emotional artistic flow with change of location as a direct source of inspiration. Nomadism as an essential and driving element.
The first SOUND NOMADS (Ger Ger + 1 Guest Nomad) performances took place on the US West Coast in 2006, followed by actions in Austria, Germany, Italy, France and Spain in 2007. The project is ongoing.
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6 SN VIDEO WORKS are ready for screening to date, more (max. a total of 12) may be completed for a presentation in 2009.
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Shoot Down Out (Release: 30-08- 2008, Duration 4:04)
preview: http://gerger.com/o/?siteID=1&id=36265
lower quality alternative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqXuN-V1qDs
SOUND NOMADS Performance #2
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.
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Black Balloons (Release: 07-03-2008, Duration 4:26)
preview: http://gerger.com/o/?siteID=1&id=36266
lower quality alternative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ONBDny26aQ
SOUND NOMADS Performance #3
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.
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What the Fuck (Release: 31-08-2008, Duration 6:00)
preview: http://gerger.com/o/?siteID=1&id=36267
lower quality alternative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxmuukZL11A
SOUND NOMADS Performance #5
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.
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Play! (Release: 19-04- 2007, Duration 2:04)
preview: http://gerger.com/o/?siteID=1&id=24870
lower quality alternative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0iruknH8QE
SOUND NOMADS Performance #6
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.
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Luxor 22.145 (Release: 20-04-2007, Duration: 3:00)
preview: http://gerger.com/o/?siteID=1&id=25002
lower quality alternative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8rnnyKP-Ug
SOUND NOMADS Performance #7
As planned - a m/hotel performance went down in Vegas. Luxor: rooms 4455, employees 4000, casino 120,000 square feet, 250 miles visible Xenon light shot. Room No. 22.145: sensor equipped bending matresses, sound generating moving chairs, pitch shifting ironing and flickering lights.
Technology: Lamps become sound triggers and pitch shifters by means of light sensors, irons turn into turntables through pressure sensors, chairs become free-moving VST instruments through sensor combinations. Mattresses (bend it over), drawers (open/close), closet doors, curtains (movements) and the TV set (light intensity of a selected channel) become a sampler ... This performance consists of seven essentially different superstructures and interactive scenarios. A night in the luxury hotel becomes a performance night.
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Lantern Dogs (Release: 16-04-2007, Duration: 2:09)
preview: http://gerger.com/o/?siteID=1&id=24999
lower quality alternative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcwXccyLG9I
SOUND NOMADS Performance #10
Los Angeles dogs and puppies. Sidewalks - rich, poor, famous, empty. Beverly Hills lost and found in translation. Who is the dog - we are what we do. Watch out for the sweet and lovely lamp posts - in broad light, by day and by night.
Technology: With the help of some self-developed RT noise generators, the lamp post become playable through distance sensors. Live audio inputs and master track round off the setting.