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Soundscapes
Field recordings made in Europe by Geert Vermeire (curator of sound festivals and workshops new media) and Stefaan van Biesen/the Milena principle. Sound compositions, mixing and production by Stefaan van Biesen (member of the electro Indie rock band China Blue: http://www.chinablue.be).
[Leafless Variations] 2018.
Duo performance Analogio Festival Athens Greece 21.09 > 27.09.2018.
01. Leafless II [Eleftheria Remix] Whisper Again 10:35 - 02. Leafless I [Lina Remix] Platform Projects Athens 2018. 11:33 - 03. Breathless/Leafless [Inhale The City Remix] 11:30 - 04. Leafless III [Nicosia Chant] Nefeli & Marie Remix 05:12 - 05. Leafless IV [Tablar Remix] 09:44 - 06. Leafless IX [Praying Towers] Nicosia Urban Emptiness Remix 05:14
Released August 20, 2018.
Full CD available on Band Camp:
https://stefaanvanbiesen.bandcamp.com/album/leafless
Leafless Variations [the Unity of Polarities] is a duo performance by two female dancers: Lina Efstathiou [Liquid Dance Studio Athens] and eleftheria Rapti. The performance is based on on two props made by Annemie Mestdagh and Stefaan van Biesen. Both dancers participated during the Platform Project in May 2018 in Athens.
Stefaan van Biesen [concept] appeals to the experiences of a person to explore a public space. The fundamental fact of moving in time and space. Scanning the environment in relation to others. It is a combination of letting go and remembering. He assumes that the divine wisdom of the body knows what to do. All information is present in the body. Saved impressions and experiences are an emotional archive that can immediately be tapped or addressed to. For Stefaan van Biesen the essence of a performance is a meaningful ritual, a sacral event. No banal action without any meaning. He does not see it as a form of improvisation, rather as a state of being. In our archetypal gestures, the human legacy of our culture and civilization is shown to the viewer as an appealing memory bank. The attribute is a nomadic object that the participant can use to get started. It is an invitation to a feeling thinking.
The duo performance is a part of the forthcoming edition of Analogio Festival, September 21-27, 2018, with performing arts from around the world. Analogio Festival has been annually organized since 2005 and in 2018 its focusing on Asia /Far East, including a tribute to South Africa, with workshops from international artists and in collaboration with the Unesco's International Playwright's Forum (IPF/ITI).
[En balade avec Rimbô] Media walk & sound compositions La Romieu France April 2017.
Full CD available on Band Camp: https://b-hive.bandcamp.com/album/en-balade-avec-rimb
01. Prologue 00:48 - 02. Talking Cats 03:43 - 03. L'ardennais [épisode I] 04:04 - 04. Tristesse 01:51 - 05. Fugues en Stock [épisode II] 04:33 - 06. Rimbôbô 03:45 - 07. Walk it! 02:24 - 08. Tourments d'Orient [épisode III] 04:01 - 09. Compères de Pierre [épisode IV] 03:38 - 10. Viens Viens 02:09 - 11. L'Amie Maudit [épisode V] 04:11 - 12. Le Jardin 01:47 - 13. Les Chats! 03:52 - 14. Le Coeur Volé [épisode VI] 03:35 - 15. Mysterieuse 02:39 - 16. Épilogue 01:01 - 17. Chats! 02:46
The team of 'Rimbô': Graphic support by Annemie Mestdagh ⋈ Sound Compositions and visuals by Stefaan van Biesen ⋈ Technical realisation by Geert Vermeire ⋈ Voices by: Anne Jouan, Maryse Strzelecki, Bernadette Chabbert, Michèle Litzler, Martine Ferradou and Marie-Hélène Vigneron [Lectourne à voix Haute] ⋈ Texts by Panko [Christian Porré] ⋈ Practical support by Belinda Porré. Realisation the first week of April 2017.
A new made media walk and sound compositions. 'En Balade avec Rimbô' in La Romieu France is based on texts written by Christian Porré [Le Bouc Qui Zouke]. A reflection on the life of the poet Arthur Rimbau. The theme is the cat Rimbô. The sound walk is made by the Milena principle [Geert Vermeire, Stefaan van Biesen and Annemie Mestdagh] together with the art oganisation Le Bouc Qui Zouke [Christian Porré, Belinda Porrré and Laurence Fremeau].
Released May 5, 2017.
Full CD available on Band Camp:
https://stefaanvanbiesen.bandcamp.com/album/en-ballade-avec-rimb
[Fly Ways] ISSC 2016 International Conference : The Logics of Image Santorini 2016.
Flyways, an artistic research by Stefaan van Biesen
Curated / New media by Geert Vermeire
Literary research: Simona Vermeire
SonicPlanet / Geocomposer & Geoplayer : Sinan Bokesoy
01. Dragonfly Movements 07:03 - 02. (F)light [Movement II] 12:06 - 03. Fly Ways Variation I 01:57 - 04. Fly Ways Variation II 01:43 - 05. Fly Ways Variation III 03:53 - 06. Fly Ways Variation IV 01:59 - 07. Fly Ways Variation V 02:05 - 08. Pool Movements [Neo Chorio] 11:44
D R A G O N F L Y - M O V E M E N T S
Stefaan van Biesen. Sound Composition for art installation 'Fly Ways' 2012-2016 ['Wanderlust' Art borgloon, 'Passages' La Romieu France 2016, 'Fly Ways' Santorini Art Factory Greece 2016. Composed, mixed and produced by Stefaan van Biesen.
Released August 1, 2016.
Full CD available on Band Camp:
https://stefaanvanbiesen.bandcamp.com/album/dragonfly-movements
[Hythlodaeus 2015] Utopia Sound Map : Cities and Memory ⋈ Oxford UK 2015.
Electro acoustic sound composition with field recordings & Keyboards.
Composed, mixed and production : Stefaan van Biesen.
01. Hythlodaeus 20:00 - 02. Philoctetes (I) 05:05 - 03. Philoctetes (II) [Bird Island] 04:16 - 04. Two Sisters [Lamentation] 10:03
Making a soundscape 'Hythlodaeus 2015': during the Milena principle 'Sea Born' project in Venice 2015, Geert Vermeire and Stefaan van Biesen made field recordings in Venice and later in Antwerp. They used this digital material to make a soundscape for the Utopia sound project of Cities and Memory. The theme was the map of Utopia made by Ambrosius Holbein in 1518.
The Milena principle soundscape created by Stefaan van Biesen can be heard on section C6 of the map on the website of http://citiesandmemory.com/utopiagrid/
Soundscape 'Hythlodaeus 2015': texts 'Unfolding the City' by Geert Vermeire, 'Siren' by Stefaan van Biesen. Voice by Stefaan van Biesen. Field recordings by Geert Vermeire and Stefaan van Biesen. © Stefaan van Biesen for the Milena principle.
Released June 10, 2015.
Full CD available on Band Camp:
https://stefaanvanbiesen.bandcamp.com/album/hythlodaeus
[Walking with Çelebi by] Stefaan van Biesen & Enrique Tomás 2012.
Sound and Music by Enrique Tomás and Stefaan van Biesen (sound artists). A sound walk for mobile devices by Geert Vermeire (musical scenario), Enrique Tomás and Stefaan van Biesen (sound artists). Released January 3, 2012
01. Intro I 02:22 - 02. Clock Tower 02:32 - 03. Memories 03:21 - 04. Cemetery 02:45 - 05. Love Bridge 02:55 - 06. Modernity 03:02 - 07. Intro II 01:32 - 08. Mauselum 02:45 - 09. Living 04:05 - 10. Promenade II 01:07 - 11. Sufi 03:31 - 12. Çelebi Traveler 01:08 - 13. Evliya 01:21 - 14. Tale Of The 4 Winds 00:48 - 15. 3 Winds 00:57 - 16. Evliya [Moonscapes] 02:31 - 17. Çelebi [Under The Old Oak] 02:40 - 18. Conquering 02:50
A sound walk for mobile devices by Geert Vermeire (musical scenario), Enrique Tomás and Stefaan van Biesen (sound artists).
A contemporary sound walk inspired by the world traveler, Evliya Çelebi, an Ottoman Turkish gentleman adventurer who travelled far and wide for over 40 years, visiting over 250 cities. He described everything he saw on his journeys, and left a record of his wanderings in 10 large volumes, the Seyahatname, or Book of Travels, “the longest and fullest travel account in Islamic literature, perhaps in world literature.” His book is full of fantasy, imaginary landscapes and invented itineraries in a world where travelling was still magical and mysterious. On the other hand Çelebi is a great geographer in the tradition of Strabo and Ptolemy. Historians have cross-referenced his descriptions of Balkan mosques, public baths and Sufi lodges with the actual sites that still stand today, and found Evliya Çelebi to be highly accurate.
The sound walk refers to the magical and to the documentary side of Evliya Çelibi’s travels, situated within the Balkan of today. An atmosphere of past wonder blends with the sounds of contemporary Balkan. Poetic soundscapes, composed for this sound walk, and field recordings of street music, city life and nature.
Released January 3, 2012
Full CD available on Band Camp:
https://stefaanvanbiesen.bandcamp.com/album/walking-with-Çelebi
[VEL(d) [field] 2005
Soundscape/installation] for the art event Ventilatie Corpus 05 Sint-Janshospitaal, Bruges 2005.
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01. VEL(d) [Part I] 17:29 - 02. VEL(d) [Part II] 16:04
Music composition [soundscape/installation] for the art event Ventilatie Corpus 05 by Wit.h at the Sint-Janshospitaal Bruges Belgium. Curator Els Vermeersch. Field recordings and production by Stefaan van Biesen. Voice & text Geert Vermeire [extract Zoemperformance, Score for Buzzer I], André and José at Zandberg Kortrijk 2005.
Released May 05, 2005.
Full CD available on Band Camp:
https://stefaanvanbiesen.bandcamp.com/album/vel-d
More info about the sound projects:
[Ghost Conference] Bunkier Sztuki [Museum gallery] in Krakow Poland, on Saturday 16.06.2018.
Ghost Conference is a multi-channel sound installation consisting of a music/auditive compositional layer, a vocal and soundscape storytelling layer [stories told by physical or metaphorical refugees and migrants from all over the world], a textual layer [spoken live or recorded by narrators], a techno-philosophical layer [told by humans or robots]. The basic assumption of the work is a radical rejection of any hypostatic and monumental definition of identity [national, religious, traditional]. Ghost Conference materialises in a virtual venue, where internet and telephone infrastructures provide the new sensorial organism to manifest its phenomena and co-extension in one and multiple places.
In practice, the idea is to have all the participants connecting with us through various means of electronic communications ways [Skype, telephone, Jitsi, Whatsapp etc.] and speak to us and to our audience about given set of topics. The topics for the first event would circulate around the theme of migration [in a very broad sense], space availability, co-existence and/or disappearance of materiality. The event will take place in Bunkier Sztuki gallery in Krakow, on Saturday June 16th, between 3pm and 7pm.
Ghost Conference. Together with Marcin Barski (sound-artist/music curator), Lorenzo Brusci (composer, inventor) and with a support of Bunkier Sztuki Art Gallery. Afour-hour-long live-processed global sound-text composition based on materials provided by contributors from all around the world.
We are grateful for their wonderful contributions and we'd like to thank each of them. Thank you so much Andreja Andric, Michel Banabila, Ess Beck, Michael Begg, Burkhard Beins, Stefaan van Biesen, Alessandro Bosetti, Yury Bulka, Luca Canciello, Francesco Capann, Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Patryk Daszkiewicz, Sandra Fruehbing, Charles III Goff, Paweł Górecki, Oriana Hadad, Thomas Harzem, Bogna Juchnowicz, Aleksandra Klimczak, Monika Konrad, Matthias Kranebitter, Joseph Kudirka, Michał Libera, Artur Lis, Aleksandra Łukaszewicz Alcaraz, Svetlana Maras, Claudia Mel, Antoni Michnik, Chrysti Mouratidou, Olia Olina, Dominika Peszko, Antonella Radicchi, Kamil Radomski, Sara Rodowicz-Slusarczyk, Paul Roth, Adam Rzepecki, Jacek Smolicki, Kat Steih, Jarek Tochowicz, Ada Valeria, Geert Vermeire, Sławomir Wojciechowski, Yoshi Yubai, Rafilid Zacharoula, Kacper Ziemianin.
[Philocthetes] travelling theater play in Europe 2016.
Directed by Sissy Papathanassiou, Athens Greece 2016. Electro acoustic sound composition with field recordings. Composed, mixed and production : Stefaan van Biesen.
Sound compositions for theater play, directed by Sissy Papathanassiou, Athens Greece 2016.
5 new sound compositions for the travelling teather play 'Philocthetes' by Stefaan van Biesen. 1. Ouverture - 2. Dog Island - 3. Bird Island - Wind & Sea - 4. Crowded City - 5. The Battle.
In poem "Philoctetes" by Yannis Ritsos the hero Philoktetes does not speak. Speaks only the young man Neoptolemus. And he talks about betrayal, abandonment, exploitation, political responsibility, childhood, memory and the trauma. Subject of the Greek poet Yannis Ritsos' long poem "Philoctetes" (1963–1965), a monologue in which the youth Neoptolemus convinces Philoctetes to follow him back to the war that will be won by the ruse of the Trojan Horse.
Director Sissy Papathanassiou is Ph.D., Theatrologist. She was born in Agrinion, Greece. Studies in Greece: 1987: Degree in Law, Aristotelio University of Thessaloniki 1983 - 1987: Theatre Studies, Theatre School of the National Theatre of Northern Greece Postgraduate studies in France: 1992-1995: - Masters Degree in Social Anthropology - History and Civilisations, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris - Masters Degree in Theatre - Arts du Spectacle, Institut d'Etudes Theatrales, Paris - Sorbonne III, under the supervision of Pierre-Vidal Naquet and Monique Borie-Banu respectively - Ph. D. Arts du Spectacle, Institut d'Etudes Theatrales, Paris -Sorbonne III-NANTERRE, under the supervision of Robert Abirached.
[Fly Ways] ISSC 2016 - International Conference : The Logics of Image 2016.
Santorini Arts Factory Greece 2016.
Flyways, an artistic research by Stefaan van Biesen
Curated / New media by Geert Vermeire
Literary research: Simona Vermeire
SonicPlanet / Geocomposer & Geoplayer : Sinan Bokesoy
Flyways, in an artistic interpretation by Stefaan van Biesen, intends to polarize esthetical and scientifical meanings about patterns created by dragonflies between water, earth and sky. In fact, the iridescence and ethereal motion reflected on the wings of the dragonfly becomes, in a synesthetic approach, a polyvalent art installation including site specific interventions, video, soundscapes, drawings and prints, integrating biogeometry, cymatics and promenadology.
Flyways at ISSC 2016 / the Santorini Arts Factory is represented through the art works of the Belgian artist Stefaan Van Biesen and in a creation of augmented reality audio scenes with SonicPlanet, integrating virtual 3D sound sources combining outdoor space, movement and sound, via a site specific sound installation for locative media by Stefaan van Biesen (soundscapes), Geert Vermeire (field recordings) and Sinan Bokesoy.
The project focuses on the visual and sound imagery of traces of the dragonfly, one of the oldest insects on earth (more than 325 million years ago).
New technologies, as as well means of creation in this project, are today the resultant of a bio-translation in digital and mechanical fields of the symmetry of these living patterns. Epistemologically, within Environmental Humanities, evolves a deep understanding of the living landscape, trying to find valid solution to preserve the original bio-vibration of the nature against the deep alteration that the Human configured in this new era of the Anthropos. Our project focuses on a very poetical and philosophical part of this complex landscape of the biosymmetry: the dragonfly, a passenger between the dinosaur’s era and our human vibration dominating the biodiversity. Making a relation between ethereal paths of the dragonfly and the human paths, printing the landscape with poetical steps onto walking (and the principles of promenadology) is our artistic and ecological proposal.
[Hythlodaeus 2015 - Utopia Sound Map] Cities and Memory ⋈ Oxford UK 2015.
CD 'Hythlodaeus' available on Band Camp: https://b-hive.bandcamp.com/album/hythlodaeus
On 22 May 2015, more than 50 sound artists and musicians from across the world will reimagine one of the greatest works of English literature, using sound. The Cities and Memory: Utopia project creates something new from the words of Thomas More and the collective imagination of artists around the world – an entirely new Utopia of sound. Using a woodcut map from the second edition of Utopia from 1518, sound artists each took a small section of More’s imagined country of Utopia, and created a new soundscape imagining how that place (and the society living in it) might sound.
A free album of highlights from the project, entitled Utopia, will be released via
http://citiesandmemory.bandcamp.com/album/utopia
The project is one part of a global field recording & sound art work called Cities and Memory, which aims to present and remix the sounds of the world through a global sound map in which every location has two sounds: a documentary field recording and a reimagining of that sound. The project, which has had 220,000 listens in the past 18 months, records both the current reality of a place, and also present its imagined, alternative counterpart – in effect remixing the world, one sound at at time. Every faithful field recording is accompanied by a reworking, a processing or an interpretation that imagines that place and time as somewhere else, somewhere new. The listener can choose to explore locations through their actual sounds, or explore interpretations of what those places could be – or to flip between the two different sound worlds at leisure.
There are currently almost 900 sounds featured on the sound map at www.citiesandmemory.com, spread over 40 countries. Cities and Memory has grown rapidly over the past year, with features on The Atlantic, Vice, Slate.com, CBC national radio in Canada, Resonance FM in the UK and specialist sound sites such as Creative Field Recording and the London Sound Survey.
The project is completely open to submissions from field recorders, musicians or anyone with an interest in exploring sound worldwide. The field recording and sound art communities have embraced the concept: more than 170 field recordists and sound artists from as far afield as Calcutta, Los Angeles and Cape Town have taken part, providing field recordings and radical reimaginings of global sounds. More’s Utopia explores the society, behaviour, law, customs and culture of the inhabitants of Utopia – a coinage that can be seen to mean both ‘good/ideal place’ and ‘nowhere’.
However, despite the space given over to the topography of the country and the appearance of its cities and people, there are only a scattered handful of references to sound. The most notable reference to sound is simple: ““[The Utopians] entertain themselves with the delights let in at their eyes, their ears, and their nostrils as the pleasant relishes and seasoning of life, which Nature seems to have marked out peculiarly for man, since no other sort of animals contemplates the figure and beauty of the universe… nor do they apprehend the concords or discords of sound.”
What were those concords and discords of sound that so delighted or repulsed the Utopians?
http://citiesandmemory.com/utopiagrid/
[B_Tour Festival] ⋈ Leipzig Germany 2015.
[Ludwig Karl Koch Variations] Sound Research and Workshop.
Urban Sounds and Imaginary Spaces / Schauspiel Leipzig - B_Tour_Festival.
The artistic use of sound in urban interventions, creates imaginary spaces and conjures heterotopias. Sound has the potential to challenge our everyday perception and inspire new kinds of social choreographies. What is the political potential of sonic practices? How do they change our experience of the city? How can audio-tours facilitate different ways of relating to the urban space? Starting from these questions, current developments of sound art in urban contexts will be discussed.
Torsten Michaelsen (LIGNA) ligna.blogspot.de
Doris Uhlich (Tänzerin und Choreographin) www.dorisuhlich.at
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Klotz (Musikwissenschaftler) www.gko.uni-leipzig.de/musikwissenschaft
Geert Vermeire (Kurator und Klangkünstler) www.geertvermeire.be
Stefaan van Biesen (Spaziergangswissenschaftler) www.stefaanvanbiesen.com
Prof. Dr. Patrick Primavesi (Institut für Theaterwissenschaft / Tanzarchiv Leipzig e.V.) www.uni-leipzig.de
[Urban Rituals / Resounding Cities] Lisbon - Brussels - Athens 2015.
Urban rituals / Resounding cities Brussels - Lisbon - Athens
Workshops and walks in Lisbon from March 3d to March 5th. Presentation and exhibition at the Faculty of Fine Arts Lisbon on March 6th.
Workshop in Athens on 7th of March at metamatic:taf, walks with noTours and installation during exhibition "Welcome to Ecumenopolis" by METASITU and metamatic:taf.
During the Athens Festival of Science - an installation updated the results of the three cities, next to walks with noTours during the exhibition "Arts and Science" 17 - 22 March (curator Christiana Kazakou), concluded with a presentation about noTours and of the process in Brussels, Lisbon and Athens on 22nd of March. Coordination by Geert Vermeire and the Athens workshop team.
The project started with the first workshop and sound walk connecting the Katelijne Square in Brussels, the Largo do Carmo in Lisbon and the Monasteraki Square in Athens. A joint project with the Faculty of Fine Arts - University of Lisbon, metasitu:taf in Athens and RITS School of Arts Radio Department in Brussels. In Brussels and Lisbon with Stefaan van Biesen, Geert Vermeire (the Milena principle) and Guy de Bièvre together with Amélie Van Campen, Karen Coppens, Sarah Mylle and Laurens Luyten, next to students of Rogerio Taveira.
First workshop and sound walk connecting the Katelijne Square in Brussels, the Largo do Carmo in Lisbon and the Monasteraki Square in Athens. A joint project with the Faculty of Fine Arts - University of Lisbon, metasitu / metamatic:taf in Athens and RITS School of Arts Radio Department in Brussels. A project by the Milena principle (Stefaan van Biesen and Geert Vermeire} together with Laurens Luyten, Karen Coppens, Mylle Sarah en Amélie Van Campen at Sint-Katelijneplein.
Resounding Cities METAMATICTAF Art and Sience Festival Athens 2015.
06.03.2015. Resounding Cities / Urban Rituals. Presentation of artistic walking projects and sound walking projects in Lisbon. Artwork & wall graphic 'Spaziergangwissenschaft' by Stefaan van Biesen at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon (curated by Vermeire Geert) and students of RITS School of Arts Brussels -FBAUL Lisbon in the framework of the project Resounding Cities (Lisbon, Brussels, Athens). Building a network of artistic interventions with remote users from other cities we attempt to investigate the effect towards the cities involved. 3 Squares: Largo do Carmo Lisbon, Katelijne Square Brussels, Monasteraki Square Athens.
Extracts sound recordings Largo do Carmo by Amélie Van Campen, Sarah Mylle, Karen Coppens and Laurens Luyten.
Resounding Cities at Athens Science Festival – Sound Art
Athens, March 17th – March 22nd
The collaborative project Resounding Cities uses sound and the sound walking platform noTours as an instrument of transforming experience of urban space, as well as walking, to create urban interventions with locative media connecting various cities in Europe via sound.
During the Festival the project is respresented in the Art and Science / Sound Art exhibition (curated by Christiana
Tags: sound maps - sound walks, locative media, augmented reality - art work map: Annemie Mestdagh.
A Knocking Bird Sint-Niklaas Belgium 2013
A Knocking Bird is an urban and e-culture project with an ecological engagement, organized by Cultuurcentrum Sint-Niklaas Belgium, WIT Urban Team (www.wit-urban.team) and noTours (www.notours.org) in collaboration with the Colour U, several international sound artists and environmental and ecological organizations. Curator: Geert Vermeire.
The pilot of this project happens between March and September and invites the residents and visitors of the city to a new urban experience with participation and with locative media.
Points of departure are a series of creative meetings with residents and artistic urban interventions by WIT Urban Team, next to an European event with fifteen residents from different European cities to explore nature in the city of Sint-Niklaas during a residency of a week. Their visit will be transformed in artistic results and in personal contributions about nature and city.
the Listening City Dresden Germany - Athens Greece 2013.
Steps of hearing
About the Listening City, Athens
As a marking image of the project we associate the jeux de mots Urba(n)ear with the deleuzian concept on utopy now-here and no-where, not only by the power of euphonia, but as an intention of signalizing an artistic perspective as the politics of the heart.
The Listening City is a sound art project realized by noTours. Producer is Goethe Institut Athens. Curated by Geert Vermeire, the project examines over a longer period in 2013-2014 the relationship between residents, the senses, sound and the city in a simultaneous and collective creative process in Athens, Essen and Dresden in collaboration with WIT Urban Team [Margot Dieleman, Eric Windey & Stefaan van Biesen], the Folkwang University of Arts and the University of Thessaly. During the process an international team of sound artists, experts and students in Greece and in Germany will be working on the realization of a sound map of Athens, sound walks in Athens, interactive online tools, videos, soundtracks and texts that will allow people to explore, share and shape the ways everyday sounds influence our perception of city.