O+A Sound Stories; our new YouTube Channel
O+A Sound Stories are a collection of short videos created over the years while working together on projects. On the one hand, the videos talk about acoustic and psychoacoustic phenomena, musical situations, and how we operate and explore. On the other hand, they question our mostly urban living environments with a Hearing Perspective and Thinking…
Harmonic Gate – Zurich, Switzerland
This Sound Installation for Europaallee in Zurich opened in September of 2020, turning ambient city noise into a field of harmony. A humane gesture to the ears of the public in the new walking street at the heart of the city.
Symphony of Resonances – Thessaloniki, Greece
They resonated the ancient seat of Roman Power, The Palace of Galerius, with modern traffic noise transformed in real-time into harmony
Harmonic Conduit – Boston
O+A tuned the soundscapes of two communities adjacent to Boston’s Ruggles Station, and created fields of harmony connecting Lower Roxbury, and Northeastern University.
Resonating Mexico City
The Song of Mexico City, a sound installation in an ancient cathedral, takes all the sounds from the surrounding industrial and human soundscape.
Quiet is the New Loud – Brugges Trienalle, Belgium
The soundscape of Modernity, with its overwhelming array of machine generated standing waves amplified in canyons of glass and steel, has through the vicissitudes of history passed Brugge by. One can still take delight in Brugge’s human scale sound space of passageways, plazas, canals, cobblestones and courtyards without being overwhelmed by electrical hums, diesel motors,…
Urban Space Urban Sound – Bonn, Germany
April 30th, 2013 in the subway tunnels underneath Köln, O+A, Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger transformed the urban soundscape into harmony in real-time and created a dramaturgy of overtones and underground urban resonating spaces. The audience enters this underground dramaturgy of sounds and spaces in groups of 15, walking the resonating tunnels between underground stops,…
Linz R2 – Lentos Kunstmuseum, Austria
Featured Artist: ars electronica 2011 Linz R2 is a real-time resonance work, a sound installation in a public space—the long, open courtyard area adjacent to the Lentos Art Museum’s entrance. Auinger and Odland’s work is an acoustic transformation experience: two resonance pipes perform a real-time transformation of the surrounding urban soundscape into a harmonic drone…
Sonic Vista – Frankfurt, Germany
Sonic Vista, by O+A, Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger, is a permanent sound installation commissioned for the 20th anniversary of the Frankfurt Greenbelt.
Grundklang Bonn – Bonn, Germany
in 2010 the Austrian sound artist and composer Sam Auinger lived and worked in town as Bonn’s first city sound artist. this research residency within the contextof Bonn Hoeren resulted in his piece Grundklang Bonn (Bonn basic sound) that can now be experienced in public space until the beginning of may 2011. Auinger‘s installation transforms the square in front…
Requiem for Fossil Fuels – New York
by O+AVocal score, Bruce OdlandSound score, Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger taken from recordings of their installations turning city noise into music.Martha Cluver-Soprano, Hai-Ting Chinn-Mezzo, Geoffrey Silver-Tenor, Mark Uhlemann-bassVideo Produced and Edited by Stuart CulpepperCamera Operators Milton Kam, Steve Celestin, Jesse CowellAudio Recording by Ed Haber for NEW SOUNDS LIVE, WNYCPresented by John Schaeffer of…
my eyes… my ears – New York
Judson Memorial Church / New York (USA) The sonic commons can be defined as any space where people share an acoustic environment and can hear the results of each other’s activities, both intentional and unintentional. Our eyes and ears are forced to deal with those results. This performance uses 4 Ear (dual binaural) recordings, live…
Requiem For Fossil Fuels – Berlin, Germany
The Art of Listening – Seoul, Korea
O+A led a week long workshop with artists and students exploring and mapping the Seoul soundscape via the Insa Art Space of the Arts Council Korea. (think with your ears) since the renaissance we have had an agreed visual perspective, and language to speak accurately about images. this we still lack in the world of…
Elevated Harmonies – New York
Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger create an instrument that transforms the noise of daily life in Manhattan into a living harmonic series, allowing the visitor to hear the city as a symphony. A tuning tube suspended from the railing collects the sound of traffic, helicopters, and boats, all visible from the plaza, and transforms them…
Tonic – West Hollywood
A real time sound installation that transforms street noise into harmonic sounds from the bus stop at the south-east corner of the intersection, creating a psycho-acoustic effect in public space in real time. The sound of traffic resonates as an under tone to the ambient sound and the resulting harmonies are played from two loudspeakers…
Sugar – Sundance Festival
Reynold Reynolds, Patrick Jolley, Samara GoldenSugar, USA 200532min video transferred from 16mm artstudioreynolds.com/facebook.com/Artstudio.Reynolds Music, J.G. Thirlwell;Sound designers, Bruce Odland, Sam Auinger.Actress: Samara Golden A young woman descends into madness in a gripping one-hour looped film by Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley. That’s what seems to happen, anyway, as the film’s nonlinear narrative and mix of…
Requiem for Fossil Fuels – Berlin, Germany
In July, 2004, O+A presented an early version of Requiem for fossil fuels which played for ten days at the Sophienkirche in Berlin. This first version was a concert installation for 8 channels of recorded sound, midi-controlled pipe organ, and video. The installation was commissioned by Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD and presented by 2004 Inventionen…
Blue Moon – NYC
This temporary installation re-tuned the soundscape of the New York Harbor into a harmonic series, mixed by the moon and tides.
Hive Wien – Vienna, Austria
The most important new element of the project is the box: a shipping container, which has been prepared to receive a maximum of 10 listeners at a time. Its green color makes the box stand out distinctly from its surroundings. The tuning tube is on top of the box. It is mounted on a specially…
Pool – Berlin, Germany
klangkunstforum, parkkolonaden LOCATION klangkunstforum, parkkolonaden, potsdamer platz / berlin (D) DESCRIPTION pool ist eine klanginstallation von sam auinger und bruce odland. das klangmaterial der installation ist sogenannter umgebungslärm am potsdamer platz. drei resonanzrohre werden am gebäude der hvb projekt installiert und transformieren den lärm in musikalisches material.der installationsraum ist so gestaltet, dass er an eine schwimmhalle oder einen…
Planet Earth Gallery – Doncaster, UK
The landmark millennium project, Earth Centre, opened to the public in 1999. The £50 million visitor attraction and ecological parkland cover 160 hectares of a former colliery site in South Yorkshire.
Sounds from the Vaults – Chicago
A Millennial Exhibition at the Field Museum. The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago has more than six thousand musical instruments in its collection. It’s opened its vaults and worked out a way for the public to hear them. Many have not been seen or heard in a hundred years. They are from all…
Motet R – Berlin, Germany
Miami Drone – Miami, FL
Artists at the Music Winter Conference.
Cloud Chamber – NYC & Linz, Austria
Cloud Chamber is an artistic exploration of the question: Can a city be heard as a harmonic symphony? It presents recordings from their sound installation series in which cities were made to resonate, and includes excerpts from their latest collaboration presented at New York City’s performance space. The Kitchen, in March, 1997. For the “Cloud…
Harmonic Bridge – Mass MoCA
In 1997, before MASSMoCA opened, Director Joe Thompson decided to activate the town of North Adams with sound art. O+A noticed that the town and museum were divided by Highway 2 overpass, and the resulting road noise coming from the bridge made this division worse. They decided to bridge this division with harmony. They installed…
Balance 1.0 – Berlin, Germany
BALANCE 1.0, Sonambiente Festival, Berlin1996 Sonic Alchemist’s Laboratory installed in the cellar of the Akademie der Kunst for its 300th Anniversary. Explorations by visitors hearing multiple perspectives and spaces simultaneously. O+A Planetspeakers 2.0 form separate listening chamber.
City Ears – Nice, France
For the MANCA Festival in Nice, France, Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger (O+A) created an architectural sound performance. Custom parabolic speakers beamed sound which bounced off the iconic Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art building. Sonic reflections were distinctly perceptible from the plaza below. O+A conducted a sonic “duel” with sound beams. Casual passersby stopped…
Fundamental Air – St. Paul de Vence, France
Sound of gargoyle fountain activates a tuned harmonic series played back at strategic overlook of Miro Labyrinth. Odland. Roof of Fondation Maeght with Planet Speaker.
R3 – Hannover, Germany
Real-Time tuning of subway and street sound sources as industrial digeridu, played over 4 steel “Cube” loudspeakers of O+A’s design. Fear Architecture, not Music. Cube speaker
MaxRes – Ars Electronica, Linz
Max Res was an installation by Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger which linked the Linz Railway Terminal , the Train Platform and the Ars Electronica Festival in a harmonic and melodic interface of human, machine, and information. The installation brought up questions of Public and Private Space ( which space is in your headphones if…
The Persians – Salzburg, Paris, LA, Edinburg, Berlin
CREATIVE TEAM Peter Sellars, Stage directorHamza El Din, Music (Composition and performed)Dunya Ramicova, CostumesJames F. Ingalls, Lighting designBruce Odland, Sam Auinger, Sound CAST Cordelia Gonzalez, AtossaMartinus Miroto, MessengerHowie Seago, Ghost of DariusJohn Ortiz, Xerxes Ben Halley jun., ChorusJoseph Haj, Chorus
Traffic Mantra – Trajan’s Forum, Rome
Peter Erskine’s erskinesolarart.net solar spectrum environmental art installation, “Secrets of the Sun” at Rome’s Trajan’s Forum was supported by a sound installation “Traffic Mantra” by O+A, Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger. In this excerpt, they demonstrate how to turn traffic noise into music using a Roman Amphora.
Stadtraum/CityDream – Salzburg, Austria
Resonating the old city of Salzburg to the six cardinal points for the 200th Anniversary of Mozart’s Death. 2000 years of history presented as sonic hologram for 25,000 spectators… w/ guitarist Adrian Belew. O+A 2nd act mock baroque battle of fireworks with Hohen Salzburg in background.
Garden of Time-Dreaming – Linz, Austria
In honor of astronomer Johannes Kepler, O+A created a sound cosmology, Garden of Time Dreaming. On the 400th anniversary of the city of Linz in Austria, this cosmology played throughout the gardens of the Castle of Linz. 400,000 visitors attended. Commissioned by Ars Electronic and the Schloss Museum. At this point in time (1990), with…
Riverworks – Linz, Austria
Fractal rhythms and melodies of water activate water guitar, harps, cymbals, and are heard from sculpture of speakers . Huckleberry Finn is evoked by fishing technology and contact microphones.