TED Talk Thursday – New ways to see music (with color! and fire!) by Jared Ficklin

According to TED.com: “Designer Jared Ficklin creates wild visualizations that let us see music, using color and even fire (a first for the TED stage) to analyze how sound makes us feel. He takes a brief digression to analyze the sound of a skatepark — and how audio can clue us in to developing creativity.”

“In his day job, Jared Ficklin makes user interfaces at frog design. As a hobby, he explores what music looks like … in light, in shapes, in fire.”

“Jared Ficklin is a Senior Principal Design Technologist at frog, where he builds user experiences for clients, playing with interactions including touch and multi-touch, and applying physics to enhance the user experience. A passion for music and making things introduced him to the hobby of sound visualization, which has led him on occasion to play with fire. (As Flash on the Beach puts it, ‘Jared Ficklin’s sonic experiments stood out for their individuality, drama and casual disregard for health and safety.’) Every March in Austin, Texas, Ficklin organizes the frog party, a collective social experiment for a few thousand people attending SXSW Interactive. It’s a form of playful R&D for social technology. And he has spent 10 years helping fund, design and build quality free public skateparks for Austin as part of the Austin Public Skatepark Action Committee. “

New ways to see music (with color! and fire!) by Jared Ficklin

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

——————————————————————————————————–

I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

TED Talk Thursday – The enchanting music of sign language by Christine Sun Kim

According to TED.com: “Artist and TED Fellow Christine Sun Kim was born deaf, and she was taught to believe that sound wasn’t a part of her life, that it was a hearing person’s thing. Through her art, she discovered similarities between American Sign Language and music, and she realized that sound doesn’t have to be known solely through the ears — it can be felt, seen and experienced as an idea. In this endearing talk, she invites us to open our eyes and ears and participate in the rich treasure of visual language.”

“Christine Sun Kim uses the medium of sound through technology and conceptualism in art, as it enables her to have the most direct connection to society at large.”

“She rationalizes and reframes her relationship with sound and spoken languages by using audience’s voice as her own, conducting a group of people to sing with facial movements (rather than sound), composing visual scores with sign language and musical symbols. These attempts are made to raise questions on ownership of sound, explore oral languages as social currency, deconstruct preconceived ideas about silence, and above all, unlearn sound etiquette.”

“As part of her practice, Kim borrows other people’s voices in order to have one and she does it by collaborating with artists such as Devonté Hynes, Thomas Benno Mader, Wolfgang Müller and Alison O’Daniel. Selected exhibitions and performances include: Sound Live Tokyo, Tokyo; White Space, Beijing; LEAP, Berlin; Carroll / Fletcher, London; nyMusikk, Oslo; Andquestionmark, Stockholm; Southern Exposure, San Francisco; Recess Activities, New York; Calder Foundation, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Additionally, she was a recipient of Artist Residency at Whitney Museum, Haverford College, Southern Exposure, Arnolfini, University of Texas’ Visual Arts Center and Fellowship at TED and MIT Media Lab.”

The enchanting music of sign language by Christine Sun Kim

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

——————————————————————————————————–

I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

TED Talk Thursday – The violin and my dark night of the soul by Ji-Hae Park

TED Talk Thursdays Pam WarhurstAccording to TED.com : “In her quest to become a world-famous violinist, Ji-Hae Park fell into a severe depression. Only music was able to lift her out again — showing her that her goal needn’t be to play lofty concert halls, but instead to bring the wonder of the instrument to as many people as possible.”

“Ji-Hae Park was on the fast track to violin stardom when she … paused. Why was it simply her goal to be the best violin player in the world? Was there more to music than that? And thus she began to think differently about how to “play” her life. Now — along with playing prestigious concert halls, winning prizes and making a new album for Decca called Baroque in Rock — she makes time to play in hospitals, churches, prisons, anywhere she feels she can reach people with music. Her friendly, entertaining rearrangements of classical music invite new listeners in.”

“She was named The Respected Korean 2010  for her leadership and influence on the national development. She is playing on the Petrus Guarnerius 1735, Venedig on loan from the German Foundation (Deutsche-Stiftung- Musikleben) since 2003.”

The violin and my dark night of the soul by Ji-Hae Park

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

——————————————————————————————————–

I look forward to your thoughts and comments!