Halsey Burgund - artist and technologist

Moogfest

May 2017

I am participating in the 2017 version of Moogfest in Durham, North Carolina with a new piece called Land Marking. This piece is created with long-time collaborator Joe Zobkiw and is designed to enable participants in significant cultural events, such as protests, to capture the moment in real-time and on-site so that it can be archived for future experience and preserved well beyond the event itself.

Moogfest has a Protest Stage this year to explore "how creative technology tools and protest music can be used as instruments for change" and we are honored to take part in the experimentations.

The Land Marking app is available in the App Store and can also be explored, albeit in a less immersive way, on the Land Marking website.

Codes & Modes

March 2017

I participated in the Codes & Modes symposium at Hunter College which sought to "create an intervention into the uncritical excitement about virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and machine learning to establish a space for conversations about long-term socio-cultural and neurobiological impacts."

My involvement included participating in a panel discussion with Niko Koppel of the NYTimes and Jonah Brucker-Cohen of Lehman College/CUNY on "Engaging Communities through Emerging Technology", running a Roundware workshop and exhibiting my piece Radio Right Left.

Big thanks to the organizers for including me. I learned a lot from the other speakers and participants; there is so much going on in the *-reality space right now that is very exciting.

Take Magazine

February 2017

A thoughtful article by John Adamian in Take Magazine about my work:

HARNESSING THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

"imagine an artist with a fondness for narrative, speech, and ethereal music taking the same positioning technology to make art that is interactive, archival, and personal. Making spectators into contributors and enticing them with the thrill of unlocking and accessing facets of a piece of art by moving through space, while they take in the setting and history and give something back of themselves, gives you a sense of what Burgund is up to."

Speak for Yourself; Listen to Each Other

January 2017

In celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his message of peace and unity, I am releasing the beta for a new project called Radio Right Left. Please contribute by recording your thoughts and feelings about the future of America and your place in that future.

I have released the project with ZERO voices, so I am putting its success firmly into the hands of the people who are generous enough to contribute their thoughts and feelings. It is an easy process on the website (in the future via apps) and is totally anonymous.

The more diverse a set of contributors and opinions are collected, the more successful the project will be. I am looking forward to the day when there are enough comments that the distribution map is covered with pins and whenever I listen, I hear something new and something with which I disagree or hadn't considered. This is my hope.

Virtual and Augmented Reality Experiments @ MIT Media Lab

October 2016

As part of my research affiliation with the Media Lab, I have been working with some folks from the Responsive Environments group to bridge the virtual and real worlds. My Bog People project is collecting voices on a cranberry bog in southern Massachusetts and the ResEnv folks have been building a virtual model of the bog that is augmented in real time with data visualized from the myriad of sensors they have installed on-site.

We thought it would be interesting to bring the real-world spoken comments that I have been collecting on-site into this virtual world so that when you explore it, the audio from these voices (represented by little puffy clouds) is heard in place and directionally. The voices really changed the Unity environment by adding the human element, as hoped. And just because we (i.e. they) could, we also added the voices to a HoloLens demo of the bog which was a fascinating view into the potential of mixed reality in our futures.

Roundware: Rockland @ Camden International Film Festival

September 2016

I gave a talk and set up a demo of Roundware for the interactive Storyforms track at the Camden International Film Festival in Maine which highlights some of the finest documentary films of the past year. The festival corresponded quite conveniently with the full moon and super high tides, so I was able to haul my float and do other boat work in Penobscot Bay in the same trip(!).

I spoke about my work, Roundware and the Roundware:Rockland demo at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland and had a great time checking out all of the other interactive and VR-based pieces exhibited at Storyforms. Thank you to Sean Flynn et al for the invitation to participate.

From the Mouths of Monkeys on the Greenway

September 2016

From the Mouths of Monkeys is an 8-channel audio installation that combines music and spoken voices. The piece is an exploration of personal belief systems using the Chinese Zodiac - and the Year of the Monkey - as a jumping off point.

The piece was commissioned by the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy which is responsible for all public art in the mile and a half long Greenway park that winds through Boston.

I recorded conversations with a dozen people (from 0 to 84 years old) who were born in the year of the monkey and asked them questions about their beliefs and the origins of those beliefs, whether they be zodiac-driven, religious, scientific, etc. The topics ranged from fate vs. self-determination to linearity vs. cycles to life after death and many more.

I then composed a four-part site-specific piece of music which acts as an environment within which the voices are arranged by various criteria, both semantic and aesthetic. The four parts are spaced along a leafy walking path in the Greenway, providing listeners with a journey of sorts as they pass by and through the piece. Every utterance listeners hear - in similarity and difference - comes from the mouth of a “monkey”.

Faint Earth Murmur @ Harvard

March 2016

A new installation of mine called Faint Earth Murmur opened at Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments Special Exhibitions Gallery.

I was commissioned to create an audio installation to accompany a new exhibition on the history of radio called Radio Contact. The exhibition contains some truly incredible examples of historic electric and electronic equipment including all sorts of tube radios, wild antennae and ancient microphones. I view my piece as something that can not only tie together the over 100 objects, but also bring them (back) to life as most are in a non-functioning state at this point.

The gallery is in the Harvard Science Center and it's free, so check it out if you're in the neighborhood.

Kind Aesthetic Interview

July 2016

I did a blog interview for Kind Aesthetic and Delve. I talked about my circuitous life path and current projects.

A LOOK INTO THE UNIQUE PATHS OF ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE INDIVIDUALS. DELVE IS AN EDUCATIONAL AND COACHING PLATFORM TO HELP YOU GET THE BUSINESS SIDE OF YOUR CAREER IN ORDER. WE CELEBRATE EVERYONE'S PATH AS POSITIVE FORCES IN THEIR COMMUNITIES AND SHARE TOOLS AND ADVICE WE ALL NEED TO MEET OUR GOALS.

Miami Art Week / Art Basel

December 2015

Earlier this month, I debuted a new project in Miami, FL called unreserved. Since it takes inspiration from the Miami Art Week / Art Basel fairs in Miami every December the project opened for these events, but it is ongoing and will continue for the foreseeable future.

unreserved is a location-based contributory audio installation in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami which has a strong tradition of street art. This tradition has, however, taken on a new dynamic due to the transformation of the region during the art fairs. Street walls are now reserved and curated in increasingly restrictive ways, leading to a cultural shift which is not necessarily welcome. With unreserved, I hope to enable locals and visitors alike to leave their audio graffiti in any place and in any way they so choose.

unreserved is a collaboration with and funded by the Fordistas Gallery located in Wynwood which houses the gallery component of the piece. The project has been covered by a few local news outlets:

• Miami New Times
• Culture Designers
• Tropicult

Brother Thomas Fellowship

October 27, 2015

I am honored and excited to announce that I have received a fellowship from the Boston Foundation as part of their Brother Thomas Fellowship program. I join an esteemed list of fellows and finalists.

This is a rare program that celebrates artistic accomplishments and vision in an unrestricted way, giving recipients complete freedom in how to use the generous award. I plan to use it not only to give me more time to take advantage of my MIT Media Lab and Open Documentary Lab affiliations, but also to invest back into Roundware.

MIT Media Lab

October 7, 2015

I have recently extended my infiltration of MIT by becoming a Research Affiliate in the Responsive Environments group in the Media Lab at MIT. This was precipitated by my Bog People installation work which is part of the larger Living Observatory project in which the amazing folks in the Responsive Environments group play a huge part.

I am honored and humbled to be associated with these technologists/researchers/musicians/artists and am looking forward to learning even more from them than I already have.

Invisible Monument: Dewey Square

September 2015

I am pleased to announce the first in a series of installation/events called Invisible Monument, a new project in collaboration with artist and fellow MIT Open Documentary Lab fellow, Lara Baladi.

WHEN: 30th of September 30th, from 4-7PM
WHERE: Dewey Square, Boston

Since 2011, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy movements, the world has experienced an unprecedented number of uprisings.

Invisible Monument is an ongoing series of contributory audioscapes, which will be geolocated in spaces across the world where these social movements started and changed history.

Tributaries

August 2015

I have just launched a new project commissioned by the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums in Newcastle, UK, called Tributaries. I've been working with the museum for over a year on it and it's finally available for everyone to experience.

Tributaries aims to give insight into the daily reality of life, loss and love on Tyneside during the First World War. I worked with the archives and museum to uncover materials from 100 years ago that express what life was like back then - everything from diaries to newspaper articles to weather logs to sports scores - and then re-animated those writings with the help of local volunteers who expertly voiced them for us.

The resulting experience is a site-specific combination of a new musical composition infused with this content which is geographically distributed throughout the region for participants to discover as they wander.

re~verse @ the gates of Harvard Yard

April 2015

A new installation as part of Harvard's LitFest called re~verse is now open.  This project is made in collaboration with Harvard's metaLAB and the Woodberry Poetry Room.

re~verse is a participatory, location-based sound installation in which snippets of recorded poetry from Harvard’s collections—the voices of renowned poets—crowd together at the gates of Harvard's historic Yard.
They murmur together, chorusing with music composed for the piece and one another across stanzas and centuries. From gate to gate around the Yard, they combine with the voices of present-day participants, who are invited to contribute to a growing, unfolding work of art with responses, recitations, and reveries.

I view this iteration as a study for a larger project that I hope will flow from this initial set of experiments.  I have long been an appreciator of poetry and having access to the incredible set of recordings is something I never imagined would happen.

There is an opening event on Tuesday evening along with numerous other interesting happenings and people visiting.

Water Stories on Here & Now

December 2014

There was a great radio piece on the Water Stories exhibition at the Museum of Science on Here & Now on NPR. Robin Young interviewed Anne Neely and used a lot of my audio composition to capture the essence of the exhibition.

'Water Stories': A Conversation In Paint And Sound

Her paintings, currently on display at Boston’s Museum of Science, explore the beauty of water, but also raise a cautionary flag about issues that threaten the world’s water, including pollution and climate change.
The exhibit is accompanied by an audio composition by sound artist Halsey Burgund, whose water-themed compositions play throughout the gallery.
The exhibit aims to elicit visceral connections for viewers and listeners, and also raise public awareness about water issues.

MIT OpenDocLab

October, 2014

I have recently begun a fellowship at the Open Documentary Lab at MIT.

Though I am not a documentary film-maker in any way, I feel a lot of cross-over between what I do and what they do. We both go out into the world and talk to real people about their experiences/opinions/ideas and then take that raw material and sculpt it into some kind of collective whole. In the case of documentary, that whole tends to be a bit more overtly narrative than my work, but the OpenDocLab is a unique place because their focus is on new forms of documentary, many of which are very experimental and non-linear.

The OpenDocLab brings technologists, storytellers, and scholars together to advance the new arts of documentary.

I am honored to be joining a small group of very interesting and talented other fellows (fellow fellows?), and am having fun getting back into the academic world after so many years.

The Future or the Past

September 2014

I am collaborating with visual artist Kate Gilbert on a piece of public art in Downtown Crossing, Boston, called "Color Crossing". Appropriately enough, the piece is installed in Music Hall Place, an alley off of Winter Street that used to serve as an entrance to the Boston Symphony Orchestra's first home and is now a passageway to the food court at the Corner Mall.

Color Crossing will be in place through the Fall and my audio composition is all about time travel; go check it out and pick up some Thai food for lunch at the same time...

Here's an excerpt with some slamming beats:

I would definitely go to the future. No question.

Twelve Nights

August 2014

I am a part of a group exhibition at the Boston Sculptors Gallery called Twelve Nights. The show includes work from eight artists who are all a part of a critique group that meets every month. I have been lucky to be a part of this group for many years now and it is wonderful to see all of our work together in a public setting.

I decided to try something new and explore some ideas for visual pieces instead of my audio-based work. I've always loved maps and my contribution to the show, Road Trip, 2002 is what happens to an old Rand McNally atlas in today's modern GPS-enhanced age. I'm trying to bring back a bit of the mystery...

Water Stories @ MOS

July 2014

I composed an audio accompaniment to a new exhibition of paintings by Anne Neely at the Museum of Science, Boston called Water Stories.

The piece is comprised of five sections grouped by thematic content: The Future, Stories, Bad Things, Science and Cherish. The voices are edited and combined with water sounds and musical elements and play in a continuous loop throughout the gallery. Here is a sample of the Future section:

A feature on Anne Neely and the exhibition was published in the Globe in advance of the opening:

Concern inspires Anne Neely to evoke watery subjects

Hotel Dreamy in the Post

April 2014

The Brink and Boundary show at American University Museum of which I am a part was reviewed in the Washington Post:

Art review: ‘Brink and Boundary’ at the American University Museum

"Listening with earbuds, which quiet the noise of the real world, it’s a trippy experience, allowing you to enter a landscape that’s more psychological than physical."

Feel free to contribute your own dreams via the website or the Hotel Dreamy iOS app.

Patient Translations in the Globe

April 2014

There was a nice spread in the Boston Globe about Kelly Sherman and my project, Patient Translations:

The human side of health care [ pdf of full spread in physical paper with photos etc ]

"The art of it is it’s this random collection of snippets, which is enthralling. It can be hard to listen to, but people who have been through hard things are comforted that it’s not just them."

Our project is ongoing, so you can check out the website and download the app to listen and contribute your own story.

Hotel Dreamy @ American University

April 2014

I am a part of a new exhibition at the American University Museum called Brink & Boundary along with three other excellent artists.

• Opening Reception: Saturday, April 5th, 6-9PM
• Artist Talk: Saturday, May 17th, 4PM
• Exhibition Dates: April 5th - August 17th, 2014

My contribution is an extension of my ongoing Hotel Dreamy piece.  It is a location-aware sound installation that contains people’s dream recollections juxtaposed with snippets of interviews I conducted with dream researchers; everything from cognitive neuroscientists to psychoanalysts. I’m still collecting dreams, so feel free to grab the free Hotel Dreamy iOS app and add your own to the mix!

ADA Mesh Cities Artist Tour

March 2014

Trudy Lane and I were chosen as the 2014 ADA Mesh Cities Artist Tour artists for our project, Sound Sky in Christchurch, NZ. Earlier this month we presented about the project and the underlying Roundware technology in workshops in Christchurch and at AUT in Auckland.

ADA is a wonderful organization that supports digital artists and art in New Zealand and we were honored to be able to help spread their message as well as our project with these workshops.

Sound Sky

January 2014

I will be traveling to New Zealand next month to work on a new project in Christchurch called Sound Sky. The project is a collaboration between myself and New Zealand artist, Trudy Lane, and is a contributory audio landscape informed by and evolving out of the tragic earthquakes of 2010/2011 that destroyed the majority of downtown Christchurch.

I'm very excited to be able to contribute to bringing this project to reality as well as to get a chance to travel to New Zealand, where I have never been before.

Thank you to Creative New Zealand, the arts funding body of the New Zealand government, for providing seed funding for Sound Sky and to the wonderful partners (primarily CEISMIC, Gap Filler and CSSA) with whom Trudy and I are looking forward to working more as things progress.

innovation at the Smithsonian

November 2013

I was interviewed as the inaugural subject of a new series for Smithsonian Magazine online about innovators and the tools they use to innovate. So if you're interested in learning about 10 items (among many others) that surround me in my studio, have a read:

10 Gadgets Halsey Burgund Can’t Live Without

Truth be told, under extreme circumstances, I could probably manage to live without most of these(!), but it was interesting to think about what tangible items help me with my work. There are plenty of intangibles too, of course.

This article was written in advance of my participation in the "Innovation Explorations" program at Smithsonian which will be highlighting innovations in sound on November 16th in DC. I will be giving an early-stage demo of my piece "Ghost Crowd" which I am working on as a result of my Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship last year. There will be other audio innovators at the event, including, I am told, the inventor of the microphone...sweet!

artists in the "innovation hub"

November 2013

I was interviewed for an article on the role artists can play in innovation in Boston, a city renowned for other sorts of innovation whether it be technology, biotech, education etc. It's an interesting topic and I actually am optimistic that artists are being included more and more in forward-thinking cutting-edge discussions that are not necessarily related to art.

In any case, read for my perspectives and those of several other talented Boston-area artists:

Art in the Innovation Hub Part 3: Artists by Laura Mitchell

Walking the Rocks

June 2013

My collaboration "A Walk Through Deep Time" with New Zealand artist, Trudy Lane is now in its second incarnation in Sydney as part of the ISEA 2013 International Symposium on Electronic Art. Trudy has been on-site leading guided walks and I have transported the soundscape from New Zealand to The Rocks neighborhood of Sydney for people to experience and contribute.

Our piece is part of The Rocks Pop-Up program of ISEA which includes a number of cool, non-traditionally sited pieces.

You can download the updated version of the iOS app or visit the new Deep Time website to listen and contribute regardless of whether you are on-site.

Ocean Voices @ Blue Mind

May 2013

I will be performing and speaking about Ocean Voices at the annual Blue Mind conference organized by marine biologist Dr. Wallace J. Nichols.

It is a conference focussed on neuro-conservation and how the ocean can effect the brain. I'll be part of a session with David Poeppel, a neuro-scientist from NYU and Jim Toomey, the creator of Sherman's Lagoon, the syndicated comic.

PT in DC

April 2013

Kelly Sherman and I will be heading south to Washington, DC next week to install Patient Translations at the annual TEDMED conference at the Kennedy Center. We are excited to share the piece with a larger and more broad audience and get a chance to talk with all the medically-minded people in attendance. I hope we get a chance to attend some of the talks as well since I am fairly addicted to TED talks already, but have only been able to enjoy them online thus far.

In anticipation, the kind folks at TEDMED have posted a blurb on their blog about Patient Translations:

Voice art aims to capture the human side of healthcare

Kill Screen

April 2013

Here's a nice article about Scapes in relation to a very interesting new musical video game called Proteus. I like thinking about the connections between real and imagined worlds.

How the magic sounds of Proteus are making their way into the real world

While Proteus is very much concerned with living in the now, Burgund is “trying to connect people to what is around them, past, present, and future.” Playthroughs of Proteus are ephemeral; there’s no way to record music in-game, leaving you to enjoy it in the moment. Proteus is about letting go while Scapes is about writing clues for the next person to consider.

translating the patient (loosely)

March 2013

This past month has been insane creating a new piece that came about rather serendipitously (and with a very compressed timeline). I have been trying to get a piece going on the topic of health for some time now as it is a fascinating area for me, but I have always run into logistical issues. So when fellow artist Kelly Sherman out of the blue got in touch to see if I wanted to collaborate with her on an opportunity to create a new piece for the Healthcare Experience Design conference, I jumped at the chance.

I will post more about the ongoing piece soon, but for now, I only have time to announce that it exists. You can check out the website and download the app to listen and participate as well as soon see more photos of Kelly's wonderful visual treatment of my long-time partner in crime, the Bring Your Own Voice booth.

new hemispheres

February 2013

I have a new piece on exhibit at the Puke Ariki Museum in New Plymouth, NZ. The piece is called "A Walk Through Deep Time" and is a collaboration with New Zealand artist extraordinaire, Trudy Lane. Through the marvels of the internet, we were connected from 9 time zones and 18 hours apart by our significant overlaps in artistic practice. Our love of science and discovery as well as the outdoors and geo-awareness was quite remarkable and pleasant to discover.

This piece is a part of the SCANZ 2013: 3rd nature creative residency which included a group of amazing artists who all created pieces for the exhibition. I am honored to be a part of the show and excited that my work, at least, has had the opportunity to travel to New Zealand. Someday, I hope to do the same.

Please check out the iOS app and feel free to contribute your own recordings regardless of whether or not you are on-site.

Big Red & Shiny review of R:C

November 2012

The wonderfully revitalized and re-launched Big Red & Shiny has published a review of ROUND:Cambridge, by the amazing artist Stephanie Cardon.

ROUND:Cambridge - a participatory soundscape by Halsey Burgund

"Now this is a guaranteed first date win. I jest but it's true: Halsey Burgund's new public art piece, a participatory soundscape encompassing the whole City of Cambridge, is an engaging and memorable way to while away an evening. You might even capture the sound of that stolen kiss."

Dream Festival

November 2012

I'm participating in the Annual Dream Festival of the Deep Listening Institute as a digital artist-in-residence. Basically, they have ceded control of their Facebook page to me for the week so I can do whatever dreamy things I would like.

I will be using the time to share dreams contributed to my Hotel Dreamy and Dreamy Me projects. I hope to encourage people to contribute more dreams as well. It should be a good audience for that!

multimodal

October 2012

Last weekend, I was honored to be on a panel at the Multimodal Approaches to Learning International Conference at the MET. I got to speak about how my work follows a different approach to collaborative engagement of museum visitors via their ears and experiences. Of course, Roundware was a big part of the discussion and I'm hoping that the attendees found it useful.

I had a great time as I got to meet some of the other presenters including several amazing sound artists: Stephen Vitiello, Lou Mallozzi, Bruce Odland and Johannes Goebel. Being the new-comer on the sound art block, I was both dramatically humbled by their genre-defining greatness and encouraged by their uplifting stories, projects and approaches to this esoteric world.

some love from Evolver.fm

October 2012

Eliot Van Buskirk wrote a nice article and did an interview with me about Roundware on the popular Evolver.fm blog put out by The Echo Nest.

Why The Roundware Open-Source Audio Location Platform Rules

Perhaps it takes someone of a more artistic bent to build a platform for pinning songs and live-recorded audio to specific locations on a map — and then open-source it, so that any other individual or company can use it to build whatever they want using the same basic framework.
Burgund’s apps are alluring, combining augmented reality, location, art, and crowdsourcing in a way that hasn’t quite been done before, though it builds on Burgund’s own Scapes project.

journal music

July 2012

I am happy to announce the official release of a piece I created for the journal of Public Art Dialogue, an organization dedicated to promoting discourse on public art globally.

I have written music - called Music for Journaling - inspired by this journal filled with words, patterns and ideas related to public art and am asking that people who read the journal react to those same words and patterns and make a verbal contribution to the music.

Over time, more and more reactions to the journal and reactions to reactions will be collected, creating an evolving conversation about this particular (mass-produced) physical artifact as well as all the ideas and philosophies represented between its covers.

Have a listen and join the conversation if you feel so inclined!

Inglorious Materials

July 2012

Hotel Dreamy is now on exhibit in New York City at the Charles Bank Gallery in the Bowery. It is a part of a group show called Inglorious Materials with four other artists who all work in some liberally defined form of collage:

• Scott Zieher
• Ryan Russo
• Dan Mort
• Cassandra C. Jones

I have a bunch of dreams already collected, but am continuing to collect more. I have created an iOS app with which participants can contribute and listen to dreams (keep your phone near your bed!).

TAPEdocs

June 2012

I was recently interviewed for a new online radio program called TAPEdocs.  The show takes an uncommon host-less approach to dive into the worlds of people who do interesting (or at least unusual) things.

My interview can be found here - "The way people are saying things" - but you should check out the others as well, especially the one about the guy who helped fix the mirror flaw in the Hubble Telescope.

Ocean Portal

May 2012

Ocean Voices is being featured on the National Museum of Natural History's Ocean Portal site. They did a brief interview with me when I was down in DC for my Smithsonian fellowship and include that along with the Ocean Voices map of participation.

Five Questions for Halsey Burgund, Creator of Ocean Voices