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April 19th 2008 I had to go to an annual meeting in Dresden, Germany. I always take the train from Linz, Austria via Prag up north. But this year the changed some trains and so I had to change 3 times the train up north.
This recording was done in a very, very local train between Summerau (Austria) and Budweis (Czech). The train was quite old and slow (only one railway-track - we had to wait) but very charming.
The recording was done with an iRiver T20 and a Soundman Mk. II microphon.
Leipzig, Germany near railway-station - "real life .. an introduction"
A nice saturday evening at the Leipzig railway-station. I tried to buy some vittles in shopping section of the railway-station on the lower floor. And then I heared some soccer-fans singing and provoking the police dogs. Don't ask me who played at this day.
It needed some time to get the recorder (iRiver T20) and the Soundman Mk. II out of the bag to record this surreal soundscapes within the large building of the railway-station.
The old London harbour is gone. Some ships are still anchored next to new fancy houses where some years ago ships, cranes and warehouses dominated the scenery near to Tower Bridge.
It was late night when I did this recording. You can hear the mooring ropes and after a while a boat is gone towards inner city.
Recorded with my Panasonic NV-DS25 videocamera.
London, Greenwich - A footwalk under River Thames from 1902 or 1906.
It was Saturday, so many people walked from the nice Greenwich market to Canary Warf.
The tunnel is about 200 meters long and some meters under River Thames.
Recorded with my Panasonic NV-DS25 videocamera.
The "Urfahrmarkt" is a hybrid of market, lunapark and october fest in Linz, Austria.
Twice a year in spring and autumn people enjoy delicous food like Schaumrollen (see the pic), beer in hudge glasses, Bratwürstel, etc. and enjoy their life.
Get an idea how the Urfahrmarkt sounds during the day when I passed by with my bike. The lunapark people boost their soundsystem to the limits to attract youngsters to do use their high tech funmachines.
Recorded with Soundman OKM (on the limit) and DAT.
The beach and harbor of Sistiana near Trieste is beautiful all over the year.
We had a sunny end of the year 2007 on the beach and in the harbor some people prepared their sailing boats to celebrate New Years Eve on the Golfo de Trieste.
Recorded with Soundman OKM and DAT.
Funny, but this New Years Eve the fireworks startet 5 minutes late. So the prople from Italy and guests like us tried to make the best out if it when the bell announced the New Year 2008.
Very subtile recording with a Soundman OKM and a DAT.
On the Grado beach 1.1.2008
HAPPY NEW YEAR AND PEACE ON EARTH!
My wife and I like to stay in Grado, Italy to party New Year. We did this several time to celebrate the new year and to frighten away bad ghosts with heavy fireworks.
The fireworks had been recorded on the beach with DAT and Soundman OKM.
Enjoy 2008, stay tuned, healthy and take care.
Wolfgang aka BikeMike
Wolfgang Dorninger in front of a painting of Herbert Brandl in the Austrian pavillion at La Biennale di Venezia 2007.
About the recording: waiting for a short local train, passes by quick, cars start their engines, all as usual. the silence before the opening of the gate was stunning. Done near Pordenone on autostrada SS13.
DAT and Soundman OKM
July 2007
Not my favorite hotel but in the 13th floor seaside you fall asleep with awesome soundscapes from the sea.
Recorded with DAT and Soundman OKM.
First you hear the sea from inside - night - then I open the door and move outside. Cut.
Recording done at Hotel Maritim, Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, February 12th 2007
4th of October 2007: Graz Bahnhofsplatz in front of Hotel Ibis.
Early in the morning on the way to the railwaystation I passed by the Hotel Ibis with a hudge glass outbuilding facing the Bahnhofsplatz.
When you pass by you hear interesting reflections from the glass front.
I came from the Bahnhofsstrasse - big road, heavy morning traffic - the left channel is directed to the Bahnhofsplatz (a place) and the right channel is directed to the glass front of the hotel.
After 1:20 I turned around and walked back to the Bahnhofsstrasse - so the channels are changed. The file is 2:20 long - Blogr does display the time wrong.
Recorded with DAT and a Soundman OKM mic.
This is the second recording from "Closed enoug" by Staalplaat Soundsystem.
You can get more information on the piece in the blog-entry before titled:Staalplaat Soundsystem: "Closed Enough" - rec.1
This sequence is taken from the middle of the performance facing to the final. What can you hear: race car & truck, then they opened the doors, outside guys with cars & hudge car-hifi moved round the List-Halle. I was not in a good position, so the cars are quite silent. Then the helicopter. Again tzoo slow, not that massive sound in the beginning, but tehn I had a nice fade out with the helicopter.
Again mp3-player/recorder iRiver T20 with Soundman OKM mics.
The blog is showing a wrong time. The recording is 14:45 minutes.
"Closed enough" by Staalplaat Soundsystem
I went to Graz to do an interview with Justin Bennett and to see him perform with BMB con. as part of "Closed Enough" by Staalplaat Soundsystem at Steirischer Herbst 2007 / Musikprotokoll.
BMB con. delt with nature and human in their opening performance which stood opposite to the Staalplaat Soundsystem performance driven by machines from the tool shop expanded with a flying helicoper, car-hifi, race car, trains and truck. What shall I say: "Excellent lights, stunning sounds, a perfect floorplan and organic structure of the timeline: A hymn to a 100-year tradition of noise-making machines."
A performance without stage using the whole space of the large List-Halle made the audience moving around. So everyone cruised around for best sound-experience and visual impression. I did the same, but I focused on doing nice video-recordings not that much in doing perfect audio-recordings.
But by luck my mp3-player/recorder iRiver T20 did a great job with my Soundman OKM mics. Carsten and Geert-Jan gave me the permission to present parts of the recordings at BikeMike thanks a lot!
rec.1 is quite at the beginning of "Closed enough" with a focus on trains and train-sounds - the Austrian railway-company ÖBB took part at this performance. Then adapeted machines from the tool-shop started the percussive-part ending with sirenes.
News - Part 1!
August 2nd 2007 I've started with interviews for the video-documentary "in the fields / Feldaufnahmen Pt.1". End of May 2008 base records will release a DVD of "in the fields / Feldaufnahmen" but also all interviews on archive.org under creative common non-commercial license. In terms of budget Part 2 of the documentary will be an ongoing project with no deadline or release date doing interviews on my travels all over the world and with those who find the way to Linz, Austria or near around. I have so many people on my list I can't reach for Pt.1 that its hard to say when Pt.2 will be finished.
What is the ambition of my project: First, to show how artists work with the "instrument" microphon, how they implement concrete sound-sources into their art and to show the diversity and richness of this artform. Second, to create an ongoing documentation on sound-artists who expand or work within the term phonography.
The city of Linz gave me some money so I can travel around within Europe to meet sound-artists not only for this documentary. Until now I completed 2 routes to Berlin and around (by car) and to Amsterdam and around (by train).
Route 3 leads me to Graz & Frankfurt (September), Route 4 to the Baltikum.
My interview partners until now are:
On Route 1 (early August):
Marcus Obst (Crottendorf), Patrick Franke (Leipzig), Debashis Sinha (Toronto), Yannick Frank (Heure-le-Romain, Belgium), Rauschpartikel (Berlin), Rinus van Alebeek (Berlin)
On Route 2 (early Septmber):
Janek Schaefer ( Walton-on-Thames, UK), Harold Schellinx (Amsterdam/Paris), Matthijs Vincent Kouw (Utrecht), Chris Watson (Newcastle)
On Route 3 (mid-September to mid-october):
Justin Bennett (Den Haag), Lasse-Marc Riek (Frankfurt), Roland Etzin (Frankfurt), Camilla Hannan (Austrialia).
On October 10th I'll do an interview with Jacob Kirkegaard and hopefully but not confirmed until now an interview with Francisco Lopez on the 3rd of October.
If you are around Linz, Austria feel free to contact me:
Wolfgang Dorninger fadi (at) servus (dot) at
1* The name BikeMike?
I love to ride bicycles, I like to record concrete acoustic situationes with microphones. Sometimes i do both at the same time, not that often because than I have to ride slowly.
2* What are the sources?
I am mainly interested on the crossing between technology and human. My main interest is how city plannings change the way of life in a city. So BikeMike has not that much to do with recordings from nature.
3* What is your ambition?
Just to document how people live and how technolgy changes the flow of a community. For example how a highway divides urban space in two seperate living spaces or how people in South America occupy public space.
4* field recordings and soundart?
Some of my music-compositions or sound-installtions base on recordings done with microphones like "Asten" or "fadi@vilnius.lt".
5* what microphones do you use?
AKG 414 Mk.II or Soundman OKM Mk.II
6* Why is your English bumpy?
I am from Austria, my mother-language is German. Sometimes my English is betetr sometimes worser, depends on the day :)
biggest bike-stand I've senn in my life - Amsterdam next Centraal Station
Amsterdam: 6th of September 2007 between 8:50 and 9:20
Walking from my Hotel near Vondelpark to Mediamatic near Centraal Station.
This is part one, recorded with a Soundman OKm Mk. II. You can hear me saying where I am. Why did I make this recording? Its easy: Amsterdam is different, less cars, many, many bicycles, in the center just little noise, except they do construction work.
Enjoy Amsterdam!
Amsterdam: 6th of September 2007 between 9:20 and 9:40
Walking from my Hotel near Vondelpark to Mediamatic near Centraal Station.
This is part two, recorded with a Soundman OKm Mk. II. You can hear me saying where I am. Why did I make this recording? Its easy: Amsterdam is diffrent, less cars, many, many bicycles, in the center just little noise, except they do construction work. You can hear it at the beginning of this walk in Part II.
Enjoy Amsterdam!
Construction work in Amsterdam
This recording was done on September 6th early in the morning around 9:15 when i walked from my hotel near Vondelpark to Mediamatic near Centraal Station in Amsterdam.
A hudge cran drilled metal plates into the ground to renew the wall of the Gracht.
Recorded with OKM Soundman Mk. II - at the beginning as quite as usual in amsterdam, the same at the end of the recording. Play it loud!
Sitting under the pillows of a building in classicist style (I don't know the name) in front of a "Mohnfeld" (poppy seed field) next to the Friderikanum in Kassel Gabriele (my wife) and I made a rest. Walking through the Documenta is exhausting :)
On the recording done below the pillows you can hear people passing by discussing the art presented on Documenta XII. On the edges of the park you hear cars and busses and then the 6 o'clock evening bells of three different churches. Two of them loud, one silent from far away.
Something on Documenta XII: few sound-installations, no field recordings but lots of text.
I did this recording on the 10th of August with the Soundman OKM II in front of the "Herkules" in Kassel, Germany. The "Herkules" was covered in plastic because of construction work, the wheater was bad, little water in the basins and the fountains switched off.
I had three soundsources: a worker who used a drill, a marginal waterfall and some people making noise.
I found a position where I could change the phase moving my head. So I played with the acoustic situation up on the platform on the feet of the "Herkules".
Pic. by Galbriele Kling-Dorninger
These days I am on the road for a video-documentation "in the fields / Feldaufnahmen" (worktitle) onroute 1 which leads me from Linz, Austria via Pilsen (Czech) to Crottendorf in Saxony, Germany to do an interview with Marcus Obst.
Marcus showed us one of his fav.locations in his neighborhood called Pumpkraftwerk Markersbach. There is one big basin up the mountain and one lake (which was a valley before) with a dam on the foot of the mountain.
During the night they pump up the water into the basin on top and in the morning the let it rush down to the turbins to prudce electricity.
So I did an interview with Marcus at this technical place within a beautiful nature ressort. At the end I walked up with my Soundman OKM from the lake to the pumphouse. 200 meters.
You get the waterflushing into the lake then the wires singing ..... grasshoppers ....
Enjoy the recording!
Next stop is/was Leipzig to do an interview with Patrick Franke at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig.
Dorninger aka BikeMike sailing on the NeusiedlerseeJuly 2007
On my 2007 holiday this July in Weiden am See on the Neusiedlersee in Austria I waked up early in the morning because of a strange sound in our hotel room.
I moved through the room and found some interesting noise in the bathroom. Our air condition did not run, but somewhere in a room up or next to ours an aircondition did his job.
I took my DAT and my soundman microphone to record this beautiful ambience which seams to modulate its pitch (maybe by the wind outside the room - the where great wind for sailing this day) and sometimes I here bells from the church which is not possible five in the morning.
"Delete" by Yukio Fujimoto Arsenale / Biennale in Venice, Italy 2007.
"Delete" is one of my favorite pieces at the Venice Biennale. Fujimotos's installation creates sound and deletes sound. I used one channel of my Soundman microphones to get very close to the ironbrush which creates an audiosignal while brushing/deleting soundinformations from a vinyl-record for example from The Beatles. The 2nd channel of the microphon records the ambience from the Arsenale.
Recorded with Soundman microphones at the 2007 Biennale in Venice by Wolfgang Dorninger.
I am living in Freistädterstrasse, Linz, Austria. A transit street from/to the Mühlviertel into Linz and back.The guys from the city council who do city-planings did not make it less worse within the last years. No, the made it worser. Next to the transit street the gave permission for hudge supermakets, junk-food-restaurants, .... Means heavy traffic, noise all day and bad air quality.
So soundproofing windows (-42db Actual) are the solution, but normally you open windows to get the lively athmosphere of nature and fresh air into the appartment, not us. We hide behind.
Get an idea how living is in front and behind a soundproofing windows at Freistädterstrasse in Linz, Austria.
sketch by Kushima
"FEEDBACK LOOP" by Stefan Kushima
under administration of Wolfgang Fadi Dorninger
Musicians: Ra]va[ge, Karin Steinbinder, Aka Tell, Mes
In the corridors (approx. 50m x 50m) of the Artuniversity in Linz/Austria, we installed 4 speakers (1 in each corner) as a loop.
Microphones was placed directly before the speakers, plucked in a small mixer with EQ, and directly into the next speaker in the corner on the opposite.
On each mixer stands one person witch plays with the volumes, EQ's, the distance from the microphone to the speaker and with the microphone itself. Every person heard mainly the work of the musician placed on the other speaker and the mix of all outputs. If one musician did a significant sound, or put the feedback into a other frequence it took a few seconds till the sound turned one round so that the person could hear it.
This short-circuit of the room enabled a very interesting interaction with a very simple equipment and a impressive, noisy output.
Recorded by Wolfgang Dorninger with a Soundman OKM walking twisted through the corridor to get the binaural effect (26.6.2007). The whole recording is about 23 minutes. This recording is the final 8 minutes. Enoy!
On 14th of October 2002 I did an audiotest in the closed coking plant Kokerei Zollverein in Essen, Germany.
Reason of the test: Finding out how this big building works ans interacts in terms of setting up on exhibition.
Technical setup: 8 microphones - AKG 414 Mk.II --> Yamaha 02R --> Tascam DA88
The space has 3 floors.
ground floor 2 mics, middle floor 4 mics, upper floor 2 mics.
On this recording you can listen microphon 8 - ground floor at the end of the space. You hear the same recording than on Mic. 4: Audiotest Kokerei Zollverein. I am moving down from the top of the choking plant to the ground floor.
On 14th of October 2002 I did an audiotest in the closed coking plant Kokerei Zollverein in Essen, Germany.
Reason of the test: Finding out how this big building works and interacts in terms of setting up on exhibition.
Technical setup: 8 microphones - AKG 414 Mk.II --> Yamaha 02R --> Tascam DA88
The space has 3 floors.
ground floor 2 mics, middle floor 4 mics, upper floor 2 mics.
On this recording you can listen microphon 4 - middle floor next to the mixing desk. At the beginnen I am crying down to Alex through an open slot. You hear the same recording than on Mic. 8: Audiotest Kokerei Zollverein. I am moving down from the top of the choking plant to the ground floor.
Last week BikeMike had visitors from all over the world!
Thanks to all of you. Feel free to link this site, spread it around to friends or subscribe at least the RSS. I promise you to keep this site ad-free.
Three projects keep me busy the next days, so you will get some new/old recordings in June.
Stay tuned!
Wolfgang aka BikeMike
Udine, Italy, Januray 1st 2007. For sure there was a "hot" and big party in Udine at New Years Eve and so the city was calm on New Years Day.
Rain, some noise out of bars (cleaning, not party) and only some people around (stiletto on stone) created a very nice ambience on this piazza in the historic part of Udine.
Recorded with a noname microphon, polar.
I love Grado at wintertime. On December 31st 2006 I recorded the churchbells of St. Eufemia with my Panasonic videocamera in a narrow street next to the Basilika St. Eufemia.
pic by OEGEG (http://www.oegeg.at/index.php/oegeg/fahrzeuge/schiffe/traisen)
The recording has two parts:
Part1 (until fade out) is the start of the diesel-engine & the recording was done inside the machine room.
Part2 is steady run, slow run and stop & the recording was done outside of the machine room.
Recorded with a Pearl CR-57 condenser microphon.
The recording was used for a theatre play "orfeus//donau//euridike" by Theatre Phönix in the harbour of Linz, Austria. Music: Wolfgang Dorninger, Director: Hubert Lepka, ....
You can see a big picture of the Traisen in action "Teilung am Fluss" Klangwolke Linz 2005 by Wolfgang Kirchner here.
The longest sound-file until now:7 minutes - a little symphony of technical achievments.
Winter hit cars hard in Austria . So we moved over to my neighboors car-wash plant to get the car ready for summer.
We had a full program car wash, had nothing to do except closing the windows and wait for the green light at the end of the tunnel. At the end I opened the right window. Job done.
Enjoy the soundfile!
Tech-spec: mic: Soundman, car: Fiat Punto, car-wash plant: Megawash
A Greyhound busride to Bisbee at the end of January 2001.
The recording is a mix of bad road, old bus and agressive driving style. Play it loud and animate the picture.
This recording was done with a DAT and a noname microphone to test the acoustic situation in a hudge industrial building in Essen, Germany.
20 - 30 years ago in this space - some floors high - coal was delivered into the Kokerei Zollverein (cocking plant).
What a beautiful reverb! I walked over 3 floors when I did this recording. The recorder was placed in the middle of the Kokerei.
Some month later I did an acoustic test with 8 microphones and a multitrack recorder. More soundfiles soon.
September 9t, my secound flight over the Nasca Lines in Nasca, Peru. A Cesna with 6 seats, one for the pilot and 5 for passengers.
You can hear the engine low, then speed up for take-off.
More info on my Nasca project here!
Recorded with a Sony 3-chip camera.
On this recording you can get a little bit the power of the Atlantic ocean.
Waves hit the coast and roll quite big round lav-rocks up and down. I could not stop listening.
On the markethall at Plaza del Adelantado in La Laguna, Tenerife you can find a shop selling birds of all kind. They also sell chicken, cocks and other animals like turtels. Except the turtels you can hear all other animals in a wild mixdown.
Push up the volume and rock the bird-house!!!!
A very nice recording done in the church Nuestra Señora de la Conceptión in La Laguna, Tenerife on 15.2.07.
Inside people pray, outside man cut a palm, another man cuts the gras infront of the church.
When the door opens the noise from daily work floods into the church.
Summer 2006: Riding my race bike through Urfahr, Austria. In my ears soundman microphones.
At the beginning you can hear the tram starting from the stop, then a train came. You can hear the wind hitting the microphones.
At the end I stopped at Lentia 2000 and chained my "Casati" bike.
The information on the ID3 tag is wrong. At this day I took the Casati.
Recorded the sound of the propeller inside an HB-AFB ATR-42 of Air Alpes on the way from Linz, Austria to Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Recorded with my Panasonic videocamera.
On December 24th 2000 I did this nice recording with my Panasonic videocamera at Fort Lowell Park in Tucson, Arizona.
They wanted some food ... at the end you can hear me saying .."you are so beautiful"...
My videocamera NV-25 is still working and doing a good job with a nice built in microphon.
I did this is a recording in Vilnius, Lithuania on February 20th 2000 in Russian Orthodox Church of St. Nikolas.
It was the first time in my life that I was in a Russian Orthodox Church and I was surprised about the warm and subtle athmosphere and the beautiful singing.
Recording: Noname mic. You can hear me opening the door and moving into the church.
I did field-recordings in Vilnius for an exhibition called "Dialog 2: Articulation" at the O.K. Center for Contemporary Art in Linz, Upper Austria. Had a nice place to stay at the CAC, Vilnius. See the picture.
More info here. Feel free to buy a CD or cataloge plus CD by DORNINGER "fadi@vilnius" here.
My Odeo Channel (odeo/51fd4e3436ccdb6f)
