The Last Rains, by PerMagnus Lindborg (2014), is a sonification of data expressing the predicted weather in South-East Asia between January 2095 and December 2099, provided by the Tropical Marine Science Institute at the National University of Singapore. A day of rain causes a single pluck on a physical model of a string. Heat makes it ring longer, and atmospheric pressure, humidity, and wind speed are mapped to detuning, vibrato, and plectrum force, respectively. The data are played by a set of ‘virtual harps’, with a timbre reminiscent of biwa, guzheng, or pipa. 352 strings surround the listener, with the lowest near the centre (corresponding to Singapore) and higher ones further out. Sonification compresses time. Sixty months of data pass by in sixty seconds – the last rains of the century.

PerMagnus Lindborg studied composition and music computing in Oslo (Music Academy) and Paris (Ircam, Paris-4), and is currently assistant professor at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. More info at www.permagnus.org.

TheLastRains.ST

---Edwin.whole

---Mimi.whole

---Tomomi.whole

Graviton Dance - Semantic
Lindborg PM (2012-13). Interactive 3D sound installation.
 State Theatre, Perth, Australia, 11-17 August 2013. Exhibited as part of the sound installation program of the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC). http://icmc2013.com.au/program/installations-2/. More info at http://permagnus.org

GravitonDance ArbitraryTimeSlice Binaural Norm - 3dB

Man bör kalla saker vid deras rätta namn

Lindborg PM (2007-8). Score composition for chamber ensemble and soundfiles (10 min.). Commissioned by Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival and Transposition Norway-Vietnam Cultural Exchange.
-Temppeliaukio [Rock] Church, Nordic Music Days, Helsinki, Finland, 17 October 2013. Chamber Orchestra of Lapland conducted by John Storgårds. http://nordicmusicdays.org/2013/en/saveltajat/lindborg-permagnus-no/. Official jury selection.
-Esplanade Theatre, Singapore, April 6 2008. YST Conservatory Contemporary Ensemble conducted by Chan Tze Law.
-Hochiminh City Conservatory, Vietnam, 4 December 2007. Ensemble Bit20 conducted by Jonathan Stockhammer. First performance.

“Man bör kalla saker vid deras rätta namn” for 12 musicians and soundfiles is a fruit of my ongoing research in voice analysis and rhetoric as a metaphor for composition. The musical material is entirely extracted from a famous 2-minute speech by Swedish Primer Minister Olof Palme given in December 1972. In it, Palme heavily criticises the US bombings of Hanoi currently taking place. As well as explicitly featuring Palme’s voice, all instrumental writing is derived from it. The compositional techniques employed software tools developed for the purpose by myself and are described in a chapter in “OM Composer Book 2” (Ircam 2008). Importantly, more than the political aspects of the speech, I have been fascinated by Palme’s vocal rhythm and prosody, fully expressing a righteous and subdued anger, perceptible ‘under the surface’ of his voice.

”Man bör kalla saker och ting vid deras rätta namn: det som pågår idag, i Vietnam, det är en form av tortyr. Det kan inte finnas militära motiv för bombningar i denna skala. Militära talesmän i Saigon har sagt att det inte förekommer någon uppladdning ifrån Nordvietnamesernas sida. Det kan inte heller rimligen bero på någon halsstarrighet från Vietnamesernas sida vid förhandlingsbordet. Alla kommentatorer är överens om att det främsta motståndet mot Oktoberöverenskommelsen i Paris har givits utav presidenten Thieu. Det man nu gör, det är att plåga människor – plåga en nation, för att förödmjuka den; tvinga den till underkastelse, under maktspråk. Och därför är bombningarna ett illdåd, och av det har vi många i den moderna historien, och de är i allmänhet förbundna med ett namn: Guernica; Oradour; Babin Jar; Katyn; Lidice; Sharpeville; Treblinka. Där har våldet triumferat. Men eftervärldens dom har fallit hård over dem som burit ansvaret. Nu fogas ett nytt namn till raden: Hanoi, julen 1972.” (Olof Palme)

One should call things by their rightful names: what currently goes on in Vietnam is a form of torture. There cannot be military reasons for bombings of such scale. Military spokesmen in Saigon have said that there is no gathering of forces by the North Vietnamese side. Neither can there reasonably be a case of stiff-headedness by the Vietnamese at the negociation table. All commentators agree that the greatest obstacles, at the October Conference in Paris, have been created by Thieu, the president. What they are now doing, is torturing people – torturing a nation, to humiliate it; force it to kneel, by gun talk. And therefore the bombings are despicable, and of such we have plenty in modern history; and they are normally connected with a name: Guernica; Oradour; Babin Jar; Katyn; Lidice; Sharpeville; Treblinka. Here, violence triumfed. But the ones who live on carry a hard judgement over those responsable. Now a new name joins the list: Hanoi, Christmas 1972. (translation by PerMagnus Lindborg)


2013.Lindborg.Man_Bor_Kalla-LaplandChOrch.Storgards.YLE

[more information at http://permagnus.org/pm/artwork/installations/WWC/index.html ]

The idea for When We Collide sprang from Douglas Hofstader’s metaphor of creativity as the meeting between records and record players, appearing in his 1979 book "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid". In our case, the records are soundfiles, whilst the record player is a generative system. The player analyses, selects, mixes, transforms, and spatialises the material created by the composers (monophonic and quadraphonic soundfiles). The system negotiates between algorithms that tend towards monotony (in terms of loudness, spatialisation, and frequency spectrum) and algorithms that tend towards variability (in terms of soundfiles, transformations, and scenes). In a nutshell, the installation is a space where sonic ideas collide and co-exist.

Commissioned for Si15 Soundislands Festival, 18-23 August 2015, Singapore, with support from the National Arts Council of Singapore.
First exhibited at The Arts House (19 August) and ArtScience Museum (23 August)

    Concept and Creative Director: Joyce Beetuan Koh
    Concept and Interactive Sound Designer: PerMagnus Lindborg
    Commissioned audiofile contributors: Andrián Pertout, Seongah Shin, Stefano Fasciani, and Dirk Stromberg.
    Further audiofile contributors: Joyce Beetuan Koh and PerMagnus Lindborg
    Sound Engineer: Yong Rong Zhao

When We Collide was commissioned by Joyce Beetuan Koh with support from National Art Council for the Si15 Soundislands Festival, 18-23 August 2015, in Singapore. It was exhibited at The Arts House (19 August) and at the ArtScience Museum (23 August).

Lindborg.WWC - Excerpt

PerMagnus Lindborg is a composer, sound artist and researcher. He is a member of the Norwegian Society of Composers, a board member of International Computer Music Association, and an assistant professor at the School of Art, Design, and Media, at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. After piano studies (Ingesund, Sweden), he drifted via composition (Music Academy, Oslo) and music computing (IRCAM and Paris-4) towards research in perception (KTH, Stockholm) and interactive installation design. He has presented live works in 23 countries and recordings on ECM Records, Daphne Records, and Ash International. Highlights include the Audience Prize at Forum-Montreal 1996 and the First Prize at Stavanger Orchestra Competition 2002; commissions from Centre Pompidou 2002, Ultima Festival 2006, and Singapore Arts Festival 2010; and selections for ICMC 2011 Huddersfield, 2013 Perth, and ICMC-SMC 2014 Athens. When not doing music, PerMagnus likes to dive the coral reefs of South-East Asia.

PerMagnus Lindborg

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