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Yokomono-Pro is a car horn concert performed by vehicles moving through a city. Each city and each type of vehicle has its own tone and each combination results in a different concert. The project was developed and written as a commission by the International Sonic Residency 2008 for The KHOJ Artists’ Association in New Delhi and was presented one year later at the India Art Summit. In New Delhi we focused on the traffic and the amazing amount of noise it produces. One of the most prominent noisemakers is the three-wheel taxi, which uses its horn very frequently in situations where we would use our indicators, headlights or mirrors. Taxis are the most recognisable means of transport here, playing a dominant role in the city’s soundscape. We arranged for the collaboration of thirty so-called ‘tuck tuck’ taxis and operated their horns via remote by means of transmitters. By playing this ‘taxi horn choir’ in combination with spatial manoeuvres an urban sound choreography was created. Yokomono-pro has also been performed at the Transmediale in Berlin and at TodaysArt in The Hague.

More info at
timelab.org/residency/en/geert-jan-hobijn

Staalplaat soundsystem presented the installation/concert ‘Musica povera al dente’ or fluxYOU at the Intermediales Symposion Kiel
For the set up we had 19 hand driven turntables, made from siple neadle, paper horn andfound opbjects like a salad-dryer or yogurt box. Weput contact mic’s on the paper horns and used our ownthe white and transparent model loop-records. For the composition we tailored the frame work of Cartridge Music by John Cage and it was played with a set of 9 volunteers and members of the public.

Play soundfile
fluxYOU Kiel ROUGH Raw Stereo

Listen to a sound recording of our installation:

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LOLA landscape architects and Staalplaat Soundsystem present a new installation. A matrix of 64 trees. Controllable mechanical vibrators are mounted on each individual tree and controlled via DMX. The sound of the individual trees can vary from a barely audible noise to a heavy “Green noise” thereby enabling different patterns to be played. A special composition for 64 trees will be written titled “Shiver Me Timbers”. After the composition is played, the visitors will then be able to play their different patterns via their mobile phone, directly then they influence the behavior of nature.

For the Urban Explorers Festival 16-17-18 June.

staalplaat soundsystem is releasing a series of artist vinyl release used in our own yokomono sound installations.
This new record is a second attempt to create random vinyl .
Our first attempt was the release of Yokomono 03 where we hoped to cut two tracks, one spiraling from outside in and the others from inside out. So that the needle would move in different directions. This attempt failed (for reasons that we will not go in to at this moment).
This new record has three parallel soundtracks where the cutting needle was lifted twice with short intervals, in order to make the needle used during “wiedergabe” to jump tracks randomly. To play this record you must not see your turntable as a reproduction machine that reproduces
the music on the record. You can not put it on and sit down to listen.
See the record and turntable much more as a music instrument that with each turntable model and with each setting if your machine you will create a different sound and mix of this record. As with any instrument you have to learn how to play your turntable and find
what setting you like best. Of vital influence are the skate settings en the wait on the tone arm, these and others you must very to experience the options of the record. For Yokomono 03.5 we cut on each side of the record 3 tracks of 7-5 min each.
side A
- pure brown noise
- Untuned7min by Cynthia Zaven
- Lostbariken by Merzbow

side B
- pure white noise
- Mika Vainio -Telakka
- Gramm by Jaap Blonk

Press review:
This whole Yokomono thing dealt with vinyl, vinyl killers and such like. To which end Staalplaat goes as far as to pressing records for these installations and invite composers to deliver sound material. I am not sure how this will end up in the installation pieces, but if its still the same thing as with the vinyl killers, then this ’3.5′ is worthy one. To explain what it is, I have to copy the original text by Staalplaat: “Our first attempt was the release of Yokomono 03 where we hoped to cut two tracks, one spiraling from outside in and the others from inside out. So that the needle would move in different directions. This attempt failed (for reasons that we will not go in to at this moment). This new record has three parallel soundtracks where the cutting needle was lifted twice with short intervals, in order to make the needle used during “wiedergabe” to jump tracks randomly.
To play this record you must not see your turntable as a reproduction machine that reproduces the music on the record. You can not put it on and sit down to listen. See the record and turntable much more as a music instrument that with each turntable model and with each setting if your machine you will create a different sound and mix of this record. As with any instrument you have to learn how to play your turntable and find what setting you like best. Of vital influence are the skate settings en the wait [sic] on the tone arm, these and others you must very to experience the options of the record.” There is a brown noise (inserts quote again: “In science, Brownian noise, also known as Brown noise or red noise, is the kind of signal noise produced by Brownian motion, hence its alternative name of random walk noise. The term “Brown noise” comes not from the color, but after Robert Brown, the discoverer of Brownian motion.” with sound pieces by Cynthia Zaven and Merzbow, and a white noise
side with Mika Vainio and Jaap Blonk. Now this is certainly a most strange record. I stood by my turntable, changing the weight of the tone arm hearing say Blonk, but then moving into Vainio and back, or the piano tones which I assume are Zaven’s going into Merzbowian noise, sometimes with white/brown noise blocks coming in, quickly and disappearing equally fast. Stuff you can do on vinyl only and which have a highly added value to what you get. Hardly plain music, but also not just a DJ tool. Very nice, even without the art installation itself. (FdW) (VITAL)

sound sample FluxYOU or Musica Povera al dente at Auditorium Rome 2010

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“Fluxus Biennial 2010-2011″
Staalplaat soundsystem presented a new installation/concert  ‘Musica povera al dente’ or fluxYOU commissioned by Fondazione Musica per Roma, Rome Auditorium”
For the set up we build 20 hand driven turntables, made from siple neadle, paper horn and  found opbjects like a salad-dryer or yogurt box. We  put contact mic’s on the paper horns and used our ownthe white and transparent model loop-records. For the composition we tailored the frame work of Cartridge Music by John Cage and it was played with a set of 6 volunteers and members of the public.

kids workshop at  ReMida in Norway
part of Meta.morf biennial for art and technology  organized by V2 and Teks

In their workshop the Staalplaat Soundsystem will show participating kids that fancy Japanese devices or expensive instruments are not at all needed to make great music – instead they will demonstrate that all you really need can easily be found in everyone’s own kitchen or cellar, if combined with a little bit of research and some playful modification.

During their performances and installations, usually featuring odd machine orchestras constructed from a plethora of found objects, Staalplaat Soundsystem noticed early on that children were fascinated by their way of playfully misusing everyday household utilities. On the invitation of Avanto Festival in Helsinki, they consequently developed their first instrument building workshop for children in the year 2005, and have been refining their concept and approach ever since. At the core of the workshop is the idea of avoiding the ‘copy’ or ‘rebuild’ of what already exists, and instead embarking with the children on a ‘research quest’ for new sound sources and noise-making devices – quite similar to the Soundsystem’s regular working methods: play, experiment, test, trial and error.

Guided by the members of the Staalplaat Soundsystem, the kids will work together in small groups and help each other with their ideas. The end of the workshop will see a joint performance of the young participants together with the Staalplaat Soundsystem in the form of a variation of John Zorn’s ‘Cobra’ concept.

Staalplaat Soundsystem : Architone-YokomonoPro-DenHaag, TA2010

Yokomono-Pro’ is an outdoor sound-performance-intervention using cars and traffic by Geert-Jan Hobijn / Staalplaat Soundsystem and sound artists Ilpo Väisänen and Mika Vainio (Pan Sonic) that engages with the connections between sound, transportation and the urban environment.
A choreographed sound performance with 24 Nissan Cube’s vehicles have their car horns remotely trigger as they drive along a programmed route.
Using the horns as a choir, we will have a combination of voice patterns and dynamic spatial movements creating sound choreography as if for a car ballet.
Staalplaat Soundsystem featuring compositions from Mika Vainio & Ilpo Väisänen (Pan Sonic). ‘ The Staalplaat Sound System is a sound art, installation and performance group; sound activists with a Dadaist motor who create installations from everyday electronic objects: from vacuum cleaners and washing machines to a fleet of trains.

Presented in Den Haag @ Today’s Art festival
Friday 24 and Saturday 25 september at the Spuiplein

one firts edit to listen

01. Track Yokomono-pro Den Haag

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Fri 27 August 2010 13:00–14:30h
Volkshochschule Dortmund, L 110 Moedrated by Verena Kuni (de)

13:00h | Thomas Munz (de): The Laboratory Garden
13:20h | Peter Veenstra, Geert-Jan Hobijn (nl): Trains, Cars and Trees
13:40h | Sofian Audry (ca): Absences. Public Art Interventions in Natural Spaces Using Autonomous Electronic Devices
14:00h | Shannon McMullen (us): Machines as Gardens. Visual Culture and Post-Steel Sensibilities in the Ruhr District

01. Track for Palais de Tokyo answering machine 10

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They say”
A l’instar de Christian Marclay, qui dans sa vidéo Telephones (1995) a rassemblé des extraits de films hollywoodiens montrant des acteurs répondant au téléphone, Staalplaat réalise un montage de sonneries de téléphone et de conversations téléphoniques provenant de bandes son de films. Ce montage donne lieu à des dialogues absurdes, incomplets et parfois contradictoires et transmet aussi de nombreuses émotions.
Enoncés en allemand, ces dialogues sont toutefois comprehensibles par tous, témoignant de l’universalité du language téléphonique contemporain. “
But I don’t speak French