Surroundscapes

Bob Boster runs a large manufacturer of live and broadcast communications and combines this with a side passion and profession as a sound artist. We discuss how this came about and how he manages to juggle these two threads of his life. We dive into sound art, how a niche artist from USA can economically plan a 20-30 date European tour and much more.

Never Not Nothing have been described as anarchic electro psych punk noise, and Paul Frazer, one half of the band describes how it came into being with a unique launch event for industry insiders. We move on to talk about how the band progressed and then dealt with the pandemic lockdown by creating an immersive sound and sight stage in order to make compelling videos. We finish by talking about the use of haptic suits, in-ear monitors and VR glasses to create the live events of the future. Along the way we learn how the band changed its original name from Black Futures in order to allow that phrase to be used by the Black Lives Matter movement without confusion.

Glen Rowe has had a long and very varied career in music from drumming in bands, to working for an instrument manufacturer, touring managing Muse and coming off the road in order to create projects of lasting value. He tells us about the many and varied activities of his company Kyoto – from a recording studio featuring a ‘Drumbrella', to rehearsal spaces, creative communities and artist management done in a new and humane way. We also talk about the charity that Glen founded – the Neko Trust – and the amazing work that it does to support and educate young creatives. We wonder just how many hours he has in his days!

Ben Richter has created a career with a number of different elements. He is a teacher, a performer, the director of an ensemble and a recording artist. One of the things that we discuss is active listening and how music can be used to help to alter people's time horizons and better understand slow-moving but profound phenomena such as climate change. We also talk about different ways that musicians and other artists can add value to their content in order to reward true fans and find new income streams.

Jon Cotton is a producer of both artists and content and this episode really focuses on what this means. Jon talks about the role of a producer in finding ways to connect an artist to their audience and how this has changed in the digital age. He discusses the role of marketing on digital platforms in order to build global awareness and we touch on next ways to present music in a live context.

This episode covers Theon Cross's musical beginnings, the Tomorrows Warriors project and how this changed his musical style and aspirations leading to Guildhall School of Music and Drama and then Sons of Kemet. We finish by talking about living in lockdown, discovering looping and other electronic technology and making an album using just the Tuba and finally coming back to performing with an avatar-based event at SXSW.

Imogen Heap is uniquely positioned to talk about new ways of composing and presenting music with her work on the MiMu gloves and the Listening Chair as well as different ways of making albums whilst staying sane and balanced. As well as this we discuss the business aspects of music and the Creative Passport and Life of a Song projects. Life of a Song: https://loas.creativepassport.net/ Creative Passport: https://www.creativepassport.net/ Imogen Heap app: https://imogenheap.app/

In this episode, Zoë talks about the San Fransisco arts warehouse scene, hosting unique performance events, being discovered by NPR at an event reproducing the experience of a nuclear explosion and developing a multi-stranded career as a performer, technologist, composer and film scorer.

We talk about the feeling of hearing your song being played in a public space, realizing that you are not making any money out of that and founding a company to do something about that. Audoo are trying to improve the process of song rights payments by producing a hardware device to capture and aggregate information on what songs are being played in public spaces and feeding this information back to performing rights organizations.

In the first episode of series 4 we cover the feminist history of computing, albums as research projects, using Google Magenta AI as a compositional tool on YACHT’s album ‘Chain Tripping’, the changes in the platform economy as seen by musicians, making a living as a musician in pandemic times and more. This talk is one of the most far-reaching and resonant that we have had and makes a great start to this series.

Music and video festivals – in-person to streaming, and the future. Claudia and her husband Stefan founded the Digitalanalog experimental music and video festival in Germany 20 years ago. Over time, this has grown and evolved. However, in 2020 because of COVID, they held the festival as a virtual event. Claudia discusses the good and the bad points of doing this and how this will change the festival moving forward.

The future of corporate events, conferences and trade shows. Dena runs operation for a very large global events company who do some of the most high-profile corporate conferences, product launches and trade-show booths. She discusses how the pandemic has affected her industry, how they are adapting and what long-term changes this will bring.

The use of technology to rekindle events. James has supplied cutting-edge technology solutions for events such as the Super Bowl, CES exhibition booths, fashion shows, product launches and more. He discusses various ways that this technology can be used to create more memorable virtual experiences and how these will influence events after the pandemic.

The use of video holograms for next-generation events. Liz has had an incredibly successful and varied career as a moving-light technician, lighting designer and creative director, and more recently video holography expert and manufacturer of Holonet. She discusses how video holography is transforming both events and corporate videoconferencing.

Pivoting your business during COVID and new forms of livestreaming. Julien and Kevin have a very successful film production company but pivoted due to the pandemic as film sets were shut down to form a now highly successful company providing COVID monitoring and testing and PPE for film sets. Having been involved in some of the most innovative livestreamed concerts, they discuss how this will influence live concerts once these are possible again in-person.

The future of festivals and live concerts. Simon has been a live sound engineer for over 40 years covering events from 100-stage festivals and some of the largest classical events, to the closing ceremony of the London Paralympics and much more. He talks about how things are likely to change as live events finally are able to be staged again.

The future of trade shows and the state of the AV industry. Avixa is the AV industry trade organization as well as the organizer of the largest trade shows worldwide for our industry.

Representing the view of the architect in the design of the workspace. Architects have been thought to be the enemy of the AV industry, prioritizing aesthetics over acoustics and seeing building technology as a necessary evil. This is far from the truth and Michael argues for a closer integration of our disciplines as we look to what the workplace will look like and more importantly how it will facilitate wok in the information age and beyond.

Bernd runs a small but immensely innovative AV company in Germany, working for many large corporations. He talks about how his work has evolved from single-room AV design, through large integrated facilities to the current projects that he is involved in which feature rapid deployment of many sites with central monitoring and control.

Salomé is a true polymath and has had a wide-ranging career as a designer for Arup, working on architectural lighting, 3D printed structural building elements and the way people interact within companies. She is now Deputy Program Director for the Circular Economy in the city of Amsterdam. She talks to us about how we can come back from this pandemic stronger – in the workplace, at home and in the built environment in general. https://www.amsterdam.nl/en/policy/sustainability/circular-economy/ https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/ https://doughnuteconomics.org/

Evan headed the Habitat team at Plantronics before founding Moodsonic with Julian Treasure. He talks about the effect of adding soundscapes composed of natural sounds into the workspace in order to increase productivity, enhance privacy and provide wellbeing.

Craig is the founder of the large, innovative AV consultancy Idibri. He talks to us about changes in the way people present information and work, as well as commonalities between different market sectors.

Christine Congdon (Editor 360 Magazine & Director, Global Research Communications, Steelcase) and Rebecca Charbauski (Brand Communications Project Leader, Steelcase) Steelcase are arguably the world’s leading supplier of office environments and have long been respected for their innovation in helping define the future of the spaces that we work in. We talk about this work in the past, the effect of the current pandemic and how the workspace will look, sound and feel once we move back into it.

Arup Foresight department researches global trends affecting all aspects of life. Josef talks to us about how these megatrends are affecting how people are working and where this work is getting done. foresight.arup.com inspire.arup.com

Dave Rahn founded Custom Channels, one of the earliest streaming business music services in the world. Rahn talks about his personal history in radio and music programming, and his path as music distribution evolved in the age of the internet. Rahn also discusses the role of human curation in creating the right music experience for both employees and customers in a commercial environment.

Patten Studio is a leader in creating remarkable experiences fusing technology and art to create installations such as a 100-foot interactive video wall for Intel’s CES booth, kinetic instruments for Björk, a SuperBowl halftime show and much more. Dr James Patten talks about his time at MIT Media Lab and how it led to the creation of a company delivering experiences melding sound, light and movement with technology throughout the world.

Matteo Luppi, the founder and CEO of the business music service SoundMachine talks about music licensing in commercial environments and creating branded experiences in thoughtful ways. An important part of the discussion will cover the role of SoundMachine in helping businesses to rebuild after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rob Anders is the founder and CEO of Niio, the leader in the curation and deployment of video art, from digital photography through to augmented and virtual reality experiences. Niio hosts the world’s largest collection of video art and Rob talks about the importance of adapting to ever-changing consumer standards and his vision to eliminate black screens in public spaces and replace them with inspiring content.

Qsic is a highly innovative business music service from Australia and Nick Larkins, its Co-founder talks about how it came to be and especially how it is different from other business music services. Larkins discusses the ability of cloud processing technologies and data analytics to serve unique customer experiences to each store within a chain, while keeping within brand guidelines.

The first episode of the mini-series features five-time TED Talk speaker, Julian Treasure, who explores the use of sound in business. The conversation moves through a number of topics covering everything from audio branding, the practicalities of voice control in commercial environments, and the psychological impacts of certain frequencies and tempos of music on consumer behavior.