Our Handmade Music series continues this month on Thursday evening, 3/19, 7:30p at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. Projects are open as always. Bring hardware. Bring circuit-bent stuff. Bring code and patches. Bring works you want to perform. Bring works that don’t work yet. Just, if you can, give us a shout to know what to expect. We have a PA, a mixer, a projector, and some space. It’s a party / science fair-style atmosphere, a chance to have a few beers and celebrate sound and noise with fellow geeks and the musicurious.

I’m particularly interested this month to see if anyone has Java or Processing-based works you want to share, as Sun’s CommunityOne East is in town, meaning lots o’ Java programmers. (Generally, they’re doing serious, work stuff like … um … servers and things. But that doesn’t mean you can’t show off your own, more unusual creations.)

More details of the lineup soon.

Call for Works, Direct Link [Google Docs]
Embedded form below:

The Cybersonica 06 Music, Sound, Art, and Tech Fest in London is shaping up to be a fantastic event. Running in May and coinciding with some other major festivals in London around the same time, the festival goes beyond electronic music to explore fusions with sonic art and visuals. (More about the festival)

And you can be a part of it all: Cybersonica has an open call for existing works. It’s wide open, really, covering areas like “interactive installations, new electronic musical devices, physical audiovisualisers, tangible interfaces, modified game engines.” Just one requirement: you have to interract with something other than a mouse our keyboard. Now you’re talking.

Deadline: March 31.

Cybersonica Call for Works

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: “It should be noted that it is very unlikely that an artist would have the opportunity themselves to go to the International Space Station, certainly in the foreseeable future.”

Damn. Okay, that said, though, Arts Electric reports the European Space Agency is looking at ways of using the ISS for artistic purposes, contracting an arts consortium that includes the very cool science-and-arts group Arts Catalyst and Leonardo (the MIT journal, not di Caprio.)

So, if you can’t go perform on ISS, what can you do? First, you need to be in Europe. (Damn again.) Second, you can use the “features” of ISS and ground facilities: “Artists and cultural practitioners across Europe are being consulted on the features of the International Space Station and its ground-based support facilities – including launch sites, astronaut training facilities and national user support centres – that would be of interest to them.”

Excellent. I’m seeing new interactive digital opera at the astronaut training facility, which has a giant water tank for simulating zero-G activities. Any takers?

For more on digital music and sound in space: see our space sound roundup, including info on Voyager 1 sound sampling.