Colossus at 75: D-Day Commemorations

Colossus at 75 – Colossus at D-Day 1944 (The National Museum of Computing)
Colossus at 75 – The Event: Wrens remember Colossus in the run-up to D-Day 1944 (The National Museum of Computing)

On 29 May 2019, to celebrate the arrival of Colossus Mk II at Bletchley Park in 1944, Colossus Wrens and relatives of Colossus veterans gathered at The National Museum of Computing. A new display in the Colossus Gallery at TNMOC reveals some of the intelligence that Colossus helped decrypt from Lorenz messages between Hitler’s High Command.

We provided audio to this project, using the original sound recordings taken as part of The Imitation Archive of Colossus and other related materials from the decryption technologies used in World War II in the vital operation that led to D-Day on June 6th 1944.

This video series commemorates the breaking of Lorentz, the cypher technology used by the German High Command in the Second World War. The videos are part of the D-Day Memorial commemoration.

The Imitation Archive

Client: The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park and The British Library

Sound Recordist and Composer: AudioGAMMA (Matt Parker)

A Sonic Archive of Computing Technology

Following a period of two months at The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, AudioGAMMA sound artist Matt Parker recorded and archived over 100 sounds from the historic collection of computers within the museum. The Imitation Archive, was submitted to The British Library Sound and Vision Archive to act as a permanent repository of the sounds of 70 years of computing history, starting as far back as the first ever programmable digital computer, Colossus.

Composing the Archive

Using the archived materials, Matt composed ten unique pieces of musical composition that reflect his experiences of late nights and long days enveloped in the sounds of computer history as well as the stories behind the objects.

Find out more at www.earthkeptwarm.com/the-imitation-archive/.

Waterline: An Ode to Decay

Client: Athens and Epidaurus Festival

Production: Dεcadēre Theatre

Music and Sound Design: AudioGAMMA (Gary Salomon)

Video Director: Constantin Pilavios

DoP: Petros Nikolintai

Credits: Capture / Décadēre

Performance Direction by: Artemis Grympla, Alkistis Polychroni

Motion Editors: Alkistis Polychroni

Assistant Director: Eva Diamanti, Agapi Hliadou

Costumes: Vasiliki Syrma

Stage design: Alexandros Lagopoulos

Lighting: Alexandros Alex Alexandrou

Hamlet & Οφηλία

A movement duo project devised through exploring the fragile relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia in Shakespeare’s great tragedy.

Devised and performed by Alkistis Polychroni and Toni Mas Parés.

Technical Specs
Running Time: 59 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Original Format: HD video
Audio: 5.1
Screening Format: DCP
Language/Subtitles: English

Credits
Choreography: Alkistis Polychroni
Dancers: Alkistis Polychroni and Toni Mas Parés
Sound: AudioGAMMA (Gary Salomon and Matt Parker)
Video: Bella Riza

The People’s Cloud

An AudioGAMMA production

Year: 2016

THE PEOPLE’S CLOUD is a documentary film that gets to the bottom of the internet; investigating the ecology and impact of cloud computing on the lives of those who use it, the places it is physically located in and the people who work to maintain it.

Traveling across Europe the film searches for the sites and sounds that make up infrastructure of the internet. From secretive data centre factories and network exchange hubs to submarine cables and fibre optic landing sites, THE PEOPLE’S CLOUD investigates the environmental and geopolitical impact of mobile data storage, asking engineers, technicians, manufacturers, marketing experts, salespeople, economists, husbands, wives, family members and artists what ‘the cloud’ means to them and what this data boom has meant to their lives.

Visit www.thepeoplescloud.org for further information.

Awards
Nominated for the Prix Field Recording. Phonurgia Nova Awards, France (2018)

Directed by Matt Parker

Technical Specs
Running Time: 59 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Original Format: HD video
Audio: 5.1
Screening Format: DCP
Language/Subtitles: English

Credits
Cinematography: Sebastien Dehesdin
Additional cinematography: Michael James Lewis
Sound Recording: Matt Parker
Composition: Matt Parker
Additional Composition: Gary Salomon
Video Edit: Matt Parker
Sound Post Production: Matt Parker
Colourist: Sebastien Dehesdin

The Cloud is More Than Air and Water

Client: The People’s Cloud

Year: 2014

Director: Matt Parker

Brief: Film Production, Sound Design and Composition

What is ‘The Cloud’ and how is it affecting our lives? The Cloud is more than Air and Water is a project investigating the acoustic ecology and impact of cloud computing on the lives of those who use it, the places it is physically located in and the people who work to maintain it.

Internet enabled computers and mobile devices are ubiquitous within the western world but not too long ago computers were humongous machines, occupying vast spaces and generating a great deal of noise; the noise of spinning fans and disks. As technology has evolved, ‘cloud computing’ has become prevalent and today’s smartphones sit silently in our pockets, no longer making the noise of computers of old. Or are they?

As we transfer our data across the internet, where is it going? Most people have no idea where their ‘online’ data is once it’s uploaded onto ‘the cloud’, but it is definitely not in the sky. The Data Centre, an often huge building filled with computers, heat, spinning fans and disks has enabled us to transfer the noises of computing and locate them somewhere else, somewhere unknown, and somewhere on a mass scale.