Takuro Mizuta Lippit a.k.a. DJ Sniff :: November 23, 2009; 11:00 p.m. :: UdK Medienhaus, Grunewaldstrasse 2-5, Schoeneberg, 10823 Berlin (U7, station Kleistpark), Room 111 (class de Campo).

STEIM - 40 years in live electronic arts by Takuro Mizuta Lippit / Artistic Director.

For the last forty years STEIM, Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, Amsterdam has been the leading institution in research, development and facilitating live electronic music and arts. Many unique instruments and tools have been created over the years; Blackbox Modular Synth System, Crackle Box, SensorLab, The Hands, LiSa and JunXion are just to name a few.

STEIM has also functioned as an active hub of ideas and people, becoming a safe house where artists from around the world can experiment freely. Today, STEIM continues to support artists through it’s artist in residency program, educational program and concert series.

dj sniff (Takuro Mizuta Lippit) believes in the instrumental autonomy of the turntable and the musicianship of the DJ. He is a turntable musician working in the field of improvised and experimental music. His music focuses on the live reconstruction and narratization of the phonographically amplified - the music, the sound, the technology and the past. To achieve this, he uses a unique setup consisting of hand-made hardware interfaces and a custom Max/MSP software along with one turntable and DJ mixer. He is also a concert/event curator for electronic music and a researcher of music technology.

While studying Art History and Philosophy in Tokyo, Lippit was active as a DJ in the underground electronic music scene and formed a collective called smashTV productions which organized genre-mixing events such as anti-Gravity and bistro-Smash!. In 2002, he moved to New York to pursue graduate studies in computer music and physical computing at NYU’s ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program). Since 2005 he has been involved with STEIM’s (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, Amsterdam) R&D lab. From 2007 on, he is STEIM’s Artistic Director, curating public events and representing the institution through performances and lectures.

dj sniff regularly performs with computer musician Yutaka Makino as Audile and with saxophonist Keir Neuringer and Bassist Raed Yassin.

This presentation will introduce the general history and recent activities of STEIM through various examples of artists and projects.