iMAL, Center for Digital Cultures and Technologies is proud to announce Playlist. Playing Games, Music, Art, an exhibition focused on the artistic reinvention of obsolete digital media. Produced and hosted by LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (Gijón, Asturias) in the frame of the Mediateca Expandida, Playlist now moves to Brussels enriched with twelve new participants and a broader range of artworks.

Playing Games, Music, Art: What happens when the emotional investment you made in your old computers brings you back to the garret where you sent them years ago? When you can’t any longer suffer to work with sophisticated machines that, while promising you more freedom, actually force you to wear the straitjacket kindly designed for you by some corporate guy? When you decide that it’s time to put your hands on the machine?

Reinventing the medium: from music to visual arts : What happens is an act of reinventing the medium. Along the Nineties, many artists started working on the reinvention of obsolete, digital as well as analogue, technologies such as vinyls, vintage computers, game platforms and alike. Hacking software, circuit-bending hardware, they turned “dead media” into powerful tools of artistic creation.

Playlist is an exhibition that explores this kind of research, focusing on the relationship between musical research and visual
research, in the belief that the first, rather than the latter, has often been the driving force in this process.

Chiptune, 8-bit punk and media arts:

The core of Playlist is the exploration of the “chiptune scene”, spread out from the manipulation of obsolete game technologies in order to create new instruments to play music. The show demonstrates that the retro-gaming phenomenon in visual arts can be considered an outfit of a pretty musical phenomenon, that in a bunch of years spread out all over the world through festivals and clubs, occasionally influencing mainstream musicians; and that visual and musical research progressed on parallel paths, in the quest for lo-fi sounds and low-res aesthetics, synthetic colors and notes. Playlist proposes artists from the chiptune scene and the media arts world sharing attitudes such as DIY, recycling, subversive refusal of programmed obsolescence, aesthetics of the glitches from electronic materials. On display, artworks (objects, installations, videos, computer-based and printed works), but also instruments, tools, softwares, hardwares, records, 8-bit music, movie documentary, platforms and communities.

Presented artists

2 Player Productions (US), Alex Bond / Enso (US), Boogerlab (NZ), The C-Men (NL), Paul B. Davis (UK), James Dingle (US), Jeff Donaldson / noteNdo (US), Julien Ducourthial (FR), Entter (SP), Dragan Espenschied (DE), Gino Esposto / Micromusic.net (CH), Gijs Gieskes (NL), André Gonçalves (PT), Chantal Goret (BE), Goto80 (SE), Jodi (BE / NL), Mike Johnston / Mike in Mono (UK), Joey Mariano / Animal Style (US), Rosa Menkman (NL), Raquel Meyers (SP), Mikro Orchestra (PL), Don Miller / NO CARRIER (US), Erik Nilsson (SE), Nullsleep (US), Tristan Perich (US), Rabato (SP), Gebhard Sengmuller (AT), Alexei Shulgin (RU), Paul Slocum (US), Tonylight (IT), VjVISUALOOP (IT)

Playlist is an exhibition produced by and firstly exhibited at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijon (Spain) from 18.12.2009 till 17.05.2010. The Brussels adaptation is produced by iMAL, Center for Digital Cultures and Technology. Curator: Domenico Quaranta (IT)

About iMAL, Center for Digital Cultures and Technology

iMAL (interactive Media Art Laboratory) is a non-profit association created in Brussels in 1999. In 2007, iMAL opened a new venue, a Center for Digital Cultures and Technology for the meeting of artistic, scientific and industrial innovations, a place dedicated to the contemporary artistic and cultural practices emerging from the fusion of computer, network and media. iMAL is: (1) a laboratory and a research, experimentation & production workplace for artists in residence (2) an education center which organises workshops targeted to creative people (artists, designers, developers) under the direction of leading international artists (3) an art&culture center producing exhibitions (e.g. Infiltrations Digitales/2004, Art+Game/2006, Holy Fire, art of the digital age/2008), concerts, performances, conferences in order to create critical, interdisciplinary encounters between the public, artists, technology, and society.

Along the Twentieth Century, music has often been the driving force behind crucial innovations in visual arts, and the starting point for many artists. Without forgetting the role played by music in the development of abstract art, it was mainly during the Sixties that music provided a fertile ground for new approaches, new theories, new art forms, new aesthetics. John Cage was a musician working with artists and engineers. The very first performance (the Untitled Event at Black Mountain College in 1952) was a musical event, such as many Fluxus events during the Sixties. Furthermore, Fluxus adopted music notation for its peculiar “scores”. It was thinking to music that Umberto Eco first introduced the concept of “opera aperta”. And at the very beginning of Video Art lies the manipulation of the electronic signal, first experimented by Nam June Paik in music.

PLAYLIST is an exhibition that wants to explore the role played by music in the adoption and manipulation, since the mid Nineties, of obsolete, digital as well as analogue, technologies: vinyls, old computers, game platforms and alikes. It’s our feeling, on the one hand, that electronic music culture has been of great importance for the development of low-tech, home-based media art; and, on the other hand, that – such as for the early Video Art – the manipulation of the digital stream is mainly grounded in musical research. The core of PLAYLIST will be the exploration of the “8bit movement”, spread out from the manipulation of obsolete game technologies in order to create new instruments to play music. The show will demonstrate that the retrogaming phenomenon in visual arts can be considered an outfit of a pretty musical phenomenon, that in a bunch of years spread out all over the world through festivals and clubs, occasionally influencing mainstream musicians; and that visual and musical research progressed on parallel paths, in the quest for lo-res sounds and aesthetics, synthetic colors and notes. For the first time, retro-gaming will be explored through the lens of musical production and distribution, displaying not only tracks, but instruments, tools, softwares and hardwares, skins and graphics, but also discographies, platforms and communities. Thus, PLAYLIST will serve as a starting point for an archive / collection of materials produced by artists and musicians, and as a relational context where visitors can practice with tools produced by artists, and take part in workshops, lectures, improvised performances. Furthermore, PLAYLIST will try to provide a context for this kind of research, not necessarily game related, selecting seminal projects and artists that helped forging the conceptual frame in which retro-gaming took place.

ARTISTS (SELECTION) Paul B. Davis (UK), Paolo Branca / DJ Visualoop (IT), Jeff Donaldson / Notendo (DE), Dragan Espenschied (DE), Gijs Gieskes (NL), Joey Mariano / Animal Style (US), Raquel Meyers (SP), Don Miller / No-carrier (US), Jeremiah Johnson / Nullsleep (US), Paul Slocum (USA) o Mike Johnston / Mike in Mono (UK), André Gonçalves (PT), Tristan Perich (US), Alexei Shulgin (RU) y Gebhard Sengmüller (AT).

Thanks to: Stelios Phili on Flavorwire.com.

Artemis Papageorgiou will discuss Wii/nd Chime’s collaborative development as an instrument of reminiscence. Wii/nd Chime signifies a shift from the physical realm to the virtual and the simulated. The sonic languages of both wind chimes and the 8-bit video-game sounds are combined into a system of interaction, which invites people to discover the potential of this new, hybrid object.

In an attempt to address the issue of the fake entering the realm of the real, Artemis turned towards the notion of the simulacrum and the process of simulation leading to a reality without reference to real signs (Jean Baudrillard, 1994). In Wii/nd Chime the simulation takes places in the faking of the appearance and the mechanism of the original wind chime. However, the actual medium used (Wii Remote) is being explored in order to reveal its nature and history. In that sense, Wii/nd Chime forms a hybrid object, partly faking the original object, partly underpinning the medium’s history and potential.

Wii/nd Chime was developed in the context of a hybrid Interactivos workshop-exhibition held in Eyebeam (New York 2008), partly funded by the Department of Computing, Goldsmiths.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1duI1lnZQ_8

ARTEMIS PAPAGEORGIOU is an architect who works in the intersection between urban design and computational media and focuses on building spatial installations. Her professional practice includes suburban/ rural residential design in studios in Athens, Greece and collaboration with METALOCUS magazine in Madrid Spain. Her main interest revolves around landscape (infrastructural, hybrid, transitional) as an active, over-time, re/inter-active ingredient of urban life. Artemis is currently an MFA candidate in Computational Studio Arts, at Goldsmiths Department of Computing, University of London (2008-09). Her work has been presented in exhibitions such as the Double Take (Eyebeam 2008), EASA2007 (Elefsina 2007) and AthensVideoArtFestival (Athens 2006).

Ryan Jordan’s Sensory Response Systems is an exploration into audiovisual performance using an array of sensors responsive to physical movements in order to control the audiovisual output in programs such as Pd, SuperCollider, Processing, etc. It also looks at reshaping and replicating the body through the use of fabric, textiles and technology. This work uses DIY hardware to build a new interface for live computer music performance, aiming to turn the performers body and clothes into an instrument allowing them to embody new technologies and computational devices.

RYAN JORDAN is a UK based artist working with home brew interfaces for musical expression and DIY hardware. He is concerned with making computer performance, which incorporates human physical movements as an essential foundation. Ryan also curates several noise, experimental and computer arts events and concerts in the UK, such as hac… and noise=noise. He is an active member of London based open source collective, OpenLab; and has released music on Bad Sekta, Anithematica/CovenH, and AntiGen. Ryan has performed his work in many places such as galleries, squats, pub cellars, theatres, the odd town hall, festivals, academic institutions and an occasional beach. He is currently living in London studying MFA Computational Studio Arts at Goldsmiths.

The proliferation and user friendliness of gameboys and other game controllers has spawned a culture of music and video production quite separate from it’s intended use. Several distinct styles of the wide range of sounds encompassing noise and atmospherics will be explored and created on consoles, circuit-bent phones, toys and other devices. In collaboration with the Plattegrond Label.

And

Jules Concas - Heartbleeps - Interactive 8-bit - Operetta for single performer and gameboy console :: October 28, 2008; 9:00 pm :: Chapel- Lower Level, SMART Project Space, Arie Biemondstraat 105-113, Amsterdam.

Jules Concas is a gameboy composer, performer and avid ambassador of 8-bit culture and his latest work embraces it’s spontaneous and interactive essence. One can imagine a living videogame (the interactive opera), structured into scenes (or game levels) with narration and live music. The plot orbits around the themes of love and bravery in a heroic-fantasy in which the proceedings are influenced by the audience.

Bubblyfish: A sound artist, composer, and audio engineer, Haeyoung Kim explores the territory of sounds in electronic music. Currently, under the name Bubblyfish, she has been creating 8-bit and experimental sound works. Haeyoung has collaborated with many respected sound and visual artists such as Malcolm McLaren, the founder of Sex Pistols, Hans Jochim Rodelius, and the Brussels based media art group, Lab[au]. Her work has been presented in art venues, clubs, festivals, and galleries internationally including The American Museum of the Moving Image, Pompidou Center, Kunsthalle Wien, MUTEK, LABoral, Lincoln Center Walter Reed Theater, and The New Museum.

Playboy’s Bend is a musical and electronic project started by Xavier Gazon in 2006. Xavier Gazon is a belgian electronic producer and multimedia artist who started like a DJ in 1993 and released his 1st record with an acid techno project called ’sixth sense approach’ on Reload record when he was 17. In 2000, his musical works turned to ‘idm electro’ and he created the “Ex nihilo records” label (2000-2007) and his own project called Etschaberry at the same time. He produced international artists, organised gigs and concerts, toured with Otto Von Schirach in 2006 and played in cities like London, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Rotterdam, Leipzig … He also participated in famous gigs and festivals like Bangface (UK), Transmedial Festival (Berlin), … In 2006, he decided to start electronic studies and began to open toys and drum machines to pimp the heart of his instruments. He created his personal sound & music: The bend of the playboy was born.

t0ys4b0ys Residency :: October 7-17, 2008: Clashing boxes of noise and toys, shortcutting, bending and occasionally (deep) frying electronics, effectively transforming plastic into magic smoke or glorifying made-in-china engineering in a virtuoso impromptu with a twist. Circuit bending “brings the noise” out of appliances that were designed to sound like birds, cats or creepy clowns. Often sounding like “broken”, these “james bond style customized instruments – full of buttons and secret weapons” take on the motto: “it’s not a bug … it’s a feature!”

From Peter Kirn at createdigitalmusic.com: “8-bit and robots and odd Max and Reaktor patches and custom visual software and visualizations of data packets and sound made from plants and mutant trumpets and gloves for DJing and laptop music – we’ve got quite a lineup here in New York this week.

Friday night, a live audiovisual lineup from the worlds of createdigitalmusic.com / createdigitalmotion.com invades the HOPE conference, aka Hackers on Planet Earth, the three day-long convergence of tech hacking. $10, open to all, 11-2a Friday July 18 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. It’s a live digital, technological variety show in a doomed NYC landmark hotel with an audience of famous and infamous hackers. (Think Kevin Mitnick and MythBusters’ Adam Savage and Steven Levy, all in one place.)

Facebook event page; also on Going.com”

More media and preview videos can be seen at Create Digital Music. 

Every day for the past year, Morneau has composed and posted a new sixty-second composition. That’s just over six hours of new music in sixty-second installments. For this project, Morneau explored a wide variety of musical styles and techniques, including musique concrète, sine wave synthesis, digital sampling, 8-bit constructions, process music, acousmatic composition, and post-techno beat manipulations. He found the requirement to make a new, complete piece every day an exhilarating challenge, and reveled in the constant variety of ideas the project embraced. This project began as a challenge to compose more, and ended up as an audio diary of the past year.

Morneau chose to compose specifically for the internet because of an interest in its effect on the creation and dissemination of music and art. One-minute compositions are easy to download. The podcast format encouraged listener subscription. 60×365 was presented as a series of shorter pieces over time, in a particular order. However, this order was only one possibility. Some listeners waited until many pieces were posted and then chose their own path through the archive. Some listened with headphones, some with computer speakers of varying quality, some on a mobile device, some listened with friends, some listened alone.

The entire project will remain online at http://60×365.com where listeners can explore the archive by date, by title, and by category. http://5of4.com
http://60×365.com

Selections from 60×365 will be included in a radio broadcast as part of the 2008 Expo Brighton, a festival of sound art and experimental music in Brighton, UK. The festival will take place July 4-6.

His instrument was a wooden wine crate filled with custom-made circuitry and six joystick-like levers. Allen called his tool circuitMusic, and it emitted a throbbing, old-school sound — the sort of sound that’s often called “feedback laden” when in fact it was more like he was exploring the feedback, simultaneously navigating and lending shape to the noise. (There is additional coverage of the event, including photos, in an August 2007 disquiet.com entry.)

The music got more abstract as his set went on, and Allen’s hand-crafted instrument provided a comforting focus throughout. Each of its six joysticks was paired with a single headlight on the front of the box. That trigger system, in a highly economical manner, provided helpful signals to the audience: visual orientation amid the increasingly self-obscuring sounds. In a world of ever more powerful technology, it was downright inspiring to experience the sort of communication that could be accomplished with a simple on-off switch.

It’s no surprise that Allen’s skills in communication in regard to electronics and electronic music are not limited to stage performances. He’s taught classes in such subjects as “Performing Technology,” “New Interfaces for Musical Expression,” and “Sensor Workshop” at New York University and Pratt Institute. And after finishing up an early-2008 residency at Eyebeam in Manhattan (eyebeam.org), he’s relocating to Newcastle, England, to help start a new Masters program in Digital Arts with Atau Tanaka, formerly of Sony Paris. “The Masters,” he explained via email, “will be held in coordination with the Newcastle Culture Lab, headed up by Sally-Jane Norman.” (More info at ncl.ac.uk/culturelab.)

Allen took time recently to talk about the tool he played at Galapagos, the implications of musicians crafting their own instruments, the intersection of academia and the electronic arts, and the politics of 8bit music, among other things.

Marc Weidenbaum: When I saw you perform at Galapagos in Brooklyn last summer, you used one machine for the performance, and it was something you’d designed yourself. I’m very interested in musical instruments created by musicians. Could you describe what it was and how it functioned?

Jamie Allen: The rig you saw is a piece called “circuitMusic.” It’s really very simple — it’s a set of square waves built with raw electronic components, inside an old wine box. I have a few ways of varying resistances in the circuit — photo-resistors, force-sensitive resistors, and regular old potentiometers. Each of the square waves is coupled to a set of very bright light-emitting diode arrays, such that whenever a new oscillator is thrown in, a light comes on. There are six sound elements, and six lights.

I really started this piece out of a frustration with the possibilities for improvisation in electronic music. I wanted something I could get lost in while performing. I wanted something that wasn’t just moving through a set of presets or known “fields” I had created prior to a show; circuitMusic often surprises me, as does the incredibly positive reaction I get to the simple on/off “visualization” it provides the audience.

Weidenbaum: You’ve taught courses related to electronic music at a variety of schools in and around Manhattan. I imagine these schools each has a different take on music and technology, and I was wondering what you’ve learned about different scholarly takes on the field.

Allen: The often surprising thing about music in academia is that the spectrum of motivations is really broad. There are many communities, viewpoints, conferences, styles, and philosophies represented. Coming to accept this as a cultural reality when I first became involved was a bit of a challenge for me, actually. I come out of playing in bands, in bars, etc., primarily for the rawness and fun of it — the blood-and-sweat school of music. So I came to computer electronic music with a kick-ass “let’s fucking do this thing” kind of motivation. I had a real problem accepting any motivation other than those that were a direct reaction to the lack of relevancy I perceived in the computer and experimental music scene. As is often true, I’ve mellowed out a lot, because, as I am now quite fond of saying, “Hell, it’s only music.”

There are scholars who approach technological, musical, and other creative decisions as a kind of scientific “problem” to be “solved.” There are a lot of people out to do a lot of things so they can be “first” at it. There are also far too many music-technology scholars in higher learning who use academia a kind of hustle or dodge, or to bolster a failing “commercial” music career — whatever that means these days.

The best work, and best teaching I think, comes from people who are primarily interested in music as a method of communication, enhanced and elaborated through technology. In Manhattan, like anywhere else, you find that certain schools and departments do have certain emphases in this regard, based on who’s running them and what their personal motivations are.

Weidenbaum: Do you have any thoughts you’d like to share on the whole 8-bit world of music-making — is that at all where your head is at?

Allen: I’ve always loved the sound of the square wave, which is the timbral indicator for what we think of as “low-fi” or “chip” music. It’s also fitting that mathematically, the instantaneous change from one signal level to another — the Heaviside function, the basis of a square wave, really — at least theoretically, contains all frequencies. That thought alone contributes to my understanding of these somewhat harsh tones as very warm, welcoming, and somehow enveloping.

I’m also sure, as I’ve heard many people comment, that there is a kind of flashback adrenaline rush that comes from hearing these sounds. A good portion of our generation grew up getting their kicks with a side order of these square-wave-based game sounds, so there’s a sense in which it’s just taking you back to that time you kicked your brother’s ass at Impossible Mission on the C64. A happy time, indeed.

Anyhow — I’m not much of a scenester, but I do have a duo with Michael Horan called “Season of the Bit” where we remix and DJ Commodore 64 tunes. The Blip Festival just happened here in New York, and I was really hoping to catch way more of it than I did…

Weidenbaum: I agree there’s a flashback quality to those sounds, and the way musicians and artists — from Scott Johnson’s I.F. Stone transcriptions to Christian Marclay’s use of old video footage and record albums — employ sounds of the past definitely expects that as part of the audience’s reaction. But as the years go on, lo-fi, 8bit music is attracting an audience with no first-hand experience with that original sound. The result is a kind of second-hand nostalgia. This new generation grew up on much more advanced games — do you understand what they get out of 8bit?

Allen: You’re right — this “flashback” quality is certainly not the only motivation for low-res soundscape work — just an often-cited one.

If you’re the kind of person that thinks all decisions are political — like me — you can also think of the use of lo-fi hardware and software as somewhat of a subversion of technological culture. That’s certainly one of my motivations for doing this kind of work. Our culture at the moment values technological advancement and refinement at a level that can sometimes feel dehumanizing, overstated, and boring. There’s a slickness, perfection, and inevitability to the trajectory of ever-higher-resolution-everything we’re on right now that is apparently frustrating to a good number of people’s creative process, particularly in music. This is perhaps why a lot of people compare the 8bit scene to the punk scene, in terms of motivation. The elements you get to lay your hands on in “state of the art” music studios can really suck all the play and fun out of making music.

Weidenbaum: And, to follow up, do you see a music movement based on more recent gaming systems, along the lines of machinima — in which footage of video games is edited to create short films — coming along?

Allen: Certainly — a lot of my students are interested in the effects current video-game culture will have on the musical landscape. What I find interesting is that there are generations of people out there assuming that all their media is interactive, malleable, and essentially a dialogue of some sort. Most of the creative music game developers out there — Toshio Iwai and Harmonix, for example — are already using game platforms to deliver high-level musical decision-making to the masses. I would say that Harmonix’s FreQuency (2001) and Nintendo’s Electroplankton (2005) are existing examples of “musical machinima” tools — although there is certainly room for further exploration and openness in these systems.

Weidenbaum: Of all the different music-making devices you’ve created, do you think any of them might have a wider audience among your fellow musicians — that is, would any of make it in the marketplace as manufactured instruments?

Allen: I think one of the real powers of the configurable prototyping systems available to the electronic artist today is that you are freed from these ideas transferability and permanence in the standard sense. You can pretty much make an entire instrument system, play it once, take it apart, reconfigure it and then play it the next night. Perry Cook, a fantastic guy, technologist, and musician up at Princeton, once said, “Make a piece, not an instrument or controller.” This has wonderful repercussions musically, politically, and socially. In music, there is the new idea of a kind of sketchy, design-oriented approach to performance and compositional process. Politically, we may actually help to break down hegemonic and hierarchical music and art structures in the West that have been so dominant for far too long. It is hard get to the heart of what educational pedigree, for example, even means for self-built instruments that are entirely reconfigurable or performance-specific. Socially, we can think of instrument creation as beginning before the level of “player” and oftentimes blurring the ranks of composer, performer, instrumentalist, and audience.

Needless to say, the marketplace affects everyone’s outlook and work in a broad sense, but it’s not at all a part of my conscious thought process in the creation of music or performance.

Weidenbaum: Which comes first, the music or the instrument? Do you create instruments with a certain sound in your head, or do you create instruments and then, when they’re done, see what kind of music they can make?

Allen: I’m really interested in process, first and foremost. There’s a transparency and directness of communication that I strive for in performance and music. Instrument design is often a way of rendering limitations and facilities into a physical object. Objects are also, arguably, inherently performable, so it can be a way of translating and communicating otherwise obscure processes to other people. Like anyone, I have sounds and sequences and patterns that appeal to me for one reason or another, as in the aforementioned case of square waves. What I find most satisfying, though, is the translation of process as a way of sculpting someone else’s experience in real time.

Weidenbaum: If I am overemphasizing the academic aspect of your work, please tell me so, but I want to ask one additional question about that area. One thing that academia has in its favor is continuity. There’s a tradition, a literature, a practice, or a variety of practices, within each field. Are there performance, or computer-science, or music communities, within academia that you particularly see yourself in the tradition of?

Allen: I really think of myself as a life-long student, and so I think I naturally gravitate towards educational environments. I have a serious addiction to learning new things and being exposed to new ideas. I don’t have a lot of academic aspirations in the more traditional sense, so I can’t really say that there’s a particular history I’m interested in trying to get myself written into.

I do think relationships to specific histories in academia, the arts, performance, and music are changing. I find a lot of electronic and digital artists are less and less concerned with their practice as a “modernist” or “minimalist” or whatever — and more and more concerned with project-specific appropriateness, relevance, and context dependence, which is really very positive all in all.

This has a lot to do with the distributed contexts in which creative works exist these days. An artist can have one piece that looks at something from a certain motivation — say, deconstructionist — and another piece that looks at it from another — say, collagist. There’s no conflict because both “communities” can be addressed through the same varied distribution channels available to the artist. This all reminds me of music-listening patterns in the post-digital music age, to some extent. You don’t ask people, “What kind of music do you listen to?” anymore, because listening patterns are so diverse. Similarly, I don’t ask people, “What kind of artist are you?” because I know they’ve likely got a long list of interests.

So… what kind of artist am I? Well I’m a “post-post-modern- avant-garde-romantic-digital- experimental-conceptualist,” with a limp. [posted by Marc Weidenbaum on Disquiet]

Boing Boing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson chats about chiptunes with a number of artists who performed at the most recent installment of the 8-bit music event Blipfest: Paza Rahm (pazarahm.com, from Sweden), Rugar (rugarandi.com, Sweden), Sabrepulse (myspace.com/sabrepulse, Scotland) and Akira, aka 8GB (myspace.com/8gb, Argentina). Related BBtv episodes and vlog posts:

[posted on Boing Boing]