N.I.P. - New Interfaces for Performance - N.I.P. is an interdisciplinary touring presentation, network and workshop series, developed by Teresa Dillon of the Bristol based media arts and research collective Polar Produce. As an artists lead initiative, N.I.P. currently exists as a three-year project and involves twelve artists drawn from across the UK, The Netherlands and Portugal. The current focus of the project is on gesture and movement based interfaces within live performance and interactive, mixed media installation.

N.I.P. artists at Pixelache 2008 Helsinki are: Teresa Dillon (UK), Kathy Hinde (UK), Torsten Lauschmann (UK), Ivan Franco (PT), Rudolfo Quintas (PT), André Gonçalves (PT) and Tom Verbruggen (NL).

‘Burning the Sound’ by Rudolfo Quintas & André Gonçalves (PT): ‘Burning the Sound’ is a sound performance about the nature of rituals, power and control. It uses fire from a regular fire lighter to subvert patterns of rhythm, exorcising the sound as a spiritual strategy. Fire was probably the first technology to exist and is knowledge based and ritualistic. Within ‘Burning the Sound’ digital, new media and ancestral technologies fuse to question contemporary strategies of invisible control. The aim of the performance is to push the ritualistic primitivism, gesture and body to technological mediated computer sound performances.

Rudolfo Quintas is a software designer, visual artist and founding member of the SWAP project who works in the field of augmented performances and interactive installation. For the piece ‘Burning The Sound’ he has been collaborating with mixed media, visual and sound artist André Gonçalves to create a dynamic visual-sound-scape, which are based on the movements that Quintas choreographs in real-time, using lighters and computer vision techniques.

André Gonçalves will also perform his piece ‘Resonant Objects’.

‘Air Stick’ by Ivan Franco (PT): Instrument maker and musician Ivan Franco. ‘Air Stick’ is a new musical instrument, created by Franco, which is ‘played-in-the-air’ (similar to a Theremin). The instrument, built using proximity sensors, allows for real-time control between hand-position and active sound manipulation.

BOP, UK: BOP are Teresa Dillon and Kathy Hinde. Since early 2007, they have been performing together and combining their backgrounds in live art, theatre, visual arts and music. As BOP they create experimental visual-sound pieces, with a theatrical, punky twist.

TokTek, NL: Musician, instrument maker, hacker and visual artist TokTek, eclectic electronic style has been described as ‘illogical hardware bending’. The outcomes or electronic ‘songs’ are played via hacked joysticks and various objects (plastic toys, records etc) to create dramatic live compositions, which break down into delicate and tender sound moments.

‘Crackle Canvas’ by Tom Verbruggen (NL): Musician, instrument maker, hacker and visual artist Tom Verbruggen (aka TokTek) has become well known for his individual ‘Crackle Canvas’ series. Drawing on his fine and visual arts background, Tom went into music but was asked one day if he would ever make any more ‘paintings’. This lead him to think about making sound-paintings, which is where the ‘Crackle Canvas’ series started.

‘Self-Portrait as a Pataphysical Object’ by Torsten Lauschmann (UK): Self-Portrait as a Pataphysical Object is a kind of chandelier created from audio adapters and cables with a single small bulb at the centre. An object in its own right, the chandelier, could hang in the lobby of the Kiasma as a representation of Lauschmann’s humours and DIY aesthetic, which draws on the everyday and subtle nuances of human relations.

Glasgow-based artist, Torsten Lauschmann originally trained as a photographer and film-maker but currently works across various media. For example, he has performed as a VJ and solar-powered busker known as Slender Whiteman, created a film about the a street lamp’s function in consumer society (Misshapen Pearl, 2003) and launched World Jump Day (2005), an Internet campaign, which attempted to reverse global warming through a synchronized single jump across the globe. His most recent work Piecework Orchestra (2007) is an orchestra of machines, which Lauschmann controls to create sound-compositions has been created using everyday house-hold objects (hoovers, washing machine, leaf blowers). This brief selection of Lauschmanns work, demonstrates the breadth of his practice, which focuses on everyday, human behaviours, gestures and emotions.