Plateaux Festival :: November 19 - 22, 2009 :: Poland.

A 4-day festival presenting the world’s leading groundbreaking multimedia artists, praised and prize-winning audiovisual and VJ art, experimental films, and live electronic and electroacoustic music. A fully interactive event, Plateaux will be spread across Poland’s two adjacent and culturally rich cities of Toruń and Bydgoszcz, combining a number of different venues to create the widest possible range of multimedia and audiovisual performances.

Plateaux is committed to providing an extra depth of experience beyond simple spectatorship. For this reason, artists performing during the festival will also act as guide and teachers in workshops, lectures and discussions, addressing the theoretical, practical and technical aspects of audiovisual domain. Continue reading

World X Diagnostics by Megan Michalak and Stephanie Rothenberg :: August 13-27, 2009 :: Opening: August 13; 6:00 - midnight :: Harvestworks, NYC :: Public Launch: August 15, 2009; noon - 3:00 pm :: Finland.

World X Diagnostics is a revolutionary system that evaluates and diagnoses citizen responses to socio-economic conditions resulting from the global economic meltdown. Public data measuring gross national well being is collected from participating users and translated into real time sound frequencies through programmed algorithms. Through the system’s network, users are able to access the compiled data from their geographical region, as well as from any location on the globe. Continue reading

VisualContainerTV presents Philipp Geist - Monography — an overview of live performances, multimedia installations, festivals … :: July 30 - September 15, 2009.

A self-taught artist based in Berlin since 1999, Philipp Geist (VIDEOGEIST) works internationally through the media of video, performance, photography, and painting. In 2008, he projected his video installation Time Fades across the Piazzetta open space of the Kulturforum in Berlin. In 2007, he screened his video installation Time Lines on the facade of the museum for contemporary art Palazzo delle Esposizioni in the center of Rome. Continue reading

SonarMàtica 2009: Mecànics :: June 18-20, 2009 :: Barcelona.

Mecànics (the exhibition): Over the past decade, the spread of new digital production tools has led to a democratisation of the artistic process, ranging from the music industry to multimedia art. Home-made recording studios, audiovisual editing programs and online record labels have made projects that used to require major investments easily accessible. Today, the spirit of punk is standard cultural currency.

Becoming the conductor of Roland Olbeter’s robot orchestra, or creating your own musical compositions - simply by moving counters on a board - with the famous interactive table Reactable (Rolling Stone magazine’s Instrument of the Year in 2007), Continue reading

Image: SND (Photo: basic_sounds) It is understandable that we sometimes overlook the surge of innovation and experimentation that has taken place within live musical performance over the last decade. A culture obsessed with emerging channels of distribution and incremental software upgrades is almost predisposed to overlook the virtuosity (or lack thereof) that drives live performance. A pertinent frame of reference in considering evolving paradigms in musical performance is the MUTEK festival, a progressive electronic music summit that takes place in Montreal each spring. Launched in 2000, and having just celebrated their tenth anniversary this past week, MUTEK has consistently programmed dynamic lineups of luminaries representing various facets of global house, techno and experimental music communities. Continue reading

I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On by Haeyoung Kim (a.k.a Bubblyfish) [Needs Flash Player and Speakers On] - I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On is an interactive art piece inspired by Samuel Beckett’s short novel, “Molloy.” The work is presented in two parts: a blog for you to contribute your thoughts about Beckett’s writing; and the multimedia generated by your entries.

“In 2007 I began to learn to ride a bicycle. This for me was a choice not so much determined by reasons of pleasure but as a way of manifesting my need to literally move on with my life. Around the same time, I began to read Beckett’s famous Three Novels, and was moved in particular by “Molloy.” Bicycles are a very important metaphor in this book.” Haeyoung Kim Continue reading

Mendi + Keith Obadike: Four Electric Ghosts :: May 14-16, 2009; 8:00 pm :: The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, NYC + Streamed Live.

Performance duo Mendi + Keith Obadike premiere Four Electric Ghosts, a new multimedia opera that extends their experiments with layered narratives, online performance, and popular culture. Drawing from Amos Tutuola’s novel My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and the arcade game Pac-Man®, the work creates a composite world at the intersection of game culture, the folktale, and pop songs. Told from the perspective of ghosts, the narrative evolves through masquerade, movement, live music, and video interviews.

With text by Mendi, Keith on laptop, choreography and dancers from Angela’s Pulse Performance Projects, and new music created in collaboration with bassist/producer Melvin Gibbs and musician Guillermo E. Brown.

Lillian Ball and Steve Bull :: April 20, 2009; 7:00 pm :: Harvestworks, 596 Broadway #602 New York City (at Houston St).

As part of the ongoing “Listen In” series of artist presentations, Harvestworks is pleased to present multi-media artists Lillian Ball, and Steve Bull. Lilian Ball will discuss her recent interactive multi-screen video installation Go Doñana, a project that explores diverse perspectives on the wetland/dune ecosystems found in Andalucia’s Doñana National and Natural Parks. Multi-media artist Steve Bull will demonstrate his recent video/MAX/Jitter/cellphone-SMS interactive installation Target, programmed by musician software artist Zachary Seldess. Continue reading

The New Museum for Contemporary Art presents Voice & Light Systems by Nick Hallett :: four Thursdays in May, 2009 :: 235 Bowery, New York, NY.

Nick Hallett — singer, composer, and downtown impresario — creates a four-part series at the New Museum theater connecting the human voice to multimedia ritual. In collaboration with a rotating cast of performers and artists, Hallett presents original music and performance alongside new interpretations of celebrated vocal works by Meredith Monk and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The singing voice is seen here in its rawest state, stripped of its language-based sensibilities, and more as a flexible sound instrument, capable of producing protosemantic, acoustic phenomena. As such, concepts of drone, repetition, and improvisation prevail over the tropes of traditional song. Continue reading

A House in Bali is a new dance-opera by composer Evan Ziporyn, with a libretto by Real Time Opera’s Paul Schick.

Featuring an all-star international cast of vocalists, dancers, and musicians, it traces the roots of the west’s century-long infatuation with Bali, through the true story of three westerners - composer Colin McPhee, anthropologist Margaret Mead, and artist Walter Spies - during their 1930s sojourn in Bali. This stunning, multi-media spectacle brings together the finest ensembles of east and west: a 15-piece Balinese gamelan directed by the dynamic Dewa Ketut Alit, the Bang on a Can All-Stars with guest violinist Todd Reynolds, Balinese choreography by the enchanting Kadek Dewi Aryani, wayang shadow puppets, and high-tech projections converge, pushing all boundaries of theatrical innovation. Continue reading