At the gallery and performance space Galapagos in Brooklyn last summer, I was fortunate to catch a show of electronically mediated music, art, installations, and short films. Among the participants was a musician and tinkerer named Jamie Allen whose set-up was a revelation in its simplicity.

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.) Continue reading

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From: Associated Press via Technology Review, December 6, 2007: ‘Chiptune’ artists use vintage computers and video games to craft a new musical genre - NEW YORK (AP) - Haeyoung Kim, a classical pianist, took the stage at a hip Manhattan art space before a crowd of twenty- and thirty-somethings, many shaggy-haired and wearing T-shirts and glasses.

As her performance began, the room filled with electronic beeps and buzzes of a 1980’s video game pulsing to a danceable beat, as if Mario were hosting a rave. As heads bopped in the audience, Kim proudly held up her instrument: a Nintendo Game Boy. Continue reading

“Listening Post: You have a classical background; what drew you to creating 8-bit music? What do you find alluring about the chiptune aesthetic?

Haeyoung Kim, BubblyFish: I started with classical music first, and moved on to electronic music. I have in electronic music and computer music, so experimental music. Classical is more my background. So I picked up a GameBoy, I guess 4 or 5 years ago already, and when I started using it, I just loved the sound of it, and part of the big deal is that there’s a huge limitation that does not require much music production at all. Since there’s such a limitation, I think I can push myself to be more creative, and think differently from the way that I usually create music, with more available tools…” From Interview: Chiptune Artist Haeyoung Kim, BubblyFish by Eliot Van Buskirk, Wired. Also see Interview with Paul Slocum, Tree Wave.

60×365 (sixty by three-sixty-five) is an experimental new music podcast by composer David Morneau. Every day for a year, Morneau will compose a new sixty-second composition and post it online at 60×365.com. This project commenced on July 1, 2007, and will conclude June 30, 2008, resulting in just over six hours of new music in sixty-second installments.

For this project, Morneau is exploring 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. Each daily post brings something new and different, a constant variety. The daily deadline means the works sometimes lose their preciousness as they become explorations in process and method for Morneau—with his form or his audience—as much as they are works of art. Continue reading

Cybersonica, Noise of Art and Slipped Disco host GAMES:AV :: October 28, 2007; 8 pm - 3 am :: 333 Club, 333 Old Street, London :: part of the London Games Festival Fringe.

GAMES:AV is a live concert, screening and club night featuring musicians, DJs, VJs, audiovisualisers, 8-bit operators, film-makers, animators and digital artists whose work has been shaped by Video Games culture… plus a basement gallery of wall-sized interactive games… There’s an entire generation of established artists and up-and-coming talent who have been inspired by and influenced by video games; a wealth of grass root musicians and music makers “who are dedicated to the appreciation and reinterpretation of video game music” (VGM) Continue reading

SCREEN MUSIC 2: Mechanical cinema-veritè, circuit bending, electric / electronic audio-video :: Festival della Creatività :: 25 - 28 October 2007 :: Fortezza da Basso - Teatrino Lorenese, Florence :: Free entrance - Screen Music is a project born from an idea of Gianni De Simone and curated by Marco Mancuso founder and director of Digicult and Andrea Mi, director of Videominuto.

Screen Music is part of the program of the Creativity Festival, an event promoted by the Tuscan Region and organized by Fondazione Sistema Toscana. With an exhibition space of approximately 40,000 square meters, 400 events, 1,600 artists and speakers from over 40 countries around the world, the Festival program includes meetings and debates with great representatives of modern culture, the world of art and design, and the Italian and international music scenes. Continue reading

CHIPTUNES - 8BIt MUSIC :: July 26-27, 2007 :: Deadline: July 16, 2007 :: Registration :: Fee: 25 :: Working language: English and Spanish :: @ the workshop premises of the LABoral Centre for Art and Creative Industries.

8bit sound and music is a distinctive feature of early videogames, and has become a seminal contemporary music style utilized by artists and DJs in engaging live audiovisual performances and remixes. This workshop will bring together creators from US and Spain who will work with young people to create music using Gameboys. The workshop will close with an evening of Chiptunes performances with sounds by the artists, the workshop participants and visuals by media artists Entter. Continue reading

{R} A K E: May 17, 8 - 10:30 pm :: Monkey Town, 58 North 3rd Street (bet. Kent & Wythe), Williamsburg, Brooklyn :: 718 384-1369 :: Limited seating, reservations recommended :: $7 :: Christian Pincock (music), Andrew Demirjian (video/music), Jane Rigler (music) :: Zachary Layton (video/music) :: Bubblyfish (Haeyoung Kim) (music), Alessandro Imperato (video).

{R}ake is a performance series of alternative and collaborative electro-acoustic music and video. Performances range from pure improvisation to more structured pieces, with video-artists and musicians working together in exploratory ways. Continue reading

Artist Jaygo Bloom has been commissioned by folly, a media arts organisation based in Lancaster, to develop the sound work BUMP! for this year’s Futuresonic festival, in partnership with Manchester based digital signage organisation Pixel Inspiration. Futuresonic is the UK’s leading electronic and media arts festival, and takes place in Manchester in July 2006. According to Jaygo Bloom, the commissioned artist, “As computer technology becomes more sophisticated, the technology itself will fade into the background of human activities, becoming far less intrusive than is the case today.”

Jaygo Bloom suspects the invisible, therefore he seeks to reverse the need for this technological transparency. BUMP! reinstates the virtual world with an offline voice. BUMP! is an online project that translates an online keystroke into an actual real time and physical event. BUMP! will reinstate the presence of this technological intervention over its environment via the quick shot, rapidfire, 8bit sounds emanating out of its location based folly sound modules located throughout participating venues of Futuresonic 2006. BUMP! presents an interesting view of networked interaction and social performance. Continue reading