Massaging the Machine: Circuit Bending with Ben Goldstone — by Ollie Moltaji.

Often thought of as complicated and coldly precise, electronics can be manipulated to one’s advantage with less technical skill and more creativity. Such is the philosophy of our class’ guest speaker on circuit bending, Benjamin Goldstone. To Ben we can explore electronics by “massaging circuit boards” through touching the connections and “destroying the mind of the machine.” Continue reading

A/V PLAY! by N_DREW (aka Andrew Bucksbarg): A handheld, mobile audio-improvisual, participatory extravaganza… :: August 4 - August 26 :: Reception and Performances August 4, 2007 7-10 PM :: Sea and Space Explorations, 4755 York Blvd, LA, CA :: Gallery is open Saturdays 1-5 PM and by appointment :: 323-445-4015 ::info[at]seaandspace.org.

A/V PLAY! explores sights and sounds with handheld electronic audio-visual objects and digital cinematic installations centering on works that require participation for their activation. A/V PLAY! investigates the frontier of play through process, concept and use. A/V PLAY! delves into the artist’s practice … from hacked and custom electronics, circuit bending, audio-visual noise and rhythms, and VJing to mobile performance using iPod Shuffles, as well as other interactive cinematic work. Continue reading

Sept. 7, 2007 - Sept. 23, 2007 :: [From the site…] Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music seeks to expose inhabitants of Washington, DC to the outer realms of sonic endeavor. The 7th edition of the festival is planned for September 7-23, 2007 at various venues in DC. Artists from Europe, around the US, and from our own backyard will present challenging works to inhabitants of our nation’s capitol. This year’s fest will include film and video screenings, lectures, art installations and more. Check back soon for more information about this year’s festival.

For further information and general inquiries please contact: contact2007(AT)dc-soniccircuits(DOT)org

myspace.com/soniccircuits

electro-music 2007 (TM), a three day conference/music festival will be held at the Cheltenham Art Center in Philadelphia, June 1 - 3, 2007. The program will include lectures, demos, jam sessions, and concerts. The scope of this festival is very broad, covering all aspects of electro-music, experimental electronic music, including circuit bending, computer music, electro-jazz, modular synthesis, musique concrete, improvisation, noodles (generated or automatic music and algorithmic composition), multi-media, visual art and much more. The focus will be on participant involvement, sharing, community development, audience education, and great music.

Here’s a short film about the electro-music festival 2006.

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Tate Modern: Free in the Turbine Hall :: Mathieu Briand SYS*011. Mie>AbE/SoS\ SYS*010, aka the Spiral + More:: May 25, 17.00–18.00 pm and May 26, 10.00 am -18.00 pm.

SYS*011. Mie>AbE/SoS\ SYS*010, aka the Spiral is a sculptural sound installation and performance space created by the French artist Mathieu Briand (b1972). It comprises five turntables, one etching machine to burn new vinyl records, a matrix of four vinyl records on which sounds from machines and other samples have been etched into locked groove loops by the artist, two mixing desks and the possibility of plugging in up to seven additional instruments, laptops and other hardware. Mathieu Briand’s Spiral intends to create an alternative space within the museum structure. He envisions this installation as a “Temporary Autonomous Zone” (Hakim Bey) that would disrupt the traditional structure of the museum by deconstructing its hierarchies and altering its rules for a certain period of time. Continue reading

“DIY music can be as much about attitude as specific gear. We had performances Friday and Saturday night during the Maker Faire, and while the performances covered quite a gamut, a common theme was finding new ways of playing old instruments, or to make new instruments out of existing stuff. That’s something not unique to anyone genre — electronic music included — so perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising at all…” Continue reading Peter Kirn’s review of Maker Faire on Create Digital Music.

Also see: Maker Faire: Giant Bicycle-Part DJ Looping Reel-to-Reel Tape Deck; Maker Faire 2007 in Photos; and Hello, Maker Faire Attendees.

What happens when hardware techniques are ported in the software domain? Musicians obsessed by fetish drum machines as Roland 303 should know, if they ever tested Propellerhead’s ReBirth, for example. But what does it mean to abstract resounding hardware into predictable software code? The gesture is gone, so are the manipulation skills but something different and ethereal is left anyway. Berrtill is a distortion unit plug in modeled from circuit bent hardware. It’s not really simulating a classic circuit bending session (trying to extract sounds, creatively connecting sound generating chips), but embedding the typical distortion characteristics of (mal)functioning in the selected sound data. As expected that abstracting would not gain the same results nor the enthusiasm of using electric wires and a soldering iron, discovering untold sound possibilities. This software embodies a specific experiment connecting a car speaker, a kazoo and a modified tape recorder, all then programmed as an effect through a rendering ‘formula’. But even if the plug is so specific and seem to accomplish a little more than entertaining and educational purposes, publishing a software means also to make an implicit statement. Here this consists of a legitimation of circuit bending as a composing technique.- Neural.

2007 Cassette Jockey World Championships: Call for Competitors :: CALLING ALL: Cassette Jockies • Retro-Tech Lovers • Magnetic Media Monsters • Circuit Benders • Multi-Media DJs • Walkman Hot-Rodders.

In 2003 at a festival in Chicago, a group of retro-tech geniuses organized The Cassette Jockey World Championships. Like the popular DJ (Disk Jockey) competitions with record-toting DJs showing off their turntable skills, the CJ Championships aimed to transplant their skills and styles to the venerable world of cassettes. Since CJs were encouraged to hot-rod their own equipment, eviscerated boomboxes, disembodied tape heads, and overclocked Walkmans were the weapons of choice–anything that used the standard cassette as its ammo. Continue reading

Regine Debatty reports on an exceptional performance at the recent Mobile Music Workshop hosted by Steim and the Waag Society in Amsterdam.

“TokTek’s performance blew everyone’s mind. The artist explores new modes of interaction in live performance. He structures the unbridled clicks and cuts of his circuit bend gadgets to a fragile disturbance. Sampling with a joystick Tom creates unlogic dynamic compositions. Started by playing an old vinyl of lessons of french, then went wild with buttons, keyboards and knobs, later grabbed a joystick, then had a go at a guitar, kid’s toys, etc. Continue reading

workshop_12_13 Berlin :: A (more-or-less) weekly series of constructivist workshops emphasising making and connection within the field of the existent :: Upcoming: 12th May: Free projects. Discussion and construction of projects using workshop resources :: 19th May: DIY simple-sample-and-hold noise modules with superfactory [part two].

[please also see other Berlin workshops as part of Globale 07] June projected: GNU Emacs, television transmission, the C programming language, spectral RF reception and white noise, rapid-prototyping-realtime-3D, ATmega8 microcontrollers a la Arduino. Continue reading