Chicago gets a taste of the Montreal-based digital art and electronic music festival that showcases innovation in music and creativity on April 21-23 with Avant_Mutek: Chicago.
Founded in 2000, Mutek is an international festival organization dedicated to the promotion of electronic music and the digital arts. Its main event is an annual five-day event in Montreal, Canada that takes place in late May and early June. Many of electronic music’s most established figures have performed, as well as numerous new artists who have gone on to build sustainable careers. Along with performances, the festival also features workshops relating to gear and software showcases, and panel discussions concerning the issues that face electronic music and music production.
What really makes a music scene? You know–those certain reasons that make you put on a jacket and promptly head for the El or call a cab just to get there in time. That’s what Chicago Innovative Electronic Music (CIEM) and subVariant are asking via their Crowdsourced 1.0 event: What is it about electronic music that people want to see live?
It really is a heady question. But, CIEM & subVariant‘s preliminary answer seems to be: "That which is "crowdsourced."
To the unfamiliar, "crowdsourced" means that the content that is the most popular "rises to the top" via votes–as in, the crowd chooses what’s the most relevant. On Digg.com (a popular news and entertainment aggregator) the front page is filled with only the content that has been voted up through "diggs." Threadless is also a good example: only the designs that are voted hottest actually make it to production.
On April 10, CIEM will test their theory in the electronic music world. Electronic music fans and supporters were asked to vote on a number of the submissions from Chicago artists to determine the lineup for the night. After approximately 600 online-votes later, the results were in, and the top four will perform in order of the number of votes recieved.
It’s democracy in electronic music. Like, seriously, democracy. Not that "republic" stuff that’s been thrown around. These artists have been chosen by the people, for the people.
Check out this free performance of Moldover at Risque this Saturday!
Known to 400,000 YouTube viewers as “The Godfather of Controllerism”, MOLDOVER has become the inspiration for a new generation of musicians interested in moving “beyond the decks.” Feb 18th, Chicago’s Ableton user group will feature Moldover for a special edition user group session.
Famous for building, hacking, and playing controllers with virtuosic skill, Moldover’s dynamic performances with his custom instruments are bringing new life into electronic music. Fusing hard rock with electronica, glitch edits, and frantic drum beats, Moldover’s signature style defies categorization. And with appearances on national television, coverage in major music publications, and countless live shows around the world, Moldover is in constant demand by people interested in this next evolution of music.
Were you one of those kids who had a next door neighbor who had that sweet corvette PowerWheel and were too woefully poor to have one yourself? We were those kids, and we decided to do something about it….20 years later.
We decided to modify and race PowerWheels, We do it for the glory, for the daring dreamy dream of that tasty elixir known as childhood that we’ll never have again cause we have day jobs and don’t weigh 70 pounds anymore. (Fatty)
We also want to play Mario Kart in real life without all those pesky pixels.
The PowerWheel Racing Series (PPPWRS) presents to the world an event for the ages.
On August 15th 6 teams will gather to win the prized PowerWheel Cup an award so prestigious I just decided to make it up five minutes ago to sound impressive.
Four Events will take place:
1. Off Road Race
2. Mario Kart Round
3. PowerWheel Polo
4. The Endurance Demolition Derby
FREE ADMISSION
11:30am Gates Open
DJs: Liz Revision,
Bands:
Sacremento Park (next to it)
3506 N Sacrement
Chicago, IL
This Event brought to you by: Pumping Station: One (Chicago’s Only Hackerspace), Best Express Messenger Service, and Chief O’Neils Pub
Geeks, nerds, dorks — chances are, you didn’t attend your high school prom. During college, you were so focused on your engineering/math/science degree that other humans barely registered within your domain space. This is your chance to rectify your oversight without yielding to irrational forces of social pressure, and perhaps enrich your symbolic-semantic internodal linkages, as well! (okay, that was actually gibberish) Come to the GEEK PROM. There will be music, dancing, and some sort of contest based on physical appearance, but we promise that it won’t be excruciating or embarassing! Local tinkerers will bring their latest DIY and hacked gadgets — stuff that you WISH you had made for your High School Science Fair. To attend this fundraiser (see Meta) follow this simple instruction set:
» Obtain advance entry clearance for $15/couple or $10/single. $20/couple or $15/single at the door.
» Prior to GEEK PROM (but not too prior) enhance your physical appearance with
a. hygiene
b. cosmetic adjustment
c. optimized exolayer assembly
» On Saturday June 13th, Utilize a transport medium (non-virtual) to resolve this address:
Co-Prosperity Sphere
3219 S Morgan St.
Chicago, IL
» Entry clearance will be granted at the door for donations of $20/couple or $15/single, starting at 9 pm Central; unbonded pairs also welcome. {READ MORE}
If you’re in Chicago and decided to sit out on Saturday’s events due to the snow / ice storm, come out to Subterranean listen to music by local electronic musicians and check out live visuals on the walls. Featuring Quantazelle (Liz Revision), Coyote DG, Drmlgcc, Garo, Lokua. Live Video by: Glen Stephani, The Machinist, Mason Dixon.
Here’s an interesting art / performance project byMaywa Denki. Based on the simple remotely-triggered servo action of “knockers” (not in the sleezy sense)–which are direct percussive controllers that can be used to pound on various things including boxes, pipes, and guitar strings. In the above video, these knocker modules are employed to make a switch-based drum-machine-like instrument that you assign a sequence of remote knockers to, and then control the playback speed manually with a crank. It has the surreal effect of being a very nerdy guitar, with the thrashing accomplished via said crank.
Seeing as performative elements are key in this particular project, the “Wings” project shown about a bit past half way is more showy than useful, with the musician sporting spreading mechanical “wings” with knocker modules that hit hollow wooden balls that can be played via controllers on the fingers.
The video is particularly amusing in its Devo-esque tongue-in-cheek humor during the actual demonstrations, as well as the inclusion of vintage educational filmstrip dings to demarcate a new instrument being showcased. While having a direct, realtime controller of percussive sounds created remotely may be interesting for its novelty / humor value, so much more can be done in the field of musical interfaces that this sort of thing just begs to be improved upon. However, the vision and sheer performative nature of these instruments is inspiring to all who focus on creating innovative interfaces for music creation.
The Sound Ball is a soccer ball that makes different sorts of sounds based on whether it’s thrown, kicked or spun. Check out this video of widely different audiences interacting with it. There’s a particularly amusing clip of a kid with soccer skills bouncing it around and catching it with his knees.
The SoundBall is a foam ball with a motion sensor inside, which communicates wirelessly with a computer, so that sounds and music can be created through dance and/or play. The project was developed in pursuit of Aleksei’s interest in new interfaces that interpret physical motion sonically, giving dancers and other performers the opportunity to interact musically in real time with traditional instrumentalists.
CNet speculated that it’s an Arduino or Parallax board inside the ball and sending data via bluetooth to Cycling ’74 Max/MSP running on a computer somewhere.
It’s a concept piece by Aleksei stevens, a Brooklyn, NY-based composer, lapto jockey, and professor of digital audio and performance. Check out his Mypace page where you can here his music: Aleskei Stevens’ Myspace page.[via]
Geeks, nerds, dorks — chances are, you didn’t attend your high school prom. During college, you were so focused on your engineering/math/science degree that other humans barely registered within your domain space. This is your chance to rectify your oversight without yielding to irrational forces of social pressure, and perhaps enrich your symbolic-semantic internodal linkages, as well! (okay, that was actually gibberish) Come to the GEEK PROM. There will be music, dancing, and some sort of contest based on physical appearance, but we promise that it won’t be excruciating or embarassing! Local tinkerers will bring their latest DIY and hacked gadgets — stuff that you WISH you had made for your High School Science Fair. To attend this fundraiser (see Meta) follow this simple instruction set:
