MEMO AKTEN (Turkey)
Born in Istanbul in 1975 he lives and works in London.
To analyse the invisible relations that develop within his creations, Memo Akten explores the ties between art and science, basing his work on the interaction between space, movement, sound and time. His work concentrates on stimulating strong sensory experiences through installations, performance pieces, film, video and on-line applications. During the 1980s he was linked with hacker culture programming the era’s 8-bit computers. After earning a degree in civil engineering, in the 1990s he moved to London to work in the video game industry as a designer and programmer. A supporter of “open-source” policies and spaces, Akten is one of the principle architects of the openFrameworks project. In 2011 he co-founded the Marshmallow Laser Feast, a collective of artists and engineers. In 2013 his work, developed in collaboration with the visual artist Quayola, was awarded the Golden Nica at the Prix Ars Electronica, in the Animation category. His creations have been shown at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal Festival Hall in London, at the Holon Museum in Tel Aviv, the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture in Moscow and the STRP Biennal in Eindhoven.
Works Presented: Simple Harmonic Motion #2 e Simple Harmonic Motion #5
Through the overlap of rhythms and basic elements that progressively acquire increasing levels of complexity, Simple Harmonic Motion activates a process that gradually mutates simple and linear structures. The piece is inspired by natural physical phenomena and mathematical calculations, as well as the ideas of Norman McLaren, John Whitney, Steve Reich, John Cage, Gyorgi Ligeti, Edgar Varèse and Brian Eno.
Personalised software is used to predefine the roles of various rhythmic elements, which develop in an extremely simple and relatively monotonous manner. The duration, movement and sound of each element is synchronised to ensure that the whole functions like a complex visual and acoustic mechanism. The inspiration derives from the movement of a pendulum and other comparable phenomena, amplifying the complexity of sensory patterns using modules regulated by the same equations determining oscillatory behaviour.
VALERIO DE BONIS & GIULIO COLANGELO (Italy)
Valerio De Bonis was born in Potenza in 1981 where he continues to work and live.
As a percussionist he has participated in various international competitions, cultivating a passion for contemporary theatre and continuing to work as a musician and actor. For his activity as a video maker and composer he was received various awards and been selected for presentation at important international festivals. He was awarded a position as artist in residence at the ZKM in Karlsruhe (Germany) that, as part of the exhibition Klang als Medium fur Kunst also hosted a sound installation created by De Bonis in collaboration with Giulio Colangelo (Potenza, 1986). His works include electro-acoustic compositions, interactive pieces, video art, works of creative writing and audio commentaries for short films or experimental audio-visual pieces exploring the role of voice, gesture and improvisation in electronic music. For some years he has also been developing systems and interfaces that allow for real-time audio and video control.
Work presented: (re)BO(u)NDS
A droplet of water falls from above, one approximately every 30/60 seconds. A contact microphone concealed in a glass box captures the resulting vibrations. This small sound echoes inside the space between a series of speakers to create a chain reaction: the embryo of “process-chaos”. This multi-phonic system emphasises the different relations between different audio sources. This “system of echoes”, which includes macro-sounds (groups of autonomous cells) and micro-sounds (small portions of water droplets) is generated by a patch characterised by a range of delays regulated by gradually shifting parameters. The intention is to manage this “liquid chaos” in time and space, channelling it through cables and speakers, to offer a metaphysical interpretation that allows its gravitational energies and internal points of force to manage the process of creating an autonomous structure, similar to a crystal.
TIM MURRAY-BROWNE AND THE MUSIC HACKSPACE ENSEMBLE (United Kingdom)
Born in London in 1986 where he lives and works.
Tim Murray-Browne focuses his activities on the creation of interactive installations and non-conventional musical performances. He links the science of engineering with music to generate uncertain compositions that take shape above all thanks to the creative participation of the listener. His recent work reveals how the interaction with other and diverse means of relating to the environment can mould our identity and the way we perceive space. According to these premises he creates sound environments that respond to creative impulses from the public, dialoguing with visitors in an attempt to explore new practices of expression and create music as part of a shared collective ritual. His installations, recently proposed thanks also to his collaboration with the Music Hackspace Ensemble of Hoxton, have been presented in such spaces as the Barbican and Victoria & Albert Museum in London, or the Berkeley Art Museum in the United States.
Work presented: The Cave of Sounds
The Cave of Sounds is an interactive installation in which music becomes a moment of aggregation, utilising new technologies as a privileged means of expression to interact with those who enter this creative and fantastic space. Inspired by the prehistoric origins of music as a unifying force, the work consists of eight instruments designed by the members of the Music Hackspace collective: from the “sonisphere” to a generator of waves similar to a Theremin, from surfaces of light produce sound through plays of shadow to sensors activated only by direct contact with the body. The public is thus invited to play an active role and experiment with new experiences to create a random and changing orchestra, opening up toward a creative exchange with the public in a ludic, stimulating and communal space.
KATHY HINDE (United Kingdom)
Born in Bristol in 1975 where she lives and works.
The interdisciplinary work of Kathy Hinde combines the approach of a composer with the sensitivity of a visual artist to investigate the relationships between sound and image through constantly evolving and “self-generating” installations. Her works combine technology and nature to create a poetic and thought-provoking experience that offers a stimulus to the acquisition of a greater awareness of the world and a more profound comprehension of the relationship between new media and the environment. By combining diverse elements to produce audio-visual performances, site-specific works, kinetic sculptures and on-line sound maps, Hinde ranges from music to video and from sound art to theatre. Her work has been presented in Europe, China, Pakistan, the United States, Colombia and Brazil, at the SESC Pompiea and the SESC Santana in São Paolo, at the Pixelache Festival in Helsinki, LAB30 Media Arts Festival in Augsburg, the Issue Project Room in New York, the VM Art Gallery in Karachi and the Barbican Centre in London.
Work presented: Piano Migrations
The interior of an old upright piano is reutilised to create a kinetic sound sculpture that serves as the surface for the projection of shadows of birds whose wing beats generate a continually evolving musical score. Their movement activates the hammers of the piano that strike its chords, as if the birds themselves were creating the delicate and warm music that progressively invades the space. With Piano Migrations Kathy Hinde re-elaborates the various recurring themes of her work: the mapping of migratory routes, the relationship between man and technology and the effects of environmental change on the natural environment.
The installation can also become a proper musical instrument that the artist manipulates live, assisted by software created by Matthew Olden. Together they create a highly fascinating performance, in which image becomes sound and sound becomes image through a series of transformations resulting from live samples, mechanised automatons and multi-projections.
DAVID HOCHGATTERER (Austria)
Born in Linz in 1985 where he lives and works.
David Hochgatterer is a young artist previously involved in lighting design for theatre, with a recent foray into the world of sound art. His work has been shown at Linz’s prestigious Ars Electronica festival. His installation Time to X, inspired by Einstein’s theory of space/time and the four dimensions of hyperspace, was awarded first prize in the “sound art” category of the 2014 edition of the Sonic Arts Award. The complex and scientific nature of the piece, based on the decomposition of an audio fragment to the point of extrapolating the structural components that are not immediately perceivable to a “superficial” listen, reveals a complex and articulated method that Hochgatterer has also applied to the pieces presented at the MuMoK (Museum of Modern Art) in Vienna and the Crossing Europe film festival in Linz. His is a rigorous though visionary and creative approach, guided by processes of mathematical elaboration and a vivid imagination.
Work presented: Time to X
The audio for Time to X is generated by a row of 96 small speakers measuring almost five meters in length and mounted on the wall. For the installation, the artist ‘cut’ an audio file of a spoken phrase into 96 fragments, each reproduced simultaneously by the 96 speakers. The result could be termed a sort of “freeze-frame of a period in time”, as all the acoustic information is compacted into a single moment. From a distance the public perceives a general impression of white noise; approaching the speakers at the correct speed, from left to right – moving along the line – the perception changes to that of one fragment at a time suspended in space/time that assemble into a human voice. Standing in front of one speaker is akin to stopping time, which is crystallised in each single audio fragment that, heard together, recompose the original recording.
JEREMY KEENAN (United States)
Born in California in 1977 he lives and works in London.
Jeremy Keenan’s creative work concentrates essentially on sound art and the use of music in site-specific pieces, ranging between a classical idea of instrumental/electronic performance and the plastic form of sound installations with a direct relationship to space made possible by multichannel systems. After proposing his work for festivals and public spaces in California, his creations earned widespread visibility in the United Kingdom (the Crystal Glass Mirror Stone installation at the Café Oto in London in 2013) and across Europe (Gas Natural Fenosa Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) in La Coruña, the Museumsquartier in Vienna and the Titanik Gallery in Turku, Finland). His current interests focus on the development of new strategies for using electronica in live performances as an expansion of his investigations of interactive installations. Keenan is the co-director of the London collective Call & Response, active principally in the field of sound art.
Work presented: Garden of Signals
Garden of Signals utilises feedback as a source and generative process. Similar to Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music, Microphone by David Tudor or the work of Agostino Di Scipio, Keenan’s pieces are inspired by the processes underlying the reproduction of sound. Here the volume generated by six different speakers influences the movement of six suspended pick-ups that, in turn, produce a mutation in the fluctuating intensity of feedback issuing from the speakers. The mutual relationship between the sound from the speakers and the movement of the pick-ups generates continuous oscillations. The piece is inspired by Keenan’s interest in remote signals emitted by cellular phones and the way they affect the movement of human bodies in space when responding to their impulses. The multitude of these signals appears to be regulated by a casual and invisible process that, however, has a direct and immediate effect on physical bodies.