Cybersonica 09

Space Invaders: Art and the Computer Game Environment
FACT, 88 Wood Street, Liverpool, L14DQ www.fact.co.uk
Preview: Thursday, 17 December 2009, 6.00pm – 8.00pm
Booking: rsvp@fact.co.uk

FACT explores the increasingly blurred boundaries between videogame spaces and real spaces with an exhibition featuring artists including Bill Viola, Blast Theory, Aram Bartholl, Cao Fei, Ludic Society and more, alongside playable, commercial games that push the limits of the medium. Space Invaders is part of a season of gaming at FACT which includes interactive games events, competitions and a game-themed film programme.

Gallery 1 & 2, Media Lounge, Public Spaces and online, FREE entry
Space Invaders is open to the public from 18 December 2009 to 21 February 2010

Opening Night 8-Bit Performances
Music shaped by computer game culture selected by Cybersonica; Firebrand Boy (Glasgow) and the Kittenrock label use gameboys, Nintendos and other consoles to get you dancing! Plus a special Marching DS Orchestra with kids, siblings and parents led by Ross Dalziel of SoundNetwork.

Then follow the 8-bit music over to Chameleon for an afterparty:
8.00pm-9.00pm, Soundmatrix – a Liverpool-based musician who makes glitchy, 8-bit beats on a Gameboy running LSDJ
9.00pm-10.00pm, Syphus – a UK-based demoscene and chiptune musician who has been composing and performing for most of his life

Breakfast With The Artists
The Box 18 December
10:30am-12:30pm
Price: £4.00/£3.00 (Members & concs)

Join us for breakfast with a selection of Space Invaders artists, who will be in discussion with Neil Thompson, Studio Art Director at Bizarre Creations, formerly of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

More details, including artist biographies, media links and a downloadable 60 minute mix of “some of the best modern chip sounds from the past few years along with a few classics” compiled by Jellica of Kittenrock can be found at the Cybersonica Social website: http://social.cybersonica.org

5 artists – 5 events – 500 miles! (roughly)
Wednesday, 23 – Tuesday, 29 September 2009

With support from Arts Council England, Cybersonica’s Autumn 09 programming included the first outing of the Road Trip – a hectic week of roving activity and collaborative programming that saw a small but select group of invited UK and international artists make a succession of interventions – artist talks, demonstrations, performances, workshops, exhibition, installation etc. – to bridge and contribute to a series of events in London, Leeds and Liverpool.

Road Trippers included:

• Matthew Davidson a.k.a Stretta of the monome community – Boston, USA
• Jens Heinen of Visionlabz and Lichtfaktor – Cologne, Germany
• Simon Blackmore, Tony Hall and Steve Symons of the Owl Project, Manchester, UK
• Gareth Goodison of captincaptin and TINT – London, UK
• Mike Blow of Evolutionary Art – Brighton, UK

and Road Trip ‘stopovers’ took in:

• Musion Academy, London
• i-Design 09, London
• Unconference @ Expo Leeds
• Interface Amnesty @ AND Festival, Liverpool
• ‘Market Day’ with Kinetica Museum and TINT @ Old Spitalfields Market, London

For artist biogs, descriptions of works and more detail visit the
Programme page.

For photographs visit the Cybersonica 09 Road Trip
Flickr set – or use the lovely
Road Trip TiltViewer.

For videos from Jens Heinen’s i-Design 09 presentations visit
Cybersonica on Vimeo.

For additional blogosphere posts and media check out the following links:

Interface Amnesty:

• video: http://fact.tv/videos/watch/715
• pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelh8/sets/72157622338658741/
• the noise of the day (mental!) from Neil Morrin of DefNetMedia who was live podcasting from the stage: http://bit.ly/audioamnesty
• the downloadable software: http://pixelh8.co.uk/pixelh8-music-tech-master-stroke-and-beta/
• some good music tech geek links namedropping AND: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/09/pixelh8-master-stroke/, http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2009/09/pixelh8-master-stroke-ds-beta-now.html (which got syndicated to about 30 other sites) &
• http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/2009/09/27/pixelh8-unveils-new-homebrew-music-software-for-ds/ & http://null-void.co.uk/blog/2009/9/28/pixelh8-releases-the-and-interface-amnesty-pixelh8-music-tec.html

i-Design 09:

• articles: http://www.designweek.co.uk/we-need-more-consistent-backing-of-interaction-design/3005471.article

Stretta

• blog post: http://stretta.blogspot.com/2009/09/return-to-boston.html
• photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=114519&id=794752839&l=f122d4db27

The Cybersonica Road Trip was supported by Arts Council England, i-Design 09, Sound and Music’s Expo Leeds, Kinetica Museum, Musion Academy, SoundNetwork and FACT.

Thursday, 24 September 2009, 9am-7.30pm
University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW
www.idesign-london.com
Conference: Standard £135, Design Week Subscriber £99, Students £75
Online Booking: www.amiando.com/idesign_09.html
Exhibition, Talks and Portfolio Clinic (must register): FREE
Nearest Tube: Oxford Circus

i-Design 09 is an essential one day conference and showcase for anyone with an interest or passion for interactive design and the digital arts. The programme aims to inspire, entertain and explore how our digital future looks set to unfold and the central role interactive design will take in our cultural, work and social life.

Cybersonica’s contribution to i-Design 09 includes:

• Virtually Real – an exhibition of digital interactive artworks and installations, technology showcases and demonstrations in the Old Gymnasium that present our unique – and often sonic – viewpoint on the i-Design 09 theme;
• Two 5D Interludes by MOTH & Jens Heinen of Lichtfaktor and Visionlabz within the i-Design Conference programme;
• and as part of the i-Design 09 early evening Film Screenings in the Old Cinema – a re-enactment by MOTH & VC Kristi of Plinth – their recent site-specific audiovisual performance responding to the De la Warr Pavilion (the UK’s first public building designed in the Modernist style).

It features the following contributing artists, works and collaborators:

• Two interactive works by squidsoup – Ghosts – text-based communication in the digital age – and a commission for PortablePixelPlayground Glowing Pathfinder Bugs – which enables you to engage with a hybrid centipede/caterpillar in a recreation of its natural habitat – the sandy desert of Faroffistan.
• Soda‘s Generative Art System – a custom and highly reconfigurable native windows application that takes feeds of still and video images and text and montages them together in real time, never repeating.
• The Sancho Plan‘s Spacequatica installation – play drumpads to explore an audiovisual aquarium populated by a varied cast of musical sea creatures.
• VisionLabz‘ Gold – your movements effect a screen of dynamic, glistening, golden fluid.
• Kinetica Museum featured artist:
  • Balint Bolygo‘s Epicycloidoscope – a visual theremin producing complex lightwaves by a moving laser beam
• TINT featured artists:
  • Tanja Vujinovic‘s Extagram 2 – part of a series of tactile-sonic objects that recode events into audio-visual noisy data streams
  • David Strang & Vincent Van Uffelen‘s Transmission+Interference – uses laser light to transmit audio signals through hacked laser pointers that are received by photocells and amplified through speakers.
  • Stuart Dunbar‘s Bad Faith – what at first glance appears to be a solid sculpture shifts it’s position in relation to the speed and distance of the viewer via motion sensors and servos.
  • captincaptin‘s Circling Sounds – a single user, 10 speaker immersive sound installation using found and engineered audio recordings.
• Jason Bruges Studio‘s Study In White – a new piece by the studio continues its exploration of the relationships between qualities of light and depth of surface.
• SHOWStudio – an online fashion and art project that documents the creative process of the interactive and motion image projects it broadcasts via its online studio presents some of its latest work.
• Musion Academy – the company behind the Madonna and Gorillaz holographic performances present the Musion Academy – a forum for visual artists, creatives, academics and digital artists to come together and explore new technology and holographic projection.
• MOTH – bridge the divide between club visuals and street art, generating site-specific HD 720p video graffiti designed in response to the morphology, texture and ambience of the spaces and structures of the outside world.
• Lichtfaktor – the Cologne based “light-writing” team use light to give expression to their creativity taking advantage of a variety of light sources to produce photos and videos in cities by night.
• OWL Project – the collaborative group of Manchester based artists who share interests in human interaction with technology and process led art – exhibit, demonstrate and contruct their distinctive range of wooden musical and sculptural instruments.
• Monome – design adaptable, minimalist interfaces in the catskills and seek less complex, more versatile tools: accessible, yet fundamentally adaptable – presented by Boston based Matthew Davidson aka Stretta – musician, software interface designer and monome virtuoso who fuses the worlds of harmonic theory and intelligent software.

with the following schedule:

For artist biogs, descriptions of works and more detail visit the Programme page.

University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW
Thursday, 24th September 2009, 9am-7.30pm
Conference: Standard £135, Design Week Subscriber £99, Students £75
Online Booking: www.amiando.com/idesign_09.html
Exhibition, Talks and Portfolio Clinic (must register): FREE

More details at:
www.idesign-london.com

Leicester Square Gardens, WC2
4th – 14th June, 9am-7pm
Launch event: Thursday, 4th June, 11am,  Leicester Square Gardens, WC2
Evening talk with Martyn Ware: Thursday, 4th June, 7pm, Westminster Reference Library, St Martin’s Street, WC2H 2HP
Please RSVP to: alexa@arts-com

More details at:
www.westminster.gov.uk/leisureandculture/artsandentertainment/
soundlife.cfm
www.westminster.gov.uk/leisureandculture/artsandentertainment/
soundlife2.cfm
www.futureofsound.org/event07.htm

Saturday 25th April
Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA
Afternoon Workshop and Talks: 2-5pm, £4/£3 concs
Evening Showcase & Installations: 7-11pm, £7/£5 concs
To book and for more info: boxoffice@arnolfini.org.uk +44 (0)117 9172300/01
www.futureofsound.org
www.arnolfini.org

Tuesday 24th March
Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW
Symposium: Media Resources Building, Screen 1, 2pm-6pm, Free
Showcase: The Great Hall, 7pm-10pm, Free
To book and for more info: a.ouzman@gold.ac.uk +44 (0)20 7919 7640
Nearest tube: Canada Water – replacement buses to New Cross/New Cross Gate
Nearest overground: New Cross/New Cross Gate
www.futureofsound.org

Presented by Future Of Sound, Goldsmiths Screenschool, Sound Practice Research Unit and Centre for Contemporary Music Culture, Illustrious and Sonic Arts Network

SYMPOSIUM ON SYNESTHESIA
Media Resources Building, Screen 1, 2pm to 6pm

Keynote speaker: Andrey Smirnov – asmir.theremin.ru
“Graphic Sound: technology, music and science”
Andrey Smirnov is an interdisciplinary artist, composer and researcher and developer of electronic music techniques. He is a founding director and the Senior Lecturer of the Theremin Center for Electroacoustic Music at Moscow State Conservatory. His SOUND_in_Z project was recently on at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

Presentations from experimental artists, including:
Andy Cameron – www.futureofsound.org/4.htm
Dr Mick Grierson: Oramics – www.mickgrierson.co.uk
Derek Holtzer: Tonewheels – www.umatic.nl/tonewheels_historical.html
Rob Mullender: Photophonics – silentlight.blogspot.com

SHOWCASE
Great Hall, 7pm to 10pm

Hosted by Martyn Ware, founder member of The Human League and Heaven 17 and a pioneer in electronic music. Using a ground breaking 3D surround sound system, this multi-sensory show fuses an international collective of cutting edge audiovisual practitioners.

body>data>space – www.bodydataspace.net
Andy Cameron – www.futureofsound.org/4.htm
Sophie Clements – www.sophieclements.com
Tal Rosner – www.talrosner.com
Scanner – www.scannerdot.com
The Sancho Plan – www.thesanchoplan.com
Andrey Smirnov – asmir.theremin.ru
United Visual Artists – www.uva.co.uk

More details at the Future Of Sound website – www.futureofsound.org.

Sunday 1st March, 8-10pm
P3, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS
VIP OPENING PERFORMANCE EVENT: £15 (Limited tickets available)
FULL TICKET: One day Art Fair entrance plus all events and performances: £12/£10 conc
ONE DAY: Art Fair entrance only: £5
WEEKEND PASS: Includes Art Fair entrance for Sat, Sun, Mon and all Art Fair events and performances on these days: £20
Please note that Full and Weekend Pass ticket holders must sign-up to events on the day.
For bookings please go to Ticketweb: www.ticketweb.co.uk
Nearest tube: Baker Street
Nearest overground: Marylebone
www.kinetica-artfair.com
social.cybersonica.org
www.cybersonica.org

Threep & Vent Media, VC Kristi & Oddscene, Steve Nosurname & Barry Gene Murphy

Cybersonica Social creates a little slice of Cybersonica – London’s annual celebration of music, sound, art and technology – for a brief but enjoyable two hours this Sunday evening at the Kinetica Art Fair.

The seventh in a now somewhat irregular night, the evening features a select line-up of new and previously featured talent including the idiosyncratic granular textures and analogue rhythms of Threepaccompanied by the minimalist visual waveforms of Vent Media; the edgy electronic grooves and live, gutsy vocal FX of VC Kristi with the evolving and surrealist imagery of Oddscene; and the old-skool electro to 8-bit freakouts to drum n’ bass mentalism of Steve Nosurname with the kinetic and potent visuals of moving image artist Barry Gene Murphy.

Kinetica Art Fair, the UK’s first art fair dedicated to kinetic, robotic, sound, light and time-based art opens in London on Friday 27 February – and carnivorous art, man-animal-machine hybrids, mechanical drawing machines, subliminal installations, pole dancing robots, light sculptures and cybernetics are just some of the exhibits to be found there – providing unparalleled opportunities for the public and collectors alike to view and buy work from this thriving international movement and to participate in the programme of talks, workshops and performances.

Longtime Kinetica Museum collaborators, Cybersonica’s contribution to the Art Fair showcases established names and emerging talent who make their own music or audiovisual work using inventive technologies and then perform it live (as opposed to just pressing play in Ableton Live). We strongly recommend progressive electronic music makers, audiovisualisers, digital artists and fans looking for somewhere to meet like-minded people, share ideas and enjoy fresh, vibrant music and performance to come along and check it all out.

For biogs, photos, links, video & downloads visit the Cybersonica Social website < social.cybersonica.org>.