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I CA S Festiva l – I nterna tiona l Cities of A dva nc ed Sound
N etw ork i n g T om orrow ’s Art for a n U n k n ow n Fu tu re
27 Apri l – 3 Ma y 2015 / / Dresden , DE
PRESS RELEASE
1 April 2015
SECOND WAVE OF CONFIRMED ARTISTS
Following our first announcement for the ICAS Festival this past March, we are excited to share
the second wave of confirmed artists and projects that will perform at the festival from 27 April to
3 May 2015 in some of Dresden’s most interesting venues, including LAB 15, Altes Wettbüro,
Hole of Fame, and the Thalia movie theatre, as well as the Festspielhaus Hellerau:
Evian Christ live [UK] / Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves & Etienne Jaumet – “Satori” [FR] /
Lumisokea [BE/IT] / Borusiade [RO] / RSS B0YS [PL] / N1L (Mãrtiņš Ro#is) [LV] / Charlotte
Bendiks [NO] / Le Petit Garçon [NO] / 12z [HU] / Pasajera Oscura [AT] / Bruma [FR] /
Assimilation Process [DE] / Cooptrol [UY]
We are also pleased to announce an open call for participation for the MusicMakers Hacklab
hosted by Interspecifics [MX] and Alberto de Campo [AT], as well as for the FELD workshop
on Audiovisual Creavity in Space with Ulf Langheinrich [DE] and the Mini-DJ’s Mini-Workshop
for kids led by the above-announced artist Charlotte Bendiks.
A collaborative festival presented by the ICAS (International Cities of Advanced Sound) network,
the ICAS Festival will reunite over 20 music and media art festivals in a 7-day programme that
assembles a mix of club concerts, outdoor interventions, a multi-day conference programme, a
film series, lab formats, and an exhibition. The festival adopts the theme of “Tools for an
Unknown Future” in an attempt to examine how to cope with increasing uncertainty in the field of
culture using the tools that have been developed in our society thus far. In times with no illusions
of utopia, the urge to find methods of self-empowerment – a safety net in the face of the unknown
– is more urgently needed than ever before.
The standard ICAS Festival Passport remains on sale/ and the Professional Passport, which
grants access to all festival events, is now also available for purchase. Press accreditation
remains open. Tickets to individual events will be made available throughout April.
icasfestival.net/
facebook.com/ICASnetwork
twitter.com/icasnetwork
1 SECOND WA VE OF CONFI R MED A R TI STS A ND PR OJECTS
On May 2nd, the Festspielhaus Hellerau will welcome a live set by Evian Christ, the young British
Tri Angle-signed producer internationally lauded both for his independent work and his
collaboration with Kanye West. His broad sonic brushstrokes provide drenched, epic backing
tracks for the proverbial MC or hold their own as emblems of an adventurous new melding of hip
hop, hardstyle, trap, and R&B.
The closing evening of the festival will see the presentation of “Satori”, the fruit of a collaboration
between multimedia visual artist Félicie d'Estienne d'Orves and multi-instrumentalist / electro-pop
godfather Etienne Jaumet. Satori takes its name from Jaumet's 2011 solo EP and intersects
analogue sounds representative of his work with visuals largely inspired by d'Estienne d'Orves's
recent installation, a tribute to Iannis Xenakis traversing the themes of death and reincarnation.
While Jaumet's manipulation of analogue synthesizers encourages spatialised listening,
d'Estienne d'Orves's visuals, which project light and video onto scenic sculpture, comprise a
dance between physicality and abstraction. These two contributions will join forces to blur and
bring into question the visitors’ understanding of reality.
Lumisokea, a joint project between Belgian Koenraad Ecker and Italian Andrea Taeggi, originated
in 2008 at the Amsterdam music conservatory. Ecker and Taeggi combine acoustic instruments
with analogue hardware to craft nuanced, grayscale sonic environments. Their live performances
incorporate visuals by Yannick Jacquet aka Legoman. Supported by Berlin Current, a CTM
Festival-led initiative that aims to identify and support emerging sounds from the city together with
numerous partners and support from the Musicboard Berlin, the duo will appear on the evening of
May 2nd at the Festspielhaus Hellerau.
Romanian-born Berlin resident Miruna Boruzescu aka Borusiade will spin a mixture of dark disco,
minimal wave, raw house, and acid. The producer is classically trained but started making her
own brooding, melodic dance tracks in 2005 after having DJed for a handful of years in Berlin's
emerging alternative club scene.
RSS B0YS, a duo consisting of two nameless Polish artists known for performing in elaborate
veils, deliver a rowdy, shamanistic techno project combining analogue hardware with e-drums.
Ignited by a meeting in Africa and inspired by the transformative potential of the drum circle, the
project celebrates the archaic roots of techno by paying tribute to tribal musical traditions that are
at once intricate and gut-level, provocative and hypnotizing.
Riga-based artist Mãrtiņš Ro#is, who will perform as N1L, has been experimenting with electronic
music since the late 1990s. In his work at large, Rokis explores the multimodality of human
perception through installations, live performances and works for multi-channel systems. As N1L,
he's less concerned with formal or conceptual aspects and rather investigates electronic club
music culture in the broadest sense of the term.
Norwegian DJ and producer Charlotte Bendiks appears both as facilitator of a DJ workshop for
kids on May 1st and for a DJ set on one of the festival's club evenings. The Tromsø electronic
music queen's fusion of classic house, Latin, and African grooves leaves dance floors euphoric
and drenched in sweat. As a producer she has worked together with Lena Willikens, Coma, and
Daniel Maloso and released music on LOVE OD Communications. Another Tromsø resident, Le
Petit Garçon, produces deserted, ambient techno with shoegaze-inspired guitar samples,
2 synthesizer riffs, and churning bass lines. His latest release, the Lab.oratory 12”, was put out in
late 2012.
Pasajera Oscura is a collaboration between Christina Nemec aka Chra and Irradiation. As Chra,
Nemec molds sine waves into beats using both analogue and digital tools. She is the co-founder
and co-owner of the Vienna-based label comfortzone, and her upcoming LP, Empty Airport, will
be released on Editions Mego. Irradiation, also Vienna-based, plunges thumping beats into rich
and ominous sonic backgrounds. Many of her live shows incorporate visuals and contributions by
other musicians. Pasajera Oscura combines Chra and Irradiation's highly individual strengths for
a dark, nuanced ride.
France's Bruma creates intimate, meditative music merging micro-dub and post-industrial fog. His
autodidacticism has allowed both for the development of a singular understanding of repetition
and variation and for the creation of personalised computer-based compositional tools. His
complex, idiosyncratic electroacoustic ecosystems are characterized by an abstract style that
straddles science and poetry.
ICAS is happy to present 12z, a collective from Budapest devoted to using free electroacoustic
improvisation to construct soundtracks and sonic landscapes. Core members Bálint Szabó
(guitar) and Márton Kristóf (electronics) have built up a significant body of work consisting of film
scores, studio recordings, and live recordings of weekly jam sessions featuring the contributions
of many guest musicians. 12z's work often alternates jagged rhythmic passages with plateaus of
harmonic tension, but always, as the members describe it, "chisels structure out of chaos."
Dresden's own Stefan Senf (aka Noize Creator) will appear on May 1st under his other moniker
Assimilation Process. A central force in the Dresden electronic music scene since the early
nineties, Senf combines digitally processed sounds, field recordings, and other analogue input.
The results are futuristic, massive, off-kilter, and often sinister soundscapes that nod, now and
then, to kinetic dancefloor impulses.
Johannesburg native turned Montevideo, Uruguay resident Hernan Gonzalez began his Cooptrol
project in 2000 and since has found a home in and between post-industrial, IDM, techno, and
dubstep. A trained drummer, Gonzales prioritizes syncopation and polyrhythm and adds unique
synth samples to the mix.
This second announcement, which includes many artists supported by multiple European ICAS
network organisations via the SHAPE platform, adds to an already rich line-up including:
Lorenzo Senni [IT] / Gábor Lázár [HU] / Mørk [NO] / Bocca al Lupo (Kathy Alberici with
Federico Nitti) [INT] / Low Jack [FR] / HUMATIC – “MNM stage version” feat Mieko Suzuki
[DE] / Alexander Dorn – Phantasialand [DE] / Random Logic [SI]
With outdoor interventions: Teun Verkerk & Joris Hoogeboom – BUQS [NL] / Environmental
Auditors [INT] and a film programme regrouping: “The Sound of Belgium” by Jozef Deville
[BE] / “High on Hope” by Piers Sanderson [UK] / “Nine Futures: Sounds Fragmenting”
[CA/UK] by Nathan Budzinski & Theo Cook
Stay tuned as we reveal the full festival programme mid-April!
icasfestival.net/ // facebook.com/ICASnetwork // twitter.com/icasnetwork
3 CA LL FOR A PPLI CA NTS: MUSI CMA KER S HA CKLA B –
A SCOR E FOR UNCER TA I NTY
Hacklab: 27 April – 3 May 2015
Final public performance: 3 May 2015
“We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us”.
– John M. Culking / Marshall McLuhan
Our planet’s sonic landscape has been gradually modified with each new technological upgrade,
continually creating previously unheard sonorities. We may have conquered the infinite variety of
noise-sounds, as Russollo put it, yet “the machines we use for making music can only give back
what we put into them” (Varèse, 1966). The current context of technological democratization, in
which falling costs have allowed for improved access to specialised knowledge and tools, has
driven our generation to a cultural paradigm in which the development of every new device
reshapes our collective understanding of the present. How will this effect permeate our future?
Led by Mexico’s Interspecifics Collective, a multispecies group experimenting at the intersection
between art, science, and technology, together with composer and professor at Berlin’s
Technische Universität, Alberto de Campo, « A Score for Uncertainty » is a 4-day long
collaborative laboratory focused on the creation of a sound composition from an unknown future,
using existing but novel instruments and sound catalogues. Selected applicants will collaborate in
several improvisational and composition sessions aiming to analyze the way new devices could
be involved in the creation of a futuristic soundscape. The result will be presented as a live
concert at the end of the ICAS Festival week.
Participation and Registration
The Hacklab seeks participants that have already created finished projects that may be integrated
into a machine/musical ensemble. Participants may be working with a variety of tools and within
fields such as: DIY interactive instruments / Data sonification systems / Graphic composition
software / Frameworks for participatory collaborations / Futuristic instruments / Generative music
software / DNA-based sound systems / Systematic music systems
Interested participants are invited to fill in the following application form by 10 April:
http://icasfestival.net/HACKLAB.php
4 CA LL FOR A PPLI CA NTS: I CA S FESTI VA L WOR KSHOPS
FELD: Audiovisual Creation in Space
SHAPE Workshop with Ulf Langheinrich
29 April 2015 // 10h – 20h // Festspielhaus Hellerau
Limited to 10 participants, please see registration information below
Workshop language: DE / EN
Workshop fee: 10€ workshop fee
Veteran artist Ulf Langheinrich, best known as one half of the media art collaboration Granular
Synthesis (with Kurt Hentschläger) as well as for numerous solo works, will introduce basic
strategies for dissolving boundaries and creating uncertainty within audiovisual expression.
Participants will develop sonic textures and 3-dimensional sound fields, and explore ways in
which to animate these. The field will be constructed using parameters ? such as consistency,
current, spatial distinction, and timing.
Workshop participants should have a beginner background in sound, have and be familiar with
music software or hardware, and be able to create sustained sound in real time (which would not
be the case with a rhythm-composing device or software that organises pre-recorded tracks only).
Participants are requested to bring their own laptops.
Interested persons should email [email protected] by 10 April to reserve their place.
More information: http://icasfestival.net/WORKSHOPS.php
Mini-DJ's Mini-Workshop
Kids Workshop by Charlotte Bendiks
1 May 2015 // 14h – 15h30 // LAB15
Workshop language: EN/DE
Recommended age: 8 – 14 years old
Registration: limited to 10 participants, see below.
Norwegian DJ/producer Charlotte Bendiks offers a fun way of approaching music and to start
understanding rhythms. In this short introduction to rhythm and music using the DJ's tools, kids
learn how to count the beats in a track and how to mix two beatmatched tracks together on a DJ
mixer.
While a library of tracks will be prepared by Bendiks and gear will be provided, each participant
should imagine his or her own stage name and be prepared to briefly introduce themselves to the
group. During this introduction, participants will get the chance to try speaking into the mic with
some special surprise effects.
Participation is first-come, first-served. Please email [email protected] to reserve your place.
More information: http://icasfestival.net/WORKSHOPS.php
5 FESTI VA L PA SSES, TI CKETS, A ND A CCR EDI TA TI ON
A limited number of Festival Passports as well as Professional Passports that give access to all
festival events are available for 40 and 45 euro respectively via the ICAS Festival website. Tickets
to individual events will gradually be made available throughout April.
http://icasfestival.net/TICKETS.php
Press accreditation remains open. Journalists and media interested in covering the festival are
invited to fill in the online application form available via the festival website.
http://icasfestival.net/PRESS.php
PR ESS CONTA CT
International Press
Taïca Replansky – [email protected]
+49 (0) 30 4404 1852
German Press
Johanna Martinez – [email protected]
+49 (0) 351 889 6665
6 PA R TNER S & SPONSOR S
Produced by:
TMA Hellerau e.V. ı DISK – Initiative Bild & Ton e.V. ı HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts Dresden ı
ICAS Network
In Collaboration With:
ECAS Project Members – ecasnetwork.org:
CTM Festival / DISK e.V. – Berlin, DE
Cimatics – Brussels, BE
Cynetart Festival / TMA Hellerau e.V. – Dresden, DE
FutureEverything – Manchester, UK
Insomnia Festival / Association – Tromsø, NO
ORF/ musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst – Graz, AT
Skaņu Mežs Festival / Association – Riga, LV
TodaysArt Festival / The Generator Foundation – The Hague, NL
Unsound Festival / Fundacja Tone – Krakow, PL
SHAPE Project Members – shapeplatform.org:
Biennale Némo / ARCADI – Paris, FR
CTM Festival / DISK e.V. – Berlin, DE
Cynetart Festival / TMA Hellerau e.V. – Dresden, DE
Festival Maintenant / Association Electroni[K] – Rennes, FR
Insomnia Festival / Association – Tromsø, NO
Les Siestes Electroniques / Association Rotation – Toulouse, FR
MeetFactory – Prague, CZ,
ORF / musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst – Graz, AT
RIAM Festival / Technè – Marseilles, FR, Rokolectiv Festival / Association – Bucharest, RO
Rokolectiv Festival / Association – Bucharest, RO
Schiev Festival / Black Drop Productions – Brussels, BE
Skaņu Mežs Festival / Association – Riga, LV
Sonica Festival / MoTA – Museum of Transitory Art – Ljubljana, SI
TodaysArt Festival / The Generator Foundation – The Hague, NL
UH Fest / Ultrasound Foundation – Budapest, HU
Unsound Festival / Fundacja Tone – Krakow, PL
Further ICAS members – icasnetwork.org:
Novas Frequências – Rio de Janeiro, BR
SOCO Festival – Montevideo, UY
Local Partners:
DAVE – Dresden Audiovisual Experience ı Wir gestalten Dresden – Branch Association for Culture and
Creative Industry Dresden
Funded By:
European Union Programme Culture ı Creative Europe Programme of the European Union ı Initiative Musik ı
Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony ı Culture and Monument Preservation Office of the State
Capital Dresden ı Musicboard Berlin ı British Council ı Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Media Partners:
The Wire ı Resident Advisor ı Electronic Beats ı NTS ı The Quietus ı Tiny Mix Tapes ı Resonance FM
Sponsors:
Magnet-Schulz ı fritz-kola GmbH ı Mondpalast ı Best Western Macrander Hotel Dresden
Venues:
Altes Wettbüro ı LAB15 ı Hole of Fame ı Thalia Cinema Dresden ı Festspielhaus Hellerau
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the
author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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