Composting the City | Composting the Net – performance
Date: October 9, 2013
Location: Riga, Latvia
Performance by artists Shu Lea Cheang (FR) & Martin Howse (UK) was organised in the framework of Art+Communiction 2013, XV International Festival for New Media Culture in Riga, Latvia
Composting the City | Composting the Net examines the parallel degenerative process of fermentation and fragmentation of our daily food scraps and shared digital commons. While Composting the City investigates urban food waste management systems, Composting the Net sources net cultures’ accumulated data. Food scraps dumped onto a compost heap are layered and turned until all traces of labeling are erased. On the net, the abundance of info-data sinks into a deep “reservoir” with tags attached.
This performance brings together – Martin Howse whose earth sensors convert the electrochemical and temperature changes within the rotting vegetables and maturing compost into sound and noise, further writes worm codes in the process. Shu Lea Cheang takes on net cultures’ mailing list web archives, retrieving thousands of threaded postings (i.e. announcements, proposals, arguments, dissertations), (ir)relevant of/to our digital existence. The fragmental and accidental readings renders data spectrum into data noise.
The performance audience reached about 200 visitors.
RUND-FUNK-EMPFANGS-SAAL – performance / sound installation
Extreme Long Wave Spatial Radio Music
Date: October 11, 2013
Location: Riga, Latvia
The performance “Rund-Funk-Empfangs-Saal” – Extreme Long Wave Spatial Radio Music – performed by currently one of most renowned interdisciplinary artists in Europe – Edwin van der Heide (Netherlands) and Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag (Germany) in the framework of Art+Communiction 2013, XV International Festival for New Media Culture in Riga, Latvia.
For Rund-Funk-Empfangs-Saal the idea of the radio hall is being inverted. Edwin van der Heide and Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag take the signals in the electromagnetic space that intersect the concert hall as source material for their performance. Natural radio signals and transmitted long wave signals up to about 150 kHz that traverse the performance space are being received and translated into a tangible space of acoustically audible signals. When John Cage introduced the radio first in Imaginary Landscapes, and later in Radio Music, his main interest laid in the live-moment, the unexpected and unpredictable combination of concurrently transmitted (and received) sounds. While the unexpected is an important part of their performance, van der Heide and Sonntag navigate, steer and combine the different signals and, in contrary with Cage’s approach, shape the unpredictable. Extremely low frequency radio waves contain the fields of lightning and natural disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field. These signals are intersected by the electromagnetic smog of the city resulting from electricity cables, motors, etc. and transmitted signals from long wave transmitters from, for example, submarines. Kilometer long waves traverse the performance space of Rund-Funk-Empfangs-Saal. The reason for the German title is the origin of radio transmission that is captured in the poetic term: “Rund-Funk”.
Edwin van der Heide is an artist and researcher in the field of sound, space and interaction. He extends the terms composition and musical language into spatial, interactive and interdisciplinary directions. His work comprises installations, performances and environments. The audience is placed in the middle of the work and challenged to actively explore, interact and relate themselves to the artwork.
He has presented his work at renown museums and festivals as SMAK – Ghent, Ars Electronica Festival – Linz, Stedelijk Museum – Amsterdam, V2_’s DEAF – Rotterdam, ICC – Tokyo, NAMOC – Beijing, Transmediale – Berlin, SONAR – Barcelona, amongst others.
Beside’s running his own studio he’s part-time assistant professor at Leiden University (LIACS / Media Technology MSc programme) and heading the Spatial Interaction Lab at the ArtScience Interfaculty of the Royal Conservatoire and Arts Academy in The Hague. He was Edgard Varèse guest professor at the Technische Universität Berlin (2009), won the Witteveen+Bos Art+Technology Award 2009 for his entire body of work. He was an invited artist and guest professor at Le Fresnoy, studio des arts contemporain in France for the year 2011-2012.
Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag is an artist, composer and researcher. He studied fine arts, art history, music theory, composition, philosophy and cognitive science and, in 2002, founded N-solab. He received several grants or prizes (Akademie Schloss Solitude, Berlin- & German Sound Art Prize, Cynet Art Award, a Haupstadtkulturfond grant for e-topia, emare-Mexiko grant and for 2012 the Villa-Aurora-Grant, Los Angeles) and has exhibited in various international exhibitions: V2, Rotterdam; NIMK, Amsterdam; Making Waves Festival, San Francisco; Apex Art & The Kitchen, New York; Fundcion Arte Y Technologia, Madrid; Centre Cultura Contemportnia & METRONOM, Barcelona; Nacional Gallery, Poznan; Academy Of Arts, transmediale & Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Mediabiennale, Seoul Museum of Art, & Aram Art Gallery, Seoul; Galerie der Gegenwart & Kunstverein, Hamburg; Museum Centro Calego de Arte Contemporénea, zkm, Karlsruhe: Santiago de Compostela; ars electronica, Linz; CYBERFEST, Hermitage, St.Petersburg; HMKV, Dortmund; Sound Forest and RIXC events, Latvia and others.
Event audience reached 200 people
COVEX by Yamila Rios & Joris Strijbos (NL)
Sound installation / performance
Date: May 16, 2014
Location: Riga, Latvia
“COVEX” is a collaboration between composer and sound artist Yamila Rios and visual artist Joris Strijbos. In this audio visual performance the duo researches the relations electro-acoustic sound and diffracted light-patterns in a diagonal mixage between the two media. The sonic output consist of a live performance with an extended cello. The output of the instrument is used to create a mass of sound which morphs from a complex noisy environment of fast fragmented textures to a serene and harmonic drone. While a overall collapse of tempi within sound-structures is manifested, the sound of the cello is being revealed. Within the visual domain, a meticulous constellation is formed by shooting laser beams trough transparent objects. By doing this an effect known as the “speckle pattern” occurs, resulting in abstract landscapes of detailed colour patterns and dynamic evolving shapes.
Covex performance at Spikeri Concert Hall. Photo credits: Didzis Grodzs
Yamila Ríos is a composer, a performer, and a sound artist based in The Netherlands. One of her main projects, ¨Marcelino¨ consists in the extension of her cello by attaching different sensors to the body of the instrument. The data of those sensors is translated and sent to a Max/Msp patch through an Ipson Lab. This system allows her to play and the sound of the cello in real time.
As a composer, Yamila has been working on various pieces. Her practice focuses on the mix of live electronics and the sonic exploration of traditional instruments. One of her last pieces, ¨Three Places¨ for live electronics and bass drum has been selected for the Seoul International Computer Music Festival.
Yamila holds a Bachelor and a Master in Sonology from the Royal Conservatorie of The Hague under the supervision of the professor Richard Barret.
Joris Strijbos is a Rotterdam-based artist, working in the fields of expanded (live) cinema, audio performances and kinetic-light-installations. He is one of the persons behind “Macular”, a collective which focus is mainly on the synaesthetic relation and interaction between moving image and sound.
Starting of as a musician he released work on different international record labels andperformed in many countries throughout Europe. While de-constructing and reconstructing audio equipment for his music performances, he expanded his live-set with obsolete and analogue video equipment. With a special interest in organic organizations and structures he nowadays creates emergent systems with a special focus on the possibilityʼs for audio/visual composition that arise from them.
Joris Strijbos holds a Bachelor of Arts and has recently finished his Master of Music at the ArtScience interfaculty of Image and Sound.
The amount of visitors were 170 people.