INTERPLAY 01

Underground sonic playhouse Sprawl has programmed a sumptuous 2-day mini festival of unique inter-city collaborations between cool electronic hothouses Berlin and London. Drawing on latest technology, multi-channel sound, beatscapes, sound games, video, film and art, with some of the best labels and artists around, this project aims at the future of bent technology. Expect a battle of top drawer artists delivering a feast of sound, art and a programme of videos, experimental film works plus flash & mixed media animation. The world in a nutshell.

PROGRAMME

Wednesday 6th November 02

agf (orthlorng musork) + kaffe matthews

frank bretschneider (raster noton) + tonne (Bip_Hop)

barbara morgenstern (monika enterprise) + apache61 (daisyworld/Japan)

Thursday 7th November 02

robert lippok (to rococo rot / tarwater) + BitTonic (sprawl)

marc weiser (Rechenzentrum) + si-cut.db (sprawl)

jan jelinek (farben / gramm) + BEFLIX (visual autopsies)

on both nights

a projected exhibition by berlin based artist alexander selski showing his series of transformed phone cards entitled "the green trumpeter", almost eerie landscaped cards and photo slides, drawing the viewer into distant lands of the imagination.

a selection of videos, music driven and experimental film works plus flash & mixed media animation from production houses, graphic design studios and labels based in berlin. The programme is curated by cinefeel and includes work by new and established talent such as Fabian Grobe, Visomat, Codec, Pfadfinderei and V-CR and covers labels such as Mille Plateaux, Kitty Yo, Scape and many more.

BIOGRAPHIES

AGF (BERLIN) + KAFFE MATTHEWS (LONDON):

AGF or Antye Greie-Fuchs is the singer and co-producer for the German group Laub. As a solo musician, artist and author she works in the undefined space between electronics, music, internet, communication and the human voice. With numerous internet-based partners (betalounge.com, freshmilk.de et al.), Antye works with new media and technologies like audio streaming (Internet radio), audio download/e-commerce, and Internet TV and deals with cultural-political issues and developments arising from these such as copyright law and questions of values in digital space. "She has an incredible knack for treading a fine line between emotions..." othermusic.com

Laptop improviser Kaffe Matthews is one of the most unique and forward looking artists on the UK new electronic music scene with a surprisingly rare approach exploiting digital gadgets in live performance. Playing through 4 speakers, she improvises with sonic snatches sampled from the performance space and around, creating pieces of sheer beauty. Recently she has collaborated and performed with mimeo, Christian Fennesz, Zeena Parkins and is working on a trio with Ikue Mori and Marina Rosenfeld (the lappetites), a duo with Andy Moor (the EX), performance artist Hayley Newman, Charles Hayward, Pan-sonic, Bruce Gilchrist and more. "Stockhausen crossed with the Boredoms " The Independent

FRANK BRETSCHNEIDER (BERLIN) + TONNE (LONDON/BRIGHTON)

Frank Bretschneider is key member and co-founder of the excellent German ultra-minimal electronic music imprint Raster Noton (a collective that includes the talented Carston Nicolai and released the 20 - 2000 series). He has critically acclaimed releases under the names Komet and Produkt. It's easy to say that Frank Bretschneider has created some of the most influential spatial electronics of the late 90's. "This is supple, upbeat music, though the percussion lies in the bleeps rather than any noticeable beat. Afro rhythm patterns made out of glancing tinkling sounds leave little sense of pressure, though beats might resonate in tiny after-echoes." The Wire

Tonne aka Paul Farrington develops and produces controlled systems for sound and image interaction. Earlier work includes visuals for Scanner, Springheel Jack, Pole and Monolake. Tonne now provides visuals for its own music. He has performed at Ars Electronica (Austria), Phonotaktik (Austria), Barbican (London), Sonar (Spain), Lovebytes (UK), Steim (Holland) and many more. He is currently collaborating with Frank Bretschneider, working on a Hakan Lidbo remix for Mikael Stavöstrand's Mitek label and a full length release for Bip-Hop.

Together they will premier a collaboration using Tonne's Soundtoy software (released on Bip_Hop). The digital interchange will be projected onto a big screen allowing the audience to see the work being produced. The original Soundtoys software was developed as research work at the Royal College of Art in London. "Coming from a background in design I wanted to make my own software with applications in a design environment." "Š one of the finest audio-games currently on the web. The game Š is deceptively elegant:." DISQUIET, USA

BABARA MORGENSTERN (BERLIN) + APACHE 61 (LONDON)

Electro songstress Barbara Morgenstern merges techno-design of song writing, home recording and electronica, without retro-lounge-cuteness either. Afraid of musical borders? Not Barbara Morgenstern! Working orking out of her own studio, using sampler and sequencer as her instruments, Barbara Morgenstern tells us stories. Her wonderful, heartbreaking voice, adds context to the beats and sounds. In the past she has worked with Malaria, thomas fehlmann, Robert Lippok and Pole. She records for Gudrun Gut's Label Monika Enterprise. "...she captures odd sounds in her net -- cello draughts, a fly buzzing through a room, electric guitars that blast like gridlocked trucks &endash; and flows them seamlessly into the pop..." Other Music

MARC WEISER (BERLIN) + SI-CUT.DB (LONDON)

Born in the hometown of Kraftwerk, Der Plan, and Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft Marc Weiser grew up with a smell of punk. Now based in Berlin, the multi instrumentalist books artist for the celebrated venue "Maria am Ostbahnhof," works for different record labels as product manager, co-organises the international media festival "Club Transmediale" and operates as part of the acclaimed audio visual project "Rechenzentrum". The latter has taken him all over the world, onto John Peel's sessions and worlds beyond.

Douglas Benford aka si-cut.db has worked/remixed with Scanner, St Etienne, Andrew Weatherall, Moby's string outfit CHI2, Add N To X and more. He is also part of TENNIS, a co-project with Benge (Sub Rosa/Expanding) which has led to performances for Radio 3 Mixing It and the Tate Modern. Benford has remixed & produced Possset, Youth's Dub Trees, and Janek Schaefer and others. He is currently completing a collaborative project with another German artist, STEPHAN MATHIEU (Full Swing/Mille Plateaux). Benford is constantly impatient with his own sound, seeking to devolve it. He is a co-founder and director of Sprawl."excellent...startling...ambient acupuncture of the highest order" THE WIRE

ROBERT LIPPOK (BERLIN) + BitTonic (LONDON)

Co-founder of To Rococo Rot, Robert Lippok offers warm, deep textures and a naked emotional accessibility rarely found at the heart of laptop culture. He utilises a variety of sources, analogue field recordings, digital remains and cultural fragments, condensed into an acoustic space. Apart from his work with To Rococo Rot and Tarwater, Robert's output also includes soundtracks for visual artists Doug Aitken and Olaf Nicolai and radio plays for Germany's diverse radio stations. Venturing into the theatre world he is responsible for the costume and stage design for productions such as "Salome" by Oscar Wild, "Parsifal" by Richard Wagner and the music for "Der Jasager und der Neinsager" by Bertolt Brecht

German born BitTonic, aka Iris Garrelfs, is known for her emotive, improvised glitch-tech performances based around electronically manipulated and digitally warped voice sounds. UK magazine Magic Feet described the effect as "Š a chaotic Tom Waits-style junkyard orchestra gridlocked into a rigid techno matrix". A recent live performance at Glasgow's CCA will be released as part of the "live 3" series by the Consume label, which also contains live sets by Kim Cascone and Toshimaru Nakamura. Iris also creates site specific sound installations and is a co-founder and director of Sprawl. She was based in Berlin before moving to London. In her other incarnation as a photographer, Iris has been published by magazines such as The Wire, The Face, Muzik, Marie Claire, Spex, Keyboard Japan and others.

THOMAS FEHLMANN (BERLIN) + BEFLIX (LONDON)

Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg. A little studio flat in a student area, not far from the new Berlin Mitte. Records and studio share a whitewashed room. At the window Jan Jelinek, surrounded by assorted sound media that have just passed through his sampler at the quest for the perfect loop. The sampler as a dissecting tool. With a hairtooth comb Jelinek searches through his endless archives. The result might be called gramm or farben. It smells of music. In 1998 his first output appeared under the monicker farben on Frankfurt-based label Klang Elektronik, supported by highly-rated production team Jörn Wuttke and Roman Flügel (aka Sensorama / Acid Jesus). The fourth and latest farben-ep, raw macro, appeared in April 2000. At the same time, Source (David Moufangs of Move D´s label) released the debut album personal rock of his alter ego gramm.Here what was already hinted at with farben received extension and refinement at album length: sound design with melancholic gravity and rhythmic finesse, far beyond moribund genres like techno or ambient. Forget about pidgeon-holing or categories &endash; gramm is the direct link between dance and listening music. In this collaboration, Jan will venture even further into the realms of texture.

Tony Scott from BEFLIX performs visual autopsies on software glitches and decomposing data, and colours the bytes in with his radioactive felt-tip-pens. He presented his glitch-art work and thoughts at the Oslo Glitch Festival and Symposium 2002, organised by Motherboard, and contributed glitch animations for "Anti-Correlation" - Kim Cascone's European tour video, and also performed real-time visuals for Kim's performance in London.

ALEXANDER SELSKI (BERLIN)

Berlin based Russian born artist Alexander Selski will exhibit his series "der grune Trompeter" (the green Trumpeter). On one of his frequent London stays he picked up discarded BT phone cards and was inspired to improve the uniform plastic with his own designs. The result are colourful, almost eerie landscaped cards and photo slides, drawing the viewer into distant lands of the imagination.

CINEFEEL

Cinefeel was established in 1995 to promote the work of young filmmakers, digital artists and artists working in new electronic music. Since its inception the organisation has programmed for major festivals, events and venues worldwide, including the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the ICA, The Montreal Festival of New Cinema and New Media, Sonar in Barcelona, the BBC British Short Film Festival's 'Shooting From The Hip' and more. In London, with Addictive TV, Cinefeel organise 'The Audiovisual Lounge', mixing film, digital art, electronic music and music videos from accomplished and emerging talent.

aaaa