Sonic Wargame and TONEWHEELS

STEIM Residency Concert by Xavier van Wersch (NL/HU) and Derek Holzer (US/DE)

20 feb 2008
  • 20:30 -20:30
  • STEIM
  • Utrechtsedwarsstraat 134, Amsterdam

Xavier van Wersch and Derek Holzer are both experienced musicians that challenge the conventions of today's electronic music. SONIC WARGAME introduces a new form of collaborative (or competitive) music playing where the skills, tactics and intentions of all the players are absorbed into a wonderfully constructed high/low-tech machine to create an evolving battlefield of sounds. TONEWHEELS is a complete departure from the laptop computer, only using light and analog circuitry to generate raw pulsing sounds that are tightly interlinked to the projected imagery. Both artists will be in residence at STEIM prior to the concert preparing for this performance.

Videos of Sonic Wargame
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2bkJwUX_tI
Videos of TONEWHEELS
www.soundtransit.nl/tonewheels/tonewheels_doc_web.mov

Vergroot

sonicwargame_web.jpg -

STEIM Residency Concert:
Sonic Wargame - Xavier van Wersch (NL/HU)
Tone Wheels - Derek Holzer (US/DE)

Date: Wednesday, February 20
Venue: STEIM, Utrechtsedwarsstraat 134, Amsterdam
Time: 20.30 hrs.
Entrance: 5 euros
Reservations and more information: knock@steim.nl or 020-6228690

SONIC WARGAME
In a quadraphonic arena the battle for audibility is raging. While the referee keeps an ear out, musical gladiators engage in contrapuntal combat with an arsenal of electronic weaponry. Sonic Espionage, in-Filtration, Atonal Behaviour and Hostile Overdubs, it’s a Full Spectrum Attack

Sonic Wargame is a musical game for four players. Each player has a game console and a loudspeaker. The players have to vote for each other using a switch on their console. An electric brain will only pass a player’s sound if that player has two or three votes from the other players.

Although the audience hears different players all the time, the players themselves are interconnected in such a way that they can receive each other’s sounds all the time. This is because they have to sample and process each other’s material, resulting in a continuously self-regenerating quadraphonic organism of sound.

Sonic Wargame offers its participants a new way of playing together. Although there is a strong competitive element, the best results are achieved through collaboration. The distinction between being in control and being controlled fades away. There are no winners or losers. The sonic constitution oscillates between parliamentary anarchy to periodical dictatorship. Arbitrary consensus, election lottery and survival or the fairest
Sonic Wargame is a project of the re.Bug foundation for ecotronic art, supported by Paradiso-Melkweg Productiehuis, STEIM and MuziekLab Brabant. This project is realised with the financial support of Fonds voor de Amateur en Podium Kunsten, VSBfonds en Prins Bernhard CultuurFonds.

Concept: Xavier van Wersch
Artistic advisor: Roland Spekle
Production: Paradiso-Melkweg Productiehuis
Technical realisation: Dave Krooshof, Lex van den Broek, Xavier van Wersch

Xavier van Wersch obtained a degree in Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague after having studied art and philosophy. His work reflects an organical approach to the field of electronic music. In his compositions, performances and installations there is always an element of controlled chaos. He explores the relation between man and machine by conceiving the two of them together as hybrid systems in which erratic behaviour is the principal condition for interaction. Another common theme in his work is recycling. Like a modern Frankenstein, van Wersch constructs his machinery from parts of deceased equipment and disfunctional devices.

www.sonic-wargame.net/
www.xaflab.tk/
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TONEWHEELS:
TONEWHEELS is an experiment in converting graphical imagery to sound, inspired by some of the pioneering 20th Century electronic music inventions. Transparent tonewheels with repeating patterns are spun over light-sensitive electronic circuitry to produce sound and light pulsations and textures, while projected graphical loops and textures add richness to the visual environment. This all-analog set is performed entirely live without the use of computers, using only overhead projectors as light source, performance interface and audience display. In this way, TONEWHEELS aims to open up the "black box" of electronic music and video by exposing the working processes of the performance for the audience to see.

Derek Holzer [USA 1972] is a sound artist with a background in radio, webstreaming and environmental recording. His work focuses on capturing and transforming small, unnoticed sounds from various natural and urban locations, networked collaboration strategies, experiments in improvisational sound and the use of free software such as Pure-Data.

www.umatic.nl/tonewheels.html