[Nettime-nl] [Sonic Acts] Sonic Light 2003 programme

[lucas <lucas@v2.nl>]

Title: [Sonic Acts] Sonic Light 2003 programme

Sonic acts presents:

Sonic Light 2003

composed light, articulated space

Paradiso and de balie, 13th to 23rd February 2003

The ninth edition of the Sonic Acts festival will be held in Paradiso and De Balie under the name Sonic Light 2003. The festival will comprise a week of film presentations, a three-day conference, a small exhibition and three evenings of live music and light projections in a space specially designed for this purpose - the 'Sonic Light Box'. The central theme of the festival is the fascination held by artists for the creative possibilities offered by giving musical form to light and space.

The vision of a 'music for the eye' is centuries old and forms an important undercurrent in the recent history of art and the new media: from the construction of the first colour organs, light sculptures and the first use of coloured lighting in theatre, through abstract film animation and synthetic video images, to the design of interactive software to generate light and sound. The idea of a musical light art to be presented in an environment specially designed for that purpose becomes topical every time a new visual medium appears on the horizon.

Among the present generation of computer artists a new type of visual music is being created which can be performed live or made specially for the Internet.

These 'light environments' would be inconceivable without some form of immersive sound. For centuries composers have dreamt of being able to compose and articulate a truly spatial kind of music. With the arrival of electronic sound reproduction this dream received new impetus from technology, which has led to the stereophonic and surround systems which can now be found in most living rooms. In electronic music it has become possible to minutely compose the spatial aspects of sound by working with quadraphonic, hexaphonic (Boulez), octophonic (Stockhausen) and dodecaphonic (Humon) loudspeaker arrangements. Recent initiatives, like Naut Humon's Recombinant Media Labs, encourage the new generation of sound artists and electronic music producers to further investigate the huge potential offered by a new spatial form of music.

see for full programme descriptions:   http://www.sonicacts.com

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Film programme

OpFilm No. 11: Sonic Light 2003

The OpFilm programme centres on three themes: the early experiments with electronic images for 'experimental television', the work of a number of filmmakers central to abstract filmmaking over the past fifty years, and the relationship between film and kinetic art.

The programme will also include two science-fiction films with special effects by two abstract filmmakers: Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson. The programme includes several unique screenings of films that are very rarely shown, especially the programmes on the work of Jordan Belson, Nicolas Schöffer and Pierre Schaeffer.

Four video works will be shown continuously during the festival projected on the facade of De Balie from dusk to midnight as part of De Balie's ongoing 'Straal' project.

Thur.13, 20.00h

Illuminating Music - Dan Sandin, Bill Etra, Vasulka's, etc.

Fri.14, 20.00h

Meditation for the Masses - Steven Beck, Eric Siegel, Skip Sweeney

Sat.15, 20.00h

Absolute Classics - Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye, etc.

Sun.16, 20.00h

Motion Graphics - John & James Whitney

Mon.17, 20.00h

Text of Light - Stan Brakhage

Tue.18, 20.00h

Turn, Turn, Turn - Jud Yalkut

Wed.19, 20.00h

Luminodynamisme - Nicolas Schöffer

Thur.20, 20.00h

Through the Looking Glass - Jim Davis, Stan Brakhage

Fri.21, 20.00h

Light - Jordan Belson

Fri.21, 21.30h

The Time Travellers - Ib Melchior, Oskar Fischinger

Sat.22, 20.00h

The Right Stuff - Philip Kaufmann, Jordan Belson

Sun.23, 20.00h

Groupe de Recherche Images - Pierre Schaeffer

Fri.14 - Wed.26, dusk

'Straal' - Bainbridge, Casady, Lia, Scroggins

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Sonic Light 2003 Conference

The conference part of Sonic Light will take place on 21st, 22nd and  23rd February in De Balie. The subject of the Sonic Acts conference  last year was 'The Art of Programming', this year it is to be  'Composing Light, Articulating Space'. The conference gives a broad  overview of the art of 'composed light': the shaping in time of light  and colour in a way which is comparable to the way sound is given form in  music. A large part of the conference will consist of presentations by  artists who will explain something of the background to their work, the  techniques they use or may have devised and will include presentations  of fragments of their work. Another part of the conference will  comprise more theoretical and historical presentations which place  present-day developments in a broader context.

To bring some order to the web of ideas and influences linking the  various contributions, the conference has been loosely structured  around three themes, coinciding with the three days. The first day will centre on the links between light art, the visual arts and  architecture. The second day will be about strategies for making image and sound compositions, focusing on computer animations in  film and for the web. The last day will deal with various approaches to  perform light and abstract images in real-time.

During the three days of the conference there will be a modest exhibition in De Balie, consisting of two works. An amazing '3d-lumia'  box by Earl Reiback will be shown, a machine which produces refined  optically 'real' images that appear to float in the space before it.  There will also be a presentation on dvd of the reconstruction of  Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack's 'Farbenlichtspiele', made in 2000 by a  Viennese team of performers headed by Corinne Schweizer and Peter Böhm.

Fri 21, 13:00h

Fred Collopy - The Contributions of Painters to the Development of  Visual Music

Earl Reiback - My Work in Lumia

Eleonore de Lavandeyra-Schöffer - Luminodynamism in the work of Nicolas  Schöffer

Fri 21, 16:00h

Cees Ronda - New Technologies for Illumination

Seth Riskin - Light Dance

Paul Friedlander - 3-D Light Forms

Fri 21, 20:00h

Robert Haller - The Films of Jordan Belson (film programme)

Sat 22, 13:00h

Frans Evers - A Dancer had a Dance: Synesthesia and the Unity of the  Arts

Sylvie Dallet - Groupe de Recherche Images

Larry Cuba - Form = Movement

Sat 22, 16:00h

Bart Vegter - A Vast Space with a Narrow Entrance

Chris Casady - Instant Visual Music around the World

Peter Luining - The Emergence of the Sound Engine

Sun 22, 13:00h

Pascal Rousseau - Light Experiments in the Beginnings of Abstraction.  An Archaeology of Participative Art

Peter Stasny - Light Art at the Bauhaus, the 'Farbenlichtspiele' of  Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack

Michael Scroggins - Absolute Animation Through Improvisation

Sun 22, 16:00h

Benton Bainbridge - Try This at Home: Analog Video Synthesis

Fred Collopy - An Instrument for Performing Real-Time Abstract  Animations

Golan Levin - Interface Metaphors for Audiovisual Performance Systems

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Sonic Light Box

The night programme of Sonic Light will take place in Paradiso,  Amsterdam, on February 21st to 23rd.

For this occasion the main auditorium of Paradiso will be transformed into a  'Sonic Light Box', a space designed by Robin Deirkauf. Essential to the  concept of the 'Sonic Light Box' is the immersion of audience and particpants  in light and sound. This  time the artists responsible for these images and sounds will not be  the centre of attention themselves, but it will be their work that directly  communicates to the audience. In total 41 performers and collectives  producing image and sound will present solo pieces and collaborative  works specially prepared for Sonic Light.

The small auditorium of Paradiso will be dominated by Paul Friedlander's  kinetic light sculptures 'Wave Equation' and 'Hypersphere'. Students  f the Interfaculty Image and Sound from The Hague will present a daily  programme of light and sound performances here, DJs Christian Vogel  (Friday) and KidGoesting (Saturday) will provide a pleasant setting  later in the night. Other light objects and luminous interventions by  the students of the Interfaculty Image and Sound will find other places in the building of Paradiso.

In the 'Sonic Light Box' all light performances and projections will  take place on a gigantic light-object, as wide as it is high, splitting  the main Paradiso auditorium in two. This object can serve as a projection  screen but, more importantly, emits light of continuously changing  colour and intensity. It will be the sole source of light for all  events, together with the luminous and mobile roof hovering above it.

The auditorium will also have no front and no  back in terms of sound, only a centre and periphery. Traditionally, all sound comes from  the direction of the stage, but during Sonic Light a spatial sound  system will be used in which the audience will be surrounded by six  independent loudspeakers on the floor and six hanging from the ceiling.  In this way it will be possible to compose the spatial experience of both sound and light in the 'Sonic Light Box'.

As has become customary during the Sonic Acts festival, the programme  at the start of the evening will be aimed more at an audience  interested in the arts and will transform to a more dance-oriented  programme after midnight. The evenings will not be simply a succession  of performances according to a festival schedule, but will have a modular  structure. We have asked the invited artists to give a number of short  performances instead of playing one long set. For example, an artist may  be giving a short performance of pure sound collage on Friday evening  and play a dance-oriented set on Saturday. The  programme of each evening is designed to provide a maximum of variety and contrast between successive sets.

We also asked the artists we invited to engage in various  collaborations. We have set these up to promote dialogue between the  different worlds of light art and sound art, and to show a wide  variety of approaches to the relationship between image and sound. The  programme offers a wide range of artists, from renowned composers such  as Amacher to young dogs such as Venetian Snares, from projections of  films by Oskar Fischinger to improvisations by Golan Levin and Benton  Bainbridge.

The exact time schedule of performances can be found two weeks prior to  the festival on www.sonicacts.com. There will also be a printed  schedule as guide for the evenings. Announcements will be  made on special displays in Paradiso.

The Friday evening starts at 23:00h  with a programme until 4:00h.

The Saturday programme starts at 20:00h and ends at 4:00h.

The Sunday programme starts at 20:00h and ends at 3:00h.

Presences by:

@c, Maryanne Amacher, Scott Arford, Benton-C Bainbridge, Olivia Block,  COH, Sue Costabile, Fred Collopy, Richard Devine, Effekt, Dino Felipe,  Hazard, Hecker, Edwin van der Heide, Arnold Hoogerwerf, Naut Humon, KidGoesting, Laminar, Golan Levin, Lia, Francisco Lopez, Lucia di  Monocordi, Peter Luining, Christian Marclay, Peter Max, Ikue Mori,  Numb, Robert Pravda, pxp, random k, Joost Rekveld, reMI, Seth Riskin,  Don Ritter, Otto von Schirach, Sutekh, tcw23, Telco Systems, Yasunao  Tone, Venetian Snares

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lucas
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v2.nl


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