Addicted2Random Festival

 

ACOUSTIC MAPPING OF THE COINCIDENCAL

10 – 13 july 2013
in Halle (Saale), Germany

 

About

Throughout centuries of European musical tradition, coincidence and the coincidental never played a role in composition – Händel, Bach and Beethoven were masters of systematic composition and artistic perfectionism. Yet contemporary musical creations of the avantgarde commonly employ coincidence as a means of composition. It is the transitory nature of the moment and the allure of the unpredictable that allow musical dimensions expand to the infinite.

Addicted2Random (A2R) seeks traces of coincidence in European music-scapes. Together with sound-artists from across Europe, the festival Addicted2Random examines how the composition of classical European music and the artistic work with coincidence can influence each other in sound installations, radio-art, exhibition and performances. Algorithms from baroque compositions are connected to computer-generated music and its visualization, e.g. in graphic interfaces.

How can the interaction between artists and computers be designed to allow artistic production and what is the role of traditional compositional techniques in this process? The ideas developed in answering these questions will be realized on different levels: Radio-artists, scholars, musicians and composers cooperate in performances and concerts composed for the festival:

 

Radio

A temporary radioart-station will be established for three days in the glass-hall of the Händel-Haus Halle. Radio Corax will broadcast a live program on the festival’s topics as a format to introduce and discuss the sound-art and radio-art created for the festival. The name »Random Time Radio« refers to the Time Bending Clock projekt of Verena Kuni, radio artist and professor of visual culture at University of Frankfurt/Main.

OPEN CALL for RANDOM TIME RADIO
as part of the „Addicted2Random“ Festival in Halle/Saale, Germany
posted: 12.06.2013

For the festival’s radio programme we are looking for radio art pieces.
The deadline to send audio files is 5th July 2013.

Read more: Open Call for Random Time Radio

 

Live

»The Imaginary Radio Band No.1« will perform the opening concert on 10th july 2013, broadcasted on Radio CORAX as a part of the sound experience. Band members include the british radio engineer and radio artist Sarah Washington, german radio-artist Knut Aufermann, computer-musician André Damaio from Sao Paulo, performer Xentos “Fray” Bentos from London, and tuba-virtuoso Børre Mølstad from Norway.

Performance Group »Guricht« from Germany portraits possible interactions between human, computers and acoustic musical instruments. The exhibition of musical instruments of Händel-Haus Halle will host this presentation.

Austrian composer Markus Brandt and his Orchestra »Republik der Sehnsucht« (orchestra of the Republic of longing), a group assembled especially for the festival, present the festival’s finale. Markus Brandt specializes in programming auto-generative computer music with Pure Data, graphical-user interfaces, and sound-generating smart-phone-apps.

 

Exhibition

The exhibition »The Ways Things May Go« from University of Arts (Berlin) directed by professor for Computational Art Alberto de Campo will offer visitors the opportunity to experience sound-art, the visualization of coincidence, and multimedia interaction with concrete objects.

 

Discussion

In a round-table discussion »Random Sounds: Coincidence as Surplus for artistic processes?«, scholars, musicians and radio-artists will explore aspects of the visualization of computer-generated sounds. Additionally two mile-stone films on in the development of sound-art will be shown.

 

Movie

The film chosen for screening at the festival marks important developments in the production and negotiations of sound-art. In »Step Across the Border« (1990), directors Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel accompany the composer and sound artist Fred Frith through his work process.

 

»Addicted2Random Festival« is a collaboration of Foundation Händel-Haus Halle, City of Halle, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Werkleitz Gesellschaft – Center for Media Art Halle, Universität of Arts Berlin, Radioart-Network RadiaFM, Radiofabrik Salzburg, Center for Media Art Hangar in Barcelona, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia di Roma and Community Radio CORAX in Halle.

The festival is funded by EU Culture Programme, Kunststiftung des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt and British Council.