Icelandic Festival of Electronic Arts
”the result of thought operating on noise”
Monument of failed attempts to approach truth through thinking.
Pedestal, speaker, big red button, excerpt of Jiddu Krishnamurti public talk (Saanen, 1979). Words. Silences.
Danish musician, composer and sound artist
Located in Reykjavik, Iceland
Live Coding Workshop hosted by the City Library. Free!
REGISTER HERE:
https://borgarbokasafn.is/event/learning/live-coding-beginners-strudel
Live coding is the creation of art and music by writing and changing computer programs while they run live, normally in view of the audience. In the last few decades, this practice has emerged as a dynamic creative discipline, gaining attention across cultural and technical fields—from music and the visual arts to computer science. In live coding the composition happens in realtime, where performers can communicate via sound, visuals, robotic and human movements, or basically anything that can be controlled. In performance the code is often projected on a screen for the audience to follow.
In this introductory workshop participants will get hands-on experience working with the popular browser-based live coding platform Strudel. The workshop will be led by Jack Armitage and Sigríður Birna Matthíasdóttir from the Intelligent Instruments Lab.
Participants ages 16 and older from all backgrounds are welcome, no coding experience is necessary. Please note the workshop will be held in English, and there are only 12 seats available. Participants must bring their own laptop / computer, although a limited number of on-site computers will be provided upon request.
At the end of the workshop at 15:30, participants are invited to share their ideas to help kickoff a new Live Coding Meetup, an open space for artists and programmers of all abilities and backgrounds to meet regularly, work on individual projects or collaborations, and learn about new technologies and practices. The meetup, launching this fall at the library, is a chance for participants to review and share live coding skills, as well as to dive even deeper into Strudel and other topics of interest.
The program for this workshop is as follows:
12:00-15:30: Introduction to live coding using Strudel TidalCycles
15:30-16:00: Live Coding Meetup kickoff
For more information about the international live coding community, see TOPLAP (https://toplap.org/) and Algorave (https://algorave.com/).
More on Strudel and TidalCycles: https://strudel.tidalcycles.org/
For more information regarding the workshop:
Karl James Pestka (he/him)
Project Manager — Makerspace
karl.james.pestka@reykjavik.is | +354 665 0898
Owen (he/him) is a collaborative digital artist, working with software, sound, and electronics for the web, VR, performances, devices and installations.
His commercial work has included serving as technical lead on large, cutting-edge projects for clients such as Oculus Studios, Google, Microsoft/Xbox, Samsung and Mercedes, collaborating with digital creatives such as Universal Everything, FIELD and B-Reel. These projects have ranged from an interactive web-connected musical installation at the London Science Museum for Google, Web Lab, to a pneumatic live-streamed pinata-smashing robot.
He is co-founder of Huldufugl, a Reykjavik-based theatre and events company experimenting with new mediums in theatre, both technological and immersive.
He is also co-founder of Horizons Studio, a London-based creative studio producing interactive musical experiences in VR. Their debut title, Horizons VR was commissioned by Google as a launch title for their Daydream platform, with releases on Oculus and HTC platforms planned for 2019.
He was also Sound Supervisor and on-set sound recordist on two short independent films, The Fallow Field and Who We Are, and sound editor on the Subsource Dubumentary.
A audio-visual collaboration between sound artist Þorsteinn Eyfjörð and digital artist Owen Hindley. It will be their first time working together as a duo to create an immersive audio-visual experience consisting of choral-esque laments, field recordings and infra-bass married to LIDAR-inspired point cloud structures, geometric ruminations on the space that exists between light and shadow.
The performance will involve two tall blokes, live audio manipulation, projected visuals, lighting design and possibly turtlenecks.
https://cargocollective.com/teyfjord
https://linktr.ee/owenhindley
MC MYASNOI is a Russian born, Iceland based band/collective that’s been a part of the Reykjavík grassroots collective Post-Dreifing for the past years.
Their current music can be described as deconstructed electronic music from outer space but things can always move in a completely different direction before you even notice.
Recently the band has been collaborating with exciting artists to establish a new visual aspect in their live set in the form of costumes and visuals.
“MC MYASNOI is guiding the masses through a cathartic, communal experience” — Studentablaðið
Prepare yourself for mental death & rebirth.
YOUR LOCAL ELECTRICITY WITCH: Dalin WaldoOoOoOoo an esoteric engineering enthusiast, one of the founders of the neo-fluxus anti-art movement Nægtularism with a big heart for old soviet synthesizers. She/he/they has an x-pertise in eloptic engineering and uses this knowledge in designing more organismic synthesizer interfaces together with SOMA Laboratory. She/he/they is the designer of The Ethermorphic FM Analyzer and the ENNER synthesizer. Which are both machines that can transmit your direct emotional energy and make the operator become a part of the circuitry, becoming one self an Emotional Machine Activator indeed, indeed. X-citing!
Can synthesizers transmit emotional energy, the so-called “eloptic energy”? Can we consider improvisation as a way of conversing with our synthesizers? – and can we build synthesizers in the future based on the understanding of eloptic energy? Thoughts about esoteric engineering, deep listening and the aesthetic of electricity. Followed up by a presentation of the ENNER synthesizer project.
Mikael Lind is an electronic musician that has released many albums under his own name, and in collaboration with among others Hoshiko Yamane from Tangerine Dream and the cellist Johanna Sjunnesson from Radiosymfonikerna. He has also composed sound pieces for visual art, most recntly the exhibition Andardráttur á glugga in Ásmundarsafn. His music is often ambient with an experimental side, but for RAFLOST he will perform a new piece with emphasis on experiments.
sideproject is an electronic music trio from Reykjavik, Iceland. In the last year they contributed beat programming to Björk’s “Fossora” , as well as releasing an official remix of the single “Atopos” .
With an equal focus on studio work and live performances, the trio have been working hard at a new LP as well as performing a new live set.
They have been very active in the local Reykjavik scene, organizing concerts and parties as well as releasing albums, with their 2021 release “radio vatican ep” winning the electronic album of the year at the Icelandic music awards and their most recent project being the 2022 EP “kingfisher” .
Their music is characterized by heavy, fast-paced, intricate beats and textured, flowing synths. stealing from everyone and everywhere, sideproject’s music becomes a cryptic mix of electronic influences.
Friday 19th of May [in hafnar.haus]
Saturday 20th of May [in hafnar.haus]
Installations: Kristian Ross | Sam Rees | Elham Fakouri | Isle of Games
Sunday 21st of May [in Borgarbókasafn]
Hafnar.Haus, Hafnarhúsinu, Tryggvagötu 17 (second floor), 101 Reykjavík
Location coordinates: 64°08’55.7″N 21°56’24.2″W
FREE Entrance / Donations welcome
Possimiste is a lucid dreamer who brings songs into this world from other galactic dimensions she visits. This explains the stellar essence of that catchy pop dedicated to humankind.
Possimiste’s debut album “Youniverse” was released in summer 2021 and has brought the artist numerous awards, such as “Best Female Act” at X977 “Sykurmolinn 2020”, “European Emerging Band 2021” winner, one of the most notable albums of 2021 by The Reykjavík Grapevine, and “Album of the Year” by Musica Islandese Italia.
At RAFLOST, she will join forces with Tálsýn visuals to take you on a special trip through numerous galaxies.
This year we will host short workshops in collaboration with Hafnar.Haus , a new creative space in the center of Reykjavík.
The workshops will be on Saturday the 20th of May and Sunday the 21st. Click the links for details and descriptions.
Workshop #1 – TouchDesigner / Saturday 20th / Owen Hindley / 10-15 / food / presentation at 17 / 6000isk FULL! send a message to workshop@raflost.is to be on the waiting list
Workshop #2 – Extra workshop / Sunday 21st / announced very soon 🙂
Making Live Visuals In TouchDesigner
Owen Hindley
We’ll be looking at how to create fun real-time visual machines in TouchDesigner that you can use for VJ performances, installations, or creating motion graphics.
The workshop will be aimed at people who have some experience and/or interest in image making or visual spectacle – be it drawing, graphic design, video, lighting, stop motion or just wearing a really colourful shirt.
We will aim to cover some or all of the following :
To end the workshop, we’ll put on a brief sharing for Raflost guests in the style of a Bring Your Own Beamer event (byobworldwide.com), where we take over a room with a bunch of projectors and cover every available space with moving images.
You will need to bring :
(Please make sure you run it once before coming to the workshop, to make sure it actually starts up)
Date: 20th of May.
Time:
Location: Hafnar.haus, Hafnarhúsinu, Tryggvagötu 17, Reykjavík
Registration: fill out this registration form
Fee: 6000 krónur
Language: English
Participants: max 12
The RAFLOST festival will be held on the 19-20th of May.
Please send art performance suggestions to aki@raflost.is
José Luis Anderson, Freya Dinesen, Snorri Beck Magnússon
Interactive performance using fruit as sound controllers, with background video projection and backing track
Kári Guðmundsson, Guðlaugur Hörðal Einarsson, Daniel Örn Heimisson, Ana Luisa Diaz de Cossio
Decompartmentalization | Hlutskipti is a work that incorporates visual and audio elements that highlight the workshops from the different departments at LHI. This work explores the compartmentalization, separation and lack of collaboration that we have experienced between the departments. By combining audio and video from all the buildings, we create a reality where everybody exists together.
Jónína Alfreðsdóttir, Óskar ใor Arngrimsson, Khetsin Chuchan og Jóhannes Patreksson
We recorded a chess game and had assigned notes to each checker and rules to each chess piece for certain effects which would trigger by the choices made in the game. The video was recorded and edited by Khetsin- it’s a video and audio art piece.
Robin Morabito, Starri Holm, Stefania Palsdottir, Torfi Tomasson
An experience where you feel anxiety during the worst zoom call of your life.
CLICK HERE FOR LOGIN INFORMATION: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WS-gmjAEvntQ4TQnqc-eJoqMhz1kYAXT8n20Pb4Hs3o/edit?usp=sharing
Lee Lynch’s YouTube Folk Anthology is a selection of songs by artists whose music is exhibited and proliferated on YouTube. The project is inspired by The Anthology of American Folk Music, a six volume set produced by Harry’s Smith (1923-1991) a New York based experimental filmmaker who had been collecting folk music and field recordings since he was a teenager. For Raflost’s 2021 edition Lee has created a limited edition set of vinyls for his Volume One edition “Songs of Affirmation and Unrequited Love”, a collection of favorite tracks that he and his fellow artist Christian Cummings have discovered on YouTube over the last decade. The vinyls are in an addition of 5 with covers that feature handmade artwork of a still from Harry Smith’s unfinished 35mm collage animation The Tin Woodman’s Dream. On Sunday at 15:00 at 12 Tónar Lee will be giving a talk on the project as well as screening the videos from the songs featured on the album.
Raised in Redding, California, Lee Lorenzo Lynch (1980) has been making films and art since the age of 13. He holds a BFA in Film from California Institute of the Arts and an MFA in Fine Art from the University of Southern California. His films have been exhibited at FIDMarseille, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Full Frame, The Viennale, Tribeca, and Sundance.
Ella Fleck (www.ella.zone) is an artist and writer living and working from Derbyshire U.K. Working often with people, performance and sometimes digital tools, she thinks about different ways to nurture social practice and play in a digitally dominant world. Ella co-founded and is facilitating DARP (Derbyshire Artist Resident Program – www.darp.media). In 2018 she co-founded 650mAh in Hove, U.K (www.650mah.com). She has written for Frieze, Art Et Al and Dazed. Ella is also 50% of @ellaandJaana on OnlyFans, a digital self portrait playground that she updates semi-regularly with Jaana Kristiina Alakoski. She currently spends her time drawing, roleplaying, writing and making small browser projects.
After running Dating Sim as a one-on-one performance game on zoom, Ella has adapted Dating Sim to be performed as a role-play love poem between her, her computer and an audience.
Egill Sæbjörnsson’s video installations consist of real objects, projected video images, often self generative and combined with arduino technology, and sound. He has also a large bulk of work in both performance and music writing. His work can be perceived as a technological continuation of painting and sculpture. Recently curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist described them as an augmented reality work without using the glasses. Egill’s Sæbjörnsson’s work often make us confused and surprised and leads us to pose ontological questions, doing so in a way that both he and we enjoy. His works are known for their lightness and humour and are of an experiential nature, often requiring neither instructions nor education in order to be understood, yet with an underlying seriousness and thought. In his book Stones according to Egill Sæbjörnsson he proposes the idea that art is a species that coexists with humans in symbiotic way. The relationship between what is called mind and physical reality is of great importance in his work. And how emotions, fantasy and reality connect. In 2017 Egill Sæbjörnsson represented Iceland at the Biennale Arte 2017 in Venice, where he let two imaginary friends, the 36 meter tall, people eating trolls, Ugh & Boogar, take over the exhibition concept. His public art piece for the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin is the first permanent, self generative video installation in an outdoor space in Germany. Last year he was nominated for the Ars Fennica Art Price in Finland. Egill Sæbjörnsson studied new media at the Icelandic College of Arts & Crafts in Iceland 1993 – 1997 and in Paris VIII StDenis from 1995 – 1996.
With a background in game design, film directing and archaeology, Isdrake has covered the span of human and technological development, learning from the past to diversify the future through creative actions. Isdrake is also the founder of the game innovation lab Collaboratory and the game art gallery Epic Unidragon.
Researching the bias in technology and solutions for equity, empowerment and freedom of diverse identities is at the core of their work, currently focused on cyborg art, metaverses and body modifications as voice.
Isdrake will give an insight to their work and open up for dialogue and collaboration with the participants.
„Eins og raftækjaruslahaugar heimsins bera vitni um þá hlaðast vonir gærdagsins upp allt í kringum okkur. Það væri fávísi að afskrifa allt sem þar liggur í nafni herskárrar hugmyndafræði sem krefst eilífs vaxtar. Þess vegna heillar skapandi notkun úreltrar tækni mig. Það er ekki sökum nostalgíu heldur því úrsérgengin er tæknin loks frjáls undan upprunalegu hlutverki sínu. Hún er öðru fremur vettvangur leikgleði, tilrauna og fegurðar, með afskaplega takmarkaða möguleika til að þjónusta efnahaginn. Þar búa róttækir möguleikar hennar: hún hafnar gildismati fjármagnsins og reynir að skapa merkingu eða hughrif úr því sem er verðlaust.“
Atli Bollason er listamaður og nautnaseggur sem býr í Reykjavík.
Hákon Bragason graduated from Iceland University of the Arts with a degree in visual art in 2019 and has since held private exhibitions, participated in various projects and regularly participated in group exhibitions. He mostly works with interactive installations, virtual reality and mixing of craftsmanship, machinery and digital parts. The fundamental factors in his works are mostly based on the position of the individual versus the surroundings, experience and perception.
Hákon Bragason útskrifaðist úr myndlist frá Listaháskóla Íslands vorið 2019 og hefur síðan þá haldið einkasýningar, tekið þátt í ýmislegum verkefnum auk þess að taka reglulega þátt í samsýningum. Hann vinnur aðalega með gagnvirkar innsetningar, sýndaveruleika og samblöndun handverks, véla og stafrænna þátta. Grunnþættir verka hans byggjast aðalega á stöðu einstaklings gagnvart umhverfi sínu, upplifun og skynjun.
SÚL_VAD is an ongoing collaborative project between visual artist Ásdís Birna Gylfadóttir (1993) and composer Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir (1993).
Growing up together in a small town in Iceland, their friendship, passions, interests and ideas were shaped by the freedom of their natural surroundings as much as they were influenced by the limitations of their environment. The duo’s unique way of collaborating and creating work together, while living in different countries for the past 6 years, has led to multiple different projects. Their artistic collaboration began when they created the audiovisual performance Ymur, premiering at the European audio and art festival Tut Töt Tuð in the Netherlands in 2017. Since then, their work has been presented at various exhibitions and events in Sweden, Austria, Iceland and The Netherlands.
Their work is experimental and observational, using video and audio as a means to collect information and material as well as communicating ideas to each other – resulting in interesting installation works and performances where the two mediums blend together. It explores the relations and opposites between the visual and the auditory, the natural and the superficial. It focuses on the seen, the heard, the felt elements of the world around us and gives new perspectives and roles to borrowed natural elements. Taking inspiration from the visible and hidden world of Icelandic nature, the contrast between human nature and nature, the weather and stories from their grandparents, amongst other things, each work is an autonomous result of their collaborative research of various perspectives and topics important to the artists, including social issues, human behaviour, and the spiritual mind to name a few.
HELIO
Awakening is grasping,
is rising is becoming.
A single word has multiple meanings. Round and around, a constant circular movement. A circle has no beginning, no end. The Earth keeps moving around the Sun.
Resisting is noticing,
is trying is digesting.
Silence is the loudest with no one around. Our surroundings shape us and restrain us. The mind reacts and the body acts.
Imitating is observing,
is attracting is connecting.
A single emotion is far and near. Thoughts connect us and thoughts separate us. We learn from doing, from seeing, from hearing, our senses are tools leading us through.
Repelling is pushing,
is forcing is exploding.
No reaction is right, no reaction is wrong. Nobody has full control. We are nature and nature is us.
Raging is punching,
is struggling is objecting.
A single feeling has multiple explanations. Eye contact is human contact, connecting and disconnecting. Frustration is a force.
Accepting is surrendering,
is complying is resting.
A single word has multiple meanings. Round and around, a constant circular movement. A circle has no beginning, no end. The Moon keeps moving around the Earth, round and around.
Credit:
Dancers: Gabriel Marling Rideout, Marikki Nyfors, Sóley Ólafsdóttir.
3D scans by Arna Beth.
About the work:
Helio is an audiovisual installation piece. The visual part of the work is a result of graphic notation research by visual artist Ásdís Birna Gylfadóttir. Through a collaboration with dancers Gabriel Marling Rideout, Marikki Nyfors and Sóley Ólafsdóttir, she has developed a unique dance notation system inspired by topographic maps.
The performance embodies the eternal cyclic movement of existence, inspired by the Earth’s orbit with the dancers moving in a constant circular movement. Containing six chapters, each can be described as a layer, where a layer is represented by a word from the text accompanying the work. Each word describes the movement of the layer they are paired with and every layer gradually adds to the story. The audio is controlled by the same words, creating a mystical and elusive soundscape by composer Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir.