Jóhann Eiríksson and Hallvarður Ásgeirsson

Jóhann Eiríksson and Hallvarður Ásgeirsson meet at the crossing of industrial and electro acoustic music. They will perform a piece combining the feedback instrument Varðiphone with modular synthesizers.

Jóhann Eiriksson has been active in the Icelandic music scene for decades. He is a founding member of electronic / post industrial groups Gjöll with writer / vocalist Sigurður Harðarsson , and Reptilicus with Guðmundur Ingi Markússon. And has also released solo projects under his own name (or variants thereof). As well as being an influential musician, he has worked with a diverse group of artists as a producer. http://johanneiriksson.com/

Hallvarður Ásgeirsson is a composer and guitarist working with the metamorphosis of live instruments. He uses a custom built Varðiphone, working with feedback and using a modular pickup enabling isolated processing of each string. He has written music for the films The Disadvantages of Time Travel and the Moment by Richard Ramchurm and the dance pieces Scape of Grace, Blýkufl and Predator by Saga Sigurðardóttir. He has released several albums on his own label Andrými and on Paradigms Recordings. http://hallvardurasgeirsson.com

Kaðlín Sara Ólafsdóttir

Kaðlín Sara Ólafsdóttir is a sound artist currently studying at the Institute of Sonology
in The Hague. Mostly she works with tape and cassettes, exploring the possibilities of
low-quality sound and obsolete materials. Kaðlín makes sound installations and live
performances using modified cassette players and old cassettes, exposing the fragile
materiality of the cassette and the recorded stories that it holds.

Kaðlín will perform a piece called læti, for a hacked cassette player, live electronics and voice.

Hákon Bragason

The piece is based on the display of a three dimensional tomographic image of a four dimensional box (hypercube) onto a two dimensional screen.  Visitors can view this three dimensional shape from all angles using an interactive control panel.  An accompanying sound world is created by the 3D shape’s viewing angle.

In his work, Hákon Bragason deals with our experience of the surroundings and how it is controlled by various sensations, equipment etc.  He normally uses media such as electronic appliances, digital technology and sounds that are presented together in interactive installations.

Kurt Uenala

Kurt Uenala is a swiss electronic musician now based in Reykjavik after many years in New York City. He has composed and worked on numerous acclaimed music recordings such as Depeche Mode, Moby and The Kills during his time abroad.
He first made his name in 2003, debuting on the essential compilation The Sound Of Young New York. His song “Die Sleeping” was an early classic of dreamy, club-ready synth wave, and it caught the attention of fans and artists around the world. It eventually landed him a gig recording with Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan, not to mention a long list of major acts such as Moby and The Kills.
The collaboration with Dave from Depeche Mode was especially fruitful—it wasn’t long before Kurt began writing original songs for the band. His love for vintage synthesizers, dark electronic music, and exploring unusual chord structures was a natural fit. The more Kurt worked with Dave and Depeche Mode, the more time he spent at the Manhattan recording studio. He soon started writing his own shadowy, melancholic songs, filling them with angular beats and moody atmospheres that would become his debut album “Cryosleep”.

Inspired by retro sci-fi films, electronic innovators and new wave, Kurt released his debut album under the artist name Null + Void. The album puts his extensive production experience into a wide variety of songs. Vocal performances by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Big Pink, Light Asylum and Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan bring their resonant humanity into the music’s austere beauty and cold dynamism. There are mighty rhythmic tracks too: the single “Asphalt Kiss” is built on Detroit electro’s mechanical bounce and has a sinister glint in its eyes.

Currently, his research interests are creating music for the non-hearing population and laser installations. At the concert for Raflost, Kurt will play new compositions and test out ideas.

Website: www.kurtuenala.com

Halldór Eldjárn

(photo by Sigga Ella)

Halldór Eldjárn is an Icelandic electronic musician. His music is a collision of the technological and the organic electronic worlds. Synthscapes, fast rhythms and unusal sounds, together forming a vibrant atmosphere of what the future might sound like. Halldór started writing his own music with the electro-pop band Sykur which has been active since 2008, releasing two albums and traveled the world. When Halldór began studying computer science he had the idea for his solo project. Experimenting with building robotic instruments including a self-playing harp and a few drum robots that can be controlled by a computer, and to make autonomous compositions using algorithms. Halldór has collaborated with Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds and worked on his latest release, creating a generative program for two self playing pianos that Ólafur uses on the album, and onstage when touring. Halldór’s first debut album, Poco Apollo, will be released in 2019 on Mengi Records, and is based on a series of short musical pieces composed from image data from NASA’s moon landing missions (link: https://pocoapollo.hdor.is)

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/h-dor
Facebook: https://facebook.com/hdoreldjarn
Instagram: https://instagram.com/halldorel
Twitter: https://twitter.com/halldorel
Website: https://hdor.is

Halldór’s appearance at Raflost in Mengi will feature a snapshot of what he’s currently working at, but at the moment he is making music with obsolete home computers from the 80’s and seeking inspiration in recycling old technology.

angela rawlings

(photo by John Rogers)

Excerpted from a rawlings’ collection of performance scores entitled Sound of Mull, “Intime” documents in-situ performances conducted on North Atlantic foreshores from 2016 to 2019 as sites of especial geochronological interest given climate change and naming the Anthropocene. “Intime” includes performance on the shoreline facing Herøya Industripark, Norway with a view towards an INEOS shale gas ship emblazoned with “Shale Gas for Chemicals.” “Intime” also includes performance of Laureen Burlat knitting plastic bags harvested from the shoreline of Loch Long. The video features UK nuclear submarine movement, counter-clockwise wind currents over the North Atlantic, footage from the Accelerator Mass Spectrometre and Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, and birds circulating near Ólafsvík during a winter storm.

angela rawlings is a Canadian-Icelandic interdisciplinary artist whose books include Wide slumber for lepidopterists (Coach House Books, 2006), Gibber (online, 2012), o w n (CUE BOOKS, 2015), si tu (MaMa Multimedijalni Institut, 2017), and Sound of Mull (Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology, 2019). Her book Wide slumber was adapted to music theatre by Valgeir Sigurðsson and VaVaVoom (2014). Her libretti include Bodiless (for composer Gabrielle Herbst, 2014) and Longitude (for Davíð Brynjar Franzson, 2014). rawlings’ Áfall / Trauma was shortlisted for the Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Playwrights (2013). She is one-half of the performance duo Völva with Maja Jantar and one-half of the new music duo Moss Moss Not Moss with Rebecca Bruton. rawlings is the recipient of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship (2009-10) and held the position of Queensland Poet-in-Residence (2012). rawlings loves in Iceland. More: www.arawlings.is

Schedule 2019***

Thursday 23rd of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2

17:00 RAFLOST Festival Opening *

  • Students from the Iceland University of the Arts present works from the Raflosti workshop

21:00 Concert – Electronic Music **

Friday 24th of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2

21:00-22:00  Radical Digital Painting ** 

Saturday 25th of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2

13:00-16:00 Open Workshop with Jeffrey Alan Scudder *

21:00 RAFLOST Grand Finale **

23:00-01:00 Afterparty * (t.b.a.)

 

* free admission

** 2000 ISK admission for individual events in Mengi

*** festival pass = 3500 ISK

 

Schedule 2018

Wednesday 23rd of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2
20:00 Screening (1000 ISK entrance)

  • The Goodiepal Equation. Documentary film by Sami Sänpäkkilä
  • Animated notation performance warm-up by S.L.Á.T.U.R. members

 

Thursday 24th of May

SÖLVHÓLL- Sölvhólsgata 13 (behind the building, from Skúlagata)
20:00 Opening (free entrance)

 

Friday 25th of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2
17:00 Workshop Performance (free entrance)

  • Raflosti

21:00 Performance Evening (2000 ISK entrance)

 

Saturday 26th of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2
13:00 Exhibition (free entrance)

15:00 Lectures (free entrance)

21:00 Concert – Algorave (2000 ISK entrance)

 

Sunday 27th of May

REYKJAVIK SAILING CLUB – Ingólfsgarður (behind Harpa)
13:00-16:00 Installation (free entrance)

 

 

 

Una Sigtryggsdóttir

Duration is a self-contained performing object.

Una Sigtryggsdóttir is an artist based in Reykjavík. Her work breaks apart the apparent dichotomy between objective time(mechanisms such as clocks and calendars) and subjective time(perceived changes and experiences), choosing to focus on how these two methods of keeping time may intersect. In her work, flipbooks, shadows on draped fabric, and changes in Gross Domestic Product are equally valid as measures of time. These and other time-metric constructs are folded into her sculptures, videos, installations and music.

https://www.unasigtryggsdottir.com/

Kristín Helga Ríkharðsdóttir

Kristin Helga Rikhardsdottir is an Icelandic visual artist, filmmaker and summertime park ranger currently living and working in Reykjavik. Using video, installations, photography and sound performances she explores the hyper-reality of everyday environment. She takes inspiration from her surroundings and works with society as an insider, a full participant and player. Her work has been featured in exhibitions in Iceland, as well as Sweden, the Czech Republic and Colombia. She holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from the Icelandic Academy of the Arts.

https://www.kristinhelga.com

 

Árni Jónsson & Rúnar Örn Jóhönnu Marinósson

It is true! Live Action Sculpture?

Following instructions delivered by Árni Jónsson via digital communication, Rúnar Örn will create a brand new sculpture live in front of the audience using various power tools.

Árni Jónsson and Rúnar Örn Jóhönnu Marinósson graduated together from the Fine Arts department of the Iceland University of the Arts in 2016. This will be their first collaborative work.

Tumi Magnusson

Tumi Magnússon was born in Iceland in 1957. He studied art at The Icelandic College of Art and Crafts, and at AKI (Academie voor Beeldende Kunst) in the Netherlands. His first solo exhibition was in the Red House Gallery in Akureyri, Iceland, in 1981, and he has shown extensively since then. His early exhibited works included objects, photographs and 8mm films.
In the early eighties he began experimenting with drawing and painting. His motives were figurative and equally informed by the free painting style of the period and conceptual art.
Over the following decade he experimented with the boundaries of painting as a medium, and his work evolved into installations of paintings and murals. This in turn led to his use of the photograph as a medium for installational wall works, and to video/sound installations.  Today he primarily works with multi-channel video and audio where the sound part plays an increasingly important role.
His installations very often have a strong site specific element, and he has maintained an adventurous and experimental approach to art.
Tumi Magnússon was a professor at the Iceland Academy of Art from 1999 to 2005, and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art from 2005 to 2011. He currently lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark, and spends his summers in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland.

Lars From Mars

Lars Graugaard / Lars from Mars
Lars Graugaard is the composer of contemporary experimental music, who doubles as electronica performer using the alias Lars from Mars. Sometimes he is not quite certain which name to use – obviously, he needs more names.
Lars started out as a instrumental performer, later also composer of score music. He still composes quite a lot of score music, but in recent years he has used the computer as his performance vehicle, arriving at an electro style that brings together rhythms, textures and interaction. Much of it is with a strong drive, and much of it has rich and sustained pads. But however different these styles are, they are closely related in his music, because the power that music has to communicate is the passion behind his music.

Harald Jordal

Harald Jordal presents a repertoire of instrumental music influenced by electroacoustic music, digital noise, alternative rock. He sometimes sings, in English and his mother tongue, Norwegian.
Coming from both the computer and the electric guitar, the sound field explored is glitchy and exciting, and tactile and harmonic.Harald Jordal is a composer from Norway. He works in close relation with performers to create pieces with elements of electronics and theatre. In his solo works, he focuses on mixing different styles of electronic music, from contemporary to popular genres, through programming and electric guitar performance.

His music has been performed in Aarhus (WP), Vilnius (WP), Graz, Helsinki, and Berlin, and regularly in Oslo. In 2017 he co-produced the bronze winner of Europe’s First Student 3D Audio Production competition in Graz.
As of 2017, he organizes the concert series LISA, and is a composer and electronic performer in the international contemporary music ensemble Echtcore.

Alex McLean

Alex McLean a.k.a. Yaxu makes live broken techno using his handmade programming language TidalCycles, a technique called “Live Coding”. He co-founded Algorave, bringing live coding to dancefloors, a growing movement that has already spread to over eighty cities. He has performed widely since the year 2000 in several collaborations including Slub [http://slub.org] and CCAI [http://ccai.lurk.org], and at major festivals including Sonar Barcelona, Club Transmediale Berlin, Sonic Acts Amsterdam, Earzoom Ljubljana, NODE Frankfurt, Ars Electronica Linz, Dissonanze Rome, Vivo Mexico City, Lovebytes Sheffield, Lambdasonic Gent, Bluedot and STRP Eindhoven.

Alex’s performances are in general improvised, however he has started recording music, leading to the six track Peak Cut EP on Sheffield label Computer Club. Bleep.com said of it “.. Yaxu’s polyrhythmic and hyperreal strand of techno is showcased on cuts like Public Life and Cyclic showing that he is not just testing the confines of how music can be consumed but also how genres can sound. A truly forward-thinking influx of material from Yaxu and the Computer Club team”. He’s currently working on his first solo album Spicule, again with Computer Club.

Alex is active across the digital arts, including organising the annual Festival of Algorithmic and Festival Movement [http://algomech.com], co-founding the Algorave and TOPLAP live coding movements, and instigating the live coding environment TidalCycles [http://tidalcycles.org]. He works as post-doc researching ancient textiles as digital art for Deutsches Museum [http://penelope.hypotheses.org/], and as a trustee of Access Space Sheffield. 

https://slab.org

Sam Rees

Sam Rees is a British artist based in Iceland, with a passion for DIY cultures. Sam creates interactive dioramas, mixing discarded, circuit bent toy robots with dense collages of found objects to form sequential narratives and absurd scenes.

He has been teaching interactive media at the Iceland University of the Arts since 2014 and was a co-founder of the Fjúk residency in the Northeast of Iceland.

www.instagram.com/sam.t.rees

www.ififoundafrozentimewarpidputitinthemicrowaveatyourhouse.co.uk/