
Monika Fryčová [CZ]

Olga Szymula is a Polish experimental sound maker and performer. She currently lives and creates her electro-acoustic worlds in Denmark. Her works take forms in concerts, records, film scores, installations and performances.
‘By diving into the ocean of various intensities, qualities and forms she travels the sonic trip
of twisted characters, imaginary landscapes and dramatic turns.’
In music her main intention is to explore the full spectrum of sound and its dynamics, intensities and qualities. She bends and plays around with music forms, combining playful melodies and songs with abstract forms and noises.
www.olgaszymula.net
www.nomadicisland.net
www.youtube.com/watch?v=feeLEcGVHVQ&t=2s
The performance is supported by DPA, Danske Populær Autorer
Amy Knoles has been percussionist for the world renowned California EAR Unit, played solo shows and various collaborations all over the world, as well as teaching percussion at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Los Angeles.
Throughout her career she has increasingly been using electronic percussion instruments and percussive triggering of electronic sound generations. Friday May 26th she’ll be giving a lecture/workshop at the Iceland Academy of the Arts. In the workshop she will demonstrate her equipment and techniques, as well as giving participants hands-on experience. In the evening she’ll perform a concert sharing the evening with Monika Fryčová [CZ] audiovisual artist, performer and writer.
Friday May 26th 13:00: Lecture/workshop
Friday May 26th 20:00: Performance
Both events takes place in Sölvhóll – the concert hall of Iceland Academy of the Arts, Sölvhólsgata 13. Entrance is a back of the house, from the Skúlagata side.
http://www.amyknoles.org
Agnes and Antonia are developing a new tool for measuring the impact of presence in a space at a given time.
Agnes Ársælsdóttir is currently studying Fine Art in The Icelandic Academy of the Arts. Her work is often in collaboration with the audience, sometimes to the extent that the piece itself would not exist without them. She has recently been working with sensors that detect movement, making the audience trigger sound.
Antonia González Alarcón is a Chilean artist currently based in Mexico. Her works focus on how people make themselves present in the world and how we can leave a testimony of our existence, through different interactive pieces.
This year’s Raflost Festival will be hosting a modular meet Saturday May 27th 13:00-17:00.
Do you have a modular synthesizer or are you interested in modular synthesizers and sound synthesis, and electronic music creation in general? Bring your modular, semi-modular, video synth or DIY creation and patch with other modular synthesizer enthusiasts (bring your own little monitor setup and power). There’ll also be opportunity to talk about patching techniques, synthesis techniques, building a modular synth, analog, digital, DIY modules and more. There’ll also be opportunity to do short performances (Stereo PA and video projector in house).
The event will take place at the IAA Music dept. Concert Hall “Sölvhóll” (large gray barrack on the corner of Klapparstígur and Skúlagata). Free entrance.
The RAFLOST festival will be taking place from the 25th until 27th of May in various locations in Reykjavík. The schedule will be announced soon.
Here is more info on the HEBOCON robot contest.
There are still space left for few contestants, so if you’re interested please contact Sam Rees ( s a m t r e e s @ g m a i l . c o m )
Participants should read these documents carefully:
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/262718380742548/
Workshops:
Events:
Wednesday, May 25th:
20:00 CONCERT, Iceland Academy of the Arts, Sölvhóll concert hall, Sölvhólsgata 13 (Skúlagötumegin)
Improvised electroacoustic music performance by T-EMP ensemble. Free entrance.
Thursday, May 26th:
17:00 RAFLOST OPENING – Mengi, Óðinsgötu 2
Installations, Performances, Electronic Poetry and more works by artists such as Páll Ivan frá Eiðum, Sam Rees, Arnar Ómarsson, Nicolas Kunysz, Dodda Maggý, Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir, Jón Örn Loðmfjörð, Sigrún Jónsdóttir, Erik Parr, Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir, Halldór Úlfarsson and Hlynur Aðils Vilmarsson. Free entrance.
21:00 CONCERT – Mengi, Óðinsgötu 2
Electronic music by Jóhannes G. Þorsteinsson, Arnljótur Sigurðsson and Þórður Kári Steinþórsson. 2000 ISK (or festival pass)
Friday, May 27th:
17:00 RAFLOSTI – Iceland Academy of the Arts, Laugarnesvegi 91
Student Workshop Performance. Free entrance.
21:00 CONCERT, Mengi, Óðinsgötu 2
Electronic Music Performance by Jari Suominen and Audio/Visual Performance by Haraldur Karlsson and Daniel Schorno. 2000 ISK (or festival pass)
Saturday, May 28th:
15:00 Workshop – The Altar of Algorithmic Noise Workshop, Jari Suominen, Mengi, Óðinsgötu 2. Free entrance, 30€ material fee.
21:00 Hebocon – A robot sumo-wrestling competition for those who are not technically gifted, Mengi, Óðinsgötu 2. 2000 ISK (or festival pass).
Admission fee for evening performances is 2000 ISK.
Festival pass 4000 ISK.
Artist Halldór Úlfarsson and composer Hlynur A. Vilmarsson join forces to create a hi-fi/elemental experiment.
Halldór Úlfarsson (1977) studied fine art and design in Helsinki, Finland. His practice has gradually become inseperable from his project the halldorophone, an electro-acoustic string instrument he´s been developing for the past years. The halldorophone features in many new compositions by contemporary composers premiered at new music festivals in recent years. When Halldór works with the halldorophone himself it´s most often in the form of arranging collaborations, instrumentations and locations that strategically positions the instrument within the western musical tradition.
Hlynur A. Vilmarsson studied composition at Reykjavík College of Music and electronic music at Kópavogur School of Music. His music has been played in Europe, USA and Asia by groups like Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Brodsky String Quartet, Uusinta Chamber Ensemble and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Hlynur was chairman of UNM (Ung Nordisk Musik) from 2000-2007 and is now member in composers collective s.l.á.t.u.r. and Lornalab (Reykjavik media lab). Hlynur has also composed music for theater and film and played in various pop and rock bands.
Þórður Kári Steinþórsson is an electronic musician from the southeastern districts of Reykjavík and sometimes goes under the name Kosmodod. This Berlin based artist is one of the co-founders of Sweaty Records, the brand new Berlin/Reykjavik electro label, as well as being the producer of the infamous band Samaris.
This Raflost he will be performing an electronic improvisation jam.
Born in 1979 in Reykjavík, Kolbeinn Hugi is an island dwelling artist of a generation that emerged in the wake of the cataclysmic great rift between art and artists in the bleak neo-capitalist Reykjavík of modern times.
Kolbeinn has developed a complex audiovisual language, using found materials, water-foam, fabrics and layered synthesized soundscapes. Visual motifs of pyramids and diamonds create ritualistic system within his work. Often using the body as a tool or a vehicle for ideas within his practice, recurring themes within his works have included, absurd realities, dream spaces, utopian projections and man’s modern day disconnect and systematic alienation from the environment.
Kolbeinn was contacted by Edgar Cayce in the informal setting of dream state trances established by the great sleeping medium after his death in 1945. There, he absorbed the acute sensibility to time and space associated with Cayce’s phantom sculptures as set up in his Astral Pavilion.
Kolbeinn’s work is simple work that doesn’t need explanation and aims for the heart, not for the head.
His work has been exhibited widely around the western world, and is preserved in the collection of the National Gallery of Iceland.
Páll Ivan frá Eiðum – renegade cop and maverick
Páll Ivan takes you on an epic journey through space and time,
his face beaten beyond recognition.
The perfect storm in a nutshell.
Coming soon.
Arnljótur is a musician based in Reykjavík. The last years he has focused on electronic music and released four albums under his own name. HIs style has progressed from concrete music to pulsing ambience. On the concert in Mengi he will play new material based around ring modulation.
arnljotur.bandcamp.com
www.soundcloud.com/arnljotur
www.facebook.com/arnljoturmusic
photo: Håkon Broder Lund
Sigrún Jónsdóttir is an Icelandic musician and composer. She studied at the Icelandic Academy of the arts from 2011-2015 alongside touring with various bands around the world.
In her most recent work she has been exploring the components of everyday noise and sounds. Taking them a part, frequency by frequency, and manipulating until it turns into something completely new, sometimes musical sometimes not. Inspired by the meetingpoint of musical imagery and the mainstream song.
https://soundcloud.com/beinteins89
Video artist Haraldur Karlsson og Composer Daniel Schorno are former classmates of Sonology where they among other things studied the making of alternative electronic instruments. They have been active for almost two decades in giving exhibitions, workshops and performances.
under the alias ‘zitegeist’ daniel schorno travels the globe performing on new eponymous analoge and digital instruments & crackle scorpion sound sculptures. zitegeist’s musical noosphere is informed by razor edge cut & cued sounds and laser fast resynthesis. recent duos have included luminaries like haraldur karlsson, joel ryan, dj sniff and installation work with ana rewakowicz, adéla součková and mouse-on-mars’ jan st werner on the ‘noiseroom’.
Haraldur Karlsson (1967, Reykjavik, Iceland) holds a diploma in Mixed-Media from the Icelandic art school in Reykjavik and BA diploma in Media-Art from AKI Enchede, Holland. Further to this he studied Sonology over 3 years in the Royal Conservatorium Den Haag under the guidance of professor Clarence Barlow. For many years Karlsson worked at the Icelandic Academy of Arts as the head of Media-Lab, which he had designed. Karlsson has had exhibitions, performances and lectures in Iceland, Holland, Belgium, England, Czech Republic, Finland and Norway. He is currently based in Oslo and works on several video-art commissions.
RAFLOST invites applications for people to take part in Iceland´s 1st Hebocon ( a robot sumo-wrestling competition for those who are not technically gifted ).
Open to all ages, all abilities. Please email samtrees@gmail.com to enrol in the competition – applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.
For examples of Hebocon, see – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ivFpsmEVQ
Organised by Sam Rees and Arnar Ómarsson.
Presenter: Steinunn Eldflaug