SAT 19 NOV

E-09

Alexandra Maciá, Seamus O’Donnell

E-09 focuses on producing a live sound aesthetic composed of a collage of influences. While the live input of voice and electronic instruments is important, so are the frequencies of the radio bands and electromagnetic spectrum. Sources can include LW, SW and FM radio, where local electronic devices along with self-built mini FM transmitters interfere with normal reception. Power supplies feeding the devices used provide a color palette of EM spectrum tones to intuitively discover and manipulate. Other sources of electromagnetic sounds are the motors of the instruments used, such as the Dictaphone and the CD player picked up by a DIY broadband receiver for electromagnetic radiation. Other DIY instruments used are a digital circuit bending synthesizer and a circuit curve enhancer.
Once captured all these elements are filtered, dissected and then superimposed on themselves through repetition of patterns which in turn are destroyed – generating an organic, dynamic and progressive audible universe.

E-09 is collaborative live audio project developed by Alexandra Maciá and Seamus O’Donnell at the end of 2021. Their combined explorations envelop a wide range of approaches and intended outcomes. Always welcoming of fresh challenges E-09 thrive on a DIY attitude with an eye on the visualization of sound within the minds of their audience.

Alexandra Macia is a sound artist from Granada, Spain. Since her move to Berlin in 2015, she has been investing in analog sound and working with handmade instruments, sound recordings, loops, feedback, and electromagnetic signals which she processes using a modular synthesizer to sculpt cinematic compositions through the deconstruction of textures and noise.

Seamus O’Donnell works can include radio frequency experiments, manipulated field recordings, self made devices, amplified objects and magnetic fields, no-input mixer as well as other more traditional instruments and voice. Improvisation is probably the most important factor.
As an organiser O’Donnell works with the registered association, Salon Bruit e.V., a platform for experimental music and with ColaBoraDio, a part of the Freien Radios Berlin Brandenburg, as presenter and programmer on the local frequency 88.4FM.

YupanaSimi

Asimtria / Marco Valdivia, Milagros Paola Saldarriaga

Yupana Simi is an interactive audiovisual work executed through code in a programming language expressed in a syntax inspired by the Quechua, one native language of AbyaYala, which processes sounds from the Andes and contemporary graphics of artisans. The performance is executed by Semilla y Muerte and ###, audiovisual projects of Milagros Saldarriaga and Marco Valdivia, creators from Perú.

Milagros Saldarriaga
A woman of the abya yala, from Lima, who finds in the southern highlands the possibility of expanding her experiences and trying to unlearn the thoughts of cement to breathe the blowing of the apus, drink the water of the clouds, listen to seeds, touch the earth, resent the sun, look at the thunder, as a vital necessity to resist the violence that reigns and in search of harmonizing with life. Just taking off….

Marco Valdivia
He believes in technology and its appropriation as a tool for the development of people, individually and above all common and collective, focuses it on sound and audiovisual practice, and on the communication and exchange of knowledge and experiences on these same topics. From this perspective, he has mediated training spaces, shared talks, and presented concerts and works in different festivals, meetings, cycles and other specialized spaces in Abya Yala and other territories.

Since 2006 he has been developing his work from asimtria.org, an open transdisciplinary platform, focused on researching, carrying out, transferring and sharing various forms of creation based on the use, appropriation and free development of technologies applied to contemporary experimental music, listening and audiovisual, through projects such as Pumpumyachkan, Festival Asimtria, Festival Transpiksel, REUDO – Encuentro de Ruido, and others. He has also collaborated with other organizations and networks in the Latin American region.

MTCD – A Visual Anthology of My Machine Life

Teresa Dillon

MTCD is a monologue in which the artist and researcher Teresa Dillon takes one “machine’ from each year of her life. From radios to home recording devices to her first experiences on the Internet, reflections on techs uses and misuses, failures and breakdowns, highlight the glitchy realities and contextual relations in which the key “machines” that shaped her technological know-how and imagination, play out.
MTCD originally premiered at Berlin’s transmediale in 2018 with further presentations in 2019. This updated but stripped back version is a special edition for PIKSEL 20th birthday.

Teresa Dillon (IRL/UK/DE)
An artist and researcher Teresa’s work explores the interrelationships between humans, other species, technology, cities and our environments. This currently manifests through three evolving programmes: Repair Acts (2018-) explores restorative cultures and practices by connecting past stories of care, maintenance and healing, with what we do today and how we envision the future. Urban Hosts (2013-) a programme that plays with civic conversational, encountering and hospitality formats and Liminal Routes (2020-) a mixtape and sonic tripping series for cities. Experienced in producing software and hardware projects, Teresa has also written on subjects such as open source processes, music, technology and design, sonic materiality’s and folklores, multispecies relations, surveillance, governance and the smart city, repair economies and artisan repair professions. As a Humboldt Fellow (UdK and TU, Berlin, 2014-16) her work documented artistic approaches to making the electromagnetic spectrum in cities audible. Invited to co-curate transmediale (2016) and HACK-THE-CITY (2012) for the former, Science Gallery, Dublin, since 2016 she currently holds the post of Professor of City Futures at the School of Art and Design, UWE, Bristol.
Links: polarproduce.org/ // repairacts.net/ // urbanhosts.org/

SEMINAR “PIKSEL XX. 20 years of Libre Electronic Art”

SEMINAR “PIKSEL XX. 20 years of Libre Electronic Art”

To celebrate the 20 Piksel Anniversary, join us at the seminar “PIKSEL XX. 20 years of Libre Electronic Art”. Focusing on the Free/Libre and Open Source movement as a strategy for regaining artistic control of technology, it brings attention to the close connections between art, politics, technology, and economy. The seminar revolves around artistic practices related to open-source biokitchen art, politics, and surveillance in information technologies, and visual/sound instruments made by electronics, using Free/Libre software and hardware (FLOSS).

Over the 20 years, Piksel has become a solid international network and annual event for electronic art and technological freedom. Part workshop, part festival, it is organised in Bergen, Norway, and involves participants from more than a dozen countries exchanging ideas, coding, presenting art and software projects, doing workshops, performances and discussions on the aesthetics and politics of free/libre technologies.

The seminar takes place on Saturday 19th at Kunstskolen i Bergen Auditorium in 2 different sessions. Dušan Barok is the moderator and the editor of the book.

Morning sessions (10:30-13h):
Grethe Melby (NO)
Malte Steiner (DE)
John Bowers (UK)
Paola Torres Núñez del Prado (PE/SE)

Afternoon sessions (15-17:30h):
Per Platou (NO)
APO33 – Julien Ottavi + Jenny Pickett (FR)
Marc Duseiller (CH)
Asimtria / Marco Valdivia (PE)
Maite Cajaraville + Gisle Frøysland (NO)

As the head of PNEK Stahl Stenslie wrote in The Experimental Emerging Art magazine issue Nº1, about the 2015 Piksel edition: “Piksel is more than a festival. It is a contemporary academy in the experimental arts. Organized by Gisle Frøysland and Maite Cajaraville, Piksel turns Bergen into a creative explosion of new, emerging forms of creative expression and strangely attractive experiments. The 2015 version saw anything from deep noise concerts to workshops in Do-It-Yourself, open source biokitchen art to electro-mechanical sculptures and surveillance bots. It was an event not just for visitors, but also an exquisite arena for the exchange of ideas and inspirations between artists. The feeling of the festival was intimate and local, yet a temporary home to a wide number of international guests from all over the world. Piksel is what PNEK is about: getting stronger through networking and building bonds across boundaries of thinking and acting.”

Locally and internationally Piksel has written the story of new media art using Free and Libre technologies, after 20 years there is a lot to tell to new generations.

Dušan Barok, the founding editor of Monoskop, a research platform for the arts and humanities, states: “Through the Piksel history we can know the history of Free/Libre Open Source and Software movement”, that is the importance of the Piksel festivals in Norway and its impact in the international arenas.

To preserve the history of contemporary art in Norway, the electronic and experimental art scene that Norway triggered internationally through the Piksel festival, and to open it to new generations is the goal of this seminar. The seminar also works as the pre-launch of the book “PIKSEL XX. 20 years of Libre Electronic Art” which is cooking in the Piksel oven.

Piksel KidZ Lab Messaging with lights in a not internet era!

Messaging with lights in a not internet era!

Saturday November 19th 10:00 to 13:00
Duration: 3 hours.
Age: 8-18 years old.
Place: KUNSTSKOLEN I BERGEN,
Marken 37 i Bergen sentrum, Bergen City

Gratis verksted for barn/unge i alderen 8-18 år for påmelding: piksel22(at)piksel(dot)no

Piksel KidZ Lab is supported by Bergen Kommune and Vestland Fylkeskommune and Fana Sparebank.

What would happen if we no longer had the internet or mobile phones? How would we send messages to each other? Drawing inspiration from insects and ancient forms of signalling using light, we will learn in this workshop how to create our own blinking firefly lanterns for wirelessly transmitting messages.

Sarah Grant (US)

Sarah Grant is an American artist and professor of new media based in Berlin at the Weise7 studio. Her teaching and art practice engages with the electromagnetic spectrum and computer networks as artistic material, social habitat, and political landscape. She holds a Bachelors of Arts in Fine Art from UC Davis and a Masters in Media Arts from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. Since 2015, she has organized the Radical Networks conference in New York and Berlin, a community event and arts festival for critical investigations and creative experiments in telecommunications.

Intro to PdParty

Dan Wilcox

This is an overview workshop PdParty, a free open-source iOS application for running Pure Data patches on Apple mobile devices using libpd. Directly inspired by Chris McCormick’s DroidParty for Android and the original RjDj by Reality Jockey, PdParty takes a step further by supporting OSC (Open Sound Control), MIDI, & MiFi game controller input as well as implementing the native Pd GUI objects for a WYSIWYG patch to mobile device experience. Various scene types are supported including compatibility modes for PdDroidParty & RjDj and both patches and abstraction libraries can be managed via a built-in web server. Unlike the rise of the single-purpose audio application, PdParty is meant to provide a platform for general purpose digital signal processing via Pure Data patches.

Dan Wilcox is an artist, engineer, musician, and performer who combines live musical performance techniques with experimental electronics and software for the exploration of new expression. He grew up in the Rocket City, and has performed in Europe, Asia, and around the US with his one man band cyborg performance project, robotcowboy.

Neural Networks in Pure Data

Alexandros Drymonitis

This workshop aims to demystify some basic concepts that pertain to neural networks, and their potential in artistic practices. Focusing on Pure Data and the brand new neuralnet object, the participants will be introduced to basic use cases of neural networks in audio (and visuals possibly), while the workshop will end with a collective brainstorming session where participants will either try for themselves, or will share their ideas on how they would like to use a neural network for their own work.

Alexandros Drymonitis is a sound and new media artist. He is a PhD candidate at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire doing research on the creation of musical works with the programming language Python. His artistic practice focuses on new techniques utilizing new media such as computer programming, AI, or even older practices, like modular synthesis.

He has collaborated with various artists from different art disciplines, plus several ensembles, either interdisciplinary or music ensembles.

He has taught the guitar at the Music School of Amsterdam and ‘Philippos Nakas’ Conservatory in Athens, and electronic music programming at ‘Musical Praxis’ Conservatory in Athens. He is currently a freelancer in the field of electronic music and multimedia programming, teaching several workshops in various venues and undertaking multimedia programming in various events.

Soft Control and body actuation

by Afroditi Psarra with the collaboration of Tingyi Jiang

The implementation of artificial intelligence and machine learning systems in all areas of technological artifacts, constantly challenges the ways in which we perceive and understand the world around us, our bodies, and our identities.

In this workshop, the participants will experiment hands-on with the idea of body control through the use of wearable technology and natural language processing, while discussing ideas around the construction of identity, and how algorithms dictate our gestures and movements. Specifically, the workshop will focus on contact improvisation with robotic actuators in an effort to explore the hybridization of human and algorithmic movement.

Participants: Dansers and anyone interested on interactivity and technologies.
Duration: 3 hours
Venue: Bergen Dansesenter
Date: 19th – 10-13h

Afroditi Psarra

Afroditi Psarra is a transdisciplinary artist and an Associate Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington. She holds a PhD in Image, Technology, and Design from the Complutense University of Madrid. Her research focuses on the art and science interaction with a critical discourse in the creation of artifacts. Her practice builds on and extends the work of Cyber and Techno-Feminism(s) and the idea of female (and feminized) bodies as matrices of information. Her work has been presented at international media art festivals such as Ars Electronica, Transmediale and CTM, Eyeo, Piksel, and WRO Biennale between others, venues like Bozar, Onassis Stegi, EMST (Greek Museum of Contemporary Art), Walker Art Center, and published at conferences like Siggraph, ISWC (International Symposium of Wearable Computers), DIS (Designing Interactive Systems), C&C (Creativity and Cognition), and EVA (Electronic Visualization and the Arts).

screenBashing

Magno Caliman

screenBashing is a live coding piece, where audio and visual materials are programmed in real time during its performance using SuperCollider for it’s sound components, and C for it’s visual elements.
Visuals are created by printing characters such as backslashes and underlines in rapid succession, while at the same time freezing the whole system several times per second, creating the illusion of animated motion.

Audio is generated via an “oneliner”, and there are no refined performance controls to it, making it impossible later on in the performance to tweak parameters of something that was already generated and is being heard. Any modification on the code will create new versions of the audio, where the only possible option is to sound in superposition to previous layers, creating an accumulation which drives the narrative forward. Layers can not be paused or removed after their creation. Mistakes are impossible to be undone, and all decisions are final.

One consequence of this setup is that it is extremely resource-heavy on the computer, as it purposely freezes the whole system several times per second in order to create an animation.
This unavoidable consequence – saturation of the machine processing power – is embraced as a principle/composition guideline, and is deeply explored throughout the performance, with the computer becoming gradually more unresponsive as new animations are spawned. After a certain threshold, the system becomes erratic, up to a point where it is no longer possible to gain control of it.

Magno Caliman

Sound artist, educator and creative coder, both his artistic and academic research activities are heavily rooted in the embracing of programming languages as places for poetical speculation, as well as the construction, modification and manipulation of electronic circuits. Has a degree in Music Composition and a master’s diploma in Education, where he developed and researched learning and teaching methodologies for programming languages in the context of the arts. Former teacher of Multimedia Arts at Maia University in Porto – Portugal, and was part of the team running, managing and curating SOMAR, a venue in Lisbon dedicated to sound, art and technology.

Currently teaches at the “Artistic Research in Music” master’s programme at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome – Italy. As a doctoral researcher working with the “Music, Thought and Technology” research cluster at the Orpheus Institute – Ghent, he investigates how technical objects can operate as active, non-transparent agents in technologically mediated experimental sound practices.

robotcowboy

Dan Wilcox

robotcowboy is a wearable computing platform to explore new types of man-machine music & artistic performance. Embedded computing, custom open-source software, and audio electronics are utilized to build portable, self contained systems which both embed and embody the computation on the performer. This cyborg approach is both empowering and compromising as new sonic capability & movement are offset by the need for electrical energy: elements of tension between human and system. robotcowboy shows are always live and contain aspects of improvisation, feedback with the audience, and an inherent capability of failure.

robotcowboy’s first 2006-2007 incarnation melded rock with realtime algorithmic composition tools into a dynamic live show. The second incarnation followed the story of the first human on Mars with spacesuit as portable music machine in 2013. The ongoing third incarnation explores themes of trajectories, radiation, and space travel. The future is bright, do you have room to wiggle?

Dan Wilcox is an artist, engineer, musician, and performer who combines live musical performance techniques with experimental electronics and software for the exploration of new expression. He grew up in the Rocket City, and has performed in Europe, Asia, and around the US with his one man band cyborg performance project, robotcowboy.