Mad Mixers

Cargobar Basel (CHE)

Renowned for their art installations, fine taste in djs, vjs and mixed drinks, the Cargobar of Basel Switzerland (parked along the Rhine River) has -once again- dreamed up a new artful palette of mixed drinks to be served as artworks in themselves during the DAW07 Festival. The drinks are based around the titles of the artworks, performance and even the songs from the New York punk band Agitpop. Why order a martini if you can order a "Collateral Tutti Frutti" or an "On the Hudson"? The list of drinks -rather let us say drinkable artworks- can be downloaded in the form of a "drinkable.digital.book" authored by no other than Cargobar's owner himself, Claude Gacon, without charge at the link below.
(:tableend:)

Feedback Fred

Benoit Maubrey (USA/FRA)

My decision in the early 1980s to stop working with pigments and canvas came from a desire to interact directly with public spaces. By building loudspeakers into clothes I could intervene in any given environment in a temporary and cost-efficient way: loudspeakers and circuit boards are cheap and can be salvaged from surplus electronics and discarded toys. My artistic tools are electro-acoustic clothes: costumes and suits that are equipped with loudspeakers and amplifying systems that allow the individual wearers to react acoustically to their environment. Feedback Fred works with feedback and Fred- masked with a stocking over the head- feedsback as he makes his way through, over and under things and people....

MyMyoMayhem

Senselabor (AUT)

MMM is a solo performance-installation that investigates the loss of control, motorical malfunction and neurological disorder in a provocation performative setting. Mixing technological art with performative and theatrical elements, the audience is forced into a situation where they experience both the real and the artificial in a provocative setting. The visitor encounters the deconstruction of the performer's motorical system in a one-to-one situation.

PB8 Collective Instrument No. 1

Andrius Regevicius (LIT)

The instruments are meant to be used by anyone present in the space – the audience. They react to pure physical contact and are made with an intention to produce an interactive, but very simple tool. The certain primitive quality of it draws people to use it for their own amusement and to join in very quickly. It is made with the intention to skip the misleading moment in cyber interactivity. I position myself like a sound operator and the one who creates new ways of interaction between audience and the artist, rather than the author on the stage.

Digitalized at your Service

Valerie Bugmann (COL) & Tinlun Chan (CAN)

"Digitalized at your Service" is an innovative performance that, situated at the DAW event, offers the possibility to the visitors of transmitting messages in a very personal, secret and secure way using skin-to-skin communication. A group of well-trained messengers act as communication interfaces for the reception and transmission of messages; their bodies materialize the information that is digitalized in them by using touch in the form of Morse Code. "Digitalized" provides a more human platform for sharing thoughts and experiences and invites us to explore the softness and uniqueness of this communication by touch. The performers are: Simona Hofmann, Nadine Tobler, Martina Richter, Sara Bugmann, Jonas Gillmann. Li E Chen, Andi Hofmann (documentation) Alexandra Bugmann (costumes).

Robotcowboy

Daniel Wilcox (USA) & Oscar Ramos (MEX)

Robotcowboy presents a ritualistic 3 part sound performance entitled "experiments in energy":

Act 1: The Joy of Life – movement, action, and energy Dance to the rhythmic beats of a digital one-man band and experience the joy of the bit boy.

Act 2: Death – energy dissipation As movement recedes and energy fades, light consumes sound.

Act 3: Rebirth – emergence of a god of energy Just upon the cusp of nothingness, a shinning god of energy appears to bring man into a new era.

Putzfrau

Geneviève Favre (CHE)

For this work, I am wearing seven lamps fixed directly on my body. I can switch them on and off by pushing them. Each lamp is associated with a musical sample I wrote. During the performance, I am singing the beginning of each sample while pushing on the corresponding lamp. To sing a entire sample, I need to let the lamp switched on. My body is moving in response to the composition and the position of the lamps. Related to the idea of sensible points in chinese medicine, I am expressing through this performance what a swiss female body can feel. “Putzfrau” speaks about cleaning, but also spiritual cleansing and perfection.

Strahlenroboter Aitu

Lucas Gross (CHE)

Robot Aitu transforms high frequency waves emitted by mobile phones of nearby users into acoustical and visual effects. Depending on the intensity of the emissions, the robot triggers a snowstorm of small styrofoam globules in a capsule and sonar-like sounds. Aitu freely moves around using a simple technology of sensors which make it turn once it collides with an object. The piece mainly focusses on detecting and exposing the constant existence of wave emissions by mobile phones. Visitors can use their own mobile phones to activate and intensify the effects by dialing a number of their choice.

Sound Parasites

Joshua Rosenstock (USA)

These portable, wearable sound robots/soft sculptures are designed to feed off the verbal energy of sound-emitting hosts, disrupting their sonic integrity but providing a annoyingly/amusingly glitched remix of the original sound material. They are worn by the artist, who then interacts with the public, or they can be alternately deployed by being spontaneously attached to other performers (or any sound-producing medium) to form a simultaneous audio intervention.

Situative Gesänge

Walter Siegfried (DEU)

Situational singing means creating relationships to selected places and times. In a rucksack loudspeaker, music pieces from my repertoire lie dormant. They are the accompaniments to my songs. Sometimes I sing while walking on - then melodies appear and fade again. But most often, I sing precisely for the place where I find myself at that very moment so the passers-by hear a soundtrack to a specific section of reality. The man-made soundtrack is enriched with momentary sounds of the environment. http://www.ariarium.de/situges.htm

A Shotgun for a TV and an Eskimo Kiss

Agitpop (USA)

Agitpop's intial song material is heavily indebted to, if slightly to the right of (aesthetically) the Minutemen and Gang of Four. Agitpop operated on the age-old principle of "free your ass and your mind will follow." The thing is, unlike the bulk of their boho brethren, Agitpop navigates those hip joints as though they were doctors of chiropractic. Odd instruments such as wind chimes, squeeze toys and kiddie xylophones make abrupt appearances, adding a sinister edge to the already chilling lyrics that come over with the glee of someone sending pals off on a killer scavenger hunt. All three members of Agitpop switch between instruments with exponentially increased dexterity in endless androgynous roles of noise making.
(:tableend:)

God Bless America, Really?

Agitpop (USA)

As we know, Agitpop is an abstraction that stands for collective auditory emanations. But having a sound, or better a political edge that is absolutely your own has been known to cause problems in the classification departments of various American institutions. Basically, this is a show which began by sitting down with the boys on a stage turned beer table and putting together what one might term an Amercian medley of "noises in the ether", marking a monumental moment for a few different reasons other than "hell no we wont go", which makes it even more exciting than naked patriotism could ever be, really.