I visited the Netaudio London festival this weekend, took part in the coffee table discussions and caught a few performances. Judging by the turnout and interest from the participants, the event was a success, and I really look forward to future events.
All of the coffee discussions were informal, relaxed and well supplied with coffee, tea and beer (thanks to the gracious hosts!) The upshot of this was that many visitors were forced to speak to each other, instead of hanging out in their own groups, which created a good vibe that lasted on to the evening.
I sat in on the “free culture” discussion, hosted by Andrea Rota and Jonas Andersson. The topic of free culture is of particular interest to me, so I found the discussion productive in terms of understanding why I contribute to netlabels how free culture is important outside of music. Andrea and Jonas kept participants on topic and interesting, and managed to underline the issues of free culture beyond music (even though we kept bringing music back into the foreground.)
The Hyperlanguage live installation was a surprise to wander into. The lighting, layout and resulting atmosphere somehow encouraged the audience to explore what the performers were doing, so as I walked around I naturally checked out their laptop screens to see what they were doing. What made it interesting was the interaction between the performers — it was obvious they were working together, producing abstract and sometimes challenging music, but it was hard to see how. They reveal a little part of the technical process here:: Live processing layout explained. Here’s a little more background from their weblog:
Man/Machine Osmosis – it is now generally considered that human intelligence is being transformed into a “cognitive ecology” consisting of minds fused with networks, computer terminals, telephone systems, and other methods of high speed communication. We live in a world where old structures of representation and knowledge are fading away, and are being replaced by new, yet still barely formed theories of knowledge, imagination and social construct. We live and survive now not in one place, but in hundreds of places, physically separate, yet intimately connected. We inhabit not only this or that small physical territory, but also the immense, undefined realms borne of virtual technologies.
Paul Wilson, one of the musicians from the installation, told me:
It’s very much about integrating the audience into what’s maybe not
necessarily a ‘performance’ and attempting to address or challenge
aspects of live digital music where the visual is either non-existant
or potentially overpowering. rather, having no - or very little -
visual accompaniment (some lighting and an occasional single strobe)
was a deliberate strategy to put the onus on the sound.
During the day there were also performances downstairs, in the Candid Arts Centre. One which stuck in my mind was Gagarin’s set. He was relatively unique as he played his set 99% removed from a laptop using a drum pad (with his hands). Most of the other sets featured visuals in some form, generally reminiscent of rave and acid house videos, yet Gagarin didn’t have visuals. The speed and accuracy of his live rhythm and melodic programming through the drum pad inherently required no visual accompaniment, and musicians in the venue flocked to see what he was doing.
The evening’s event was a club night, where laptop sets were played live within the Electrowerkz venue, replete with faux-militerary stylings and yet more visuals. During the start of the night a few technical glitches didn’t prevent the musicians from rocking out, and the atmosphere was no different from a typical (albeit underground) club night.