Tag Archive for 'Circuit Bending'

David Novak Reads From Japanoise at Quimby’s 11/22 With performances by Roth Mobot and Peter Speer

Nov ’13
22
7:00 pm

japanoise

David Novak’s new book Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation (Duke University Press) describes how Noise, an underground music made through an amalgam of feedback, distortion, and electronic effects, became a global phenomenon. Noise first emerged as a genre in the 1980s, circulating on cassette tapes traded between fans in Japan, Europe, and North America. With its cultivated obscurity, ear-shattering sound, and over-the-top performances, Noise captured the imagination of a small but passionate transnational audience. But does Noise really belong to Japan? Is it even music at all? Novak draws on more than a decade of fieldwork to trace the “cultural feedback” that generated Noise in circulation between Japan and the United States, illustrating his talk with rare videos of Noise performances.

 

Novak’s presentation at Quimby’s will also be supported by electronic music performances featuring Roth Mobot, the circuit bent hybrid performance/teaching duo of Tommy Stephenson and Patrick McCarthy (www.RothMobot.com) and Peter Speer, a Chicago artist working with improvised electronic sound (www.diode-ring.com).

 

“David Novak goes inside the Noise scene and presents an astounding perspective: historically astute, inspired, and completely shell-shocked.”

                              —Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth

 

David Novak is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of essays in Public CultureCultural Anthropology, and The Wire, and his research has recently been featured on podcasts by MIT and MoMA. Novak is also a radio host, sound engineer, and musician who has performed in the groups Habit Trail, Maestros, the Anthony Braxton Ensemble and Dymaxion.

 

For more info: www.japanoise.com

For the Facebook event invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/204576466391960/

 

Friday, November 22, 7pm – Free Event

Handmade Electronic Music – The Art of Hardware Hacking Release Party with Nic Collins at Quimby’s!

May ’09
2
3:00 pm

workshop-tokyo

Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking provides a long-needed, practical, and engaging introduction to the craft of making – as well as creatively cannibalizing – electronic circuits for artistic purposes. With a sense of adventure but no need for prior knowledge, the reader can subvert the intentions designed into devices such as radios and toys to discover a new sonic world. At a time when computers dominate music production, this book offers a rare glimpse into the core technology of early live electronic music, as well as more recent developments at the hands of emerging artists. In addition to advice on hacking found electronics, the reader learns how to make contact microphones, pickups for electromagnetic fields, oscillators, distortion boxes, and unusual signal processors cheaply and quickly.

This revised and expanded second edition is extensively illustrated and includes a DVD featuring 87 video clips and 20 audio tracks by over 100 hackers, benders, musicians, artists and inventors from around the world, as well as 13 video tutorials demonstrating projects in the book. Further enhancements include additional projects, photographs, diagrams, and illustrations.

What might happen at this event? Maybe some and/or all of the following: an anarchic hacking orchestra composed of multiple uncoordinated performances distributed around the store, each performer using individual small sound systems? Speakers amplifying bent toys, battery-operated mini-amps, video, and demos of a few projects? Who knows?

Nicolas Collins, an active composer and performer of electronic music, and has worked with John Cage, Alvin Lucier, David Tudor, and many other masters of modern music. Dr. Collins is Professor of Sound at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has led hacking workshops around the world. Since 1997 he has been editor-in-chief of Leonardo Music Journal. For more info: http://www.NicolasCollins.com