BZZZ INTERNATIONAL SOUND ART FESTIVAL
5 - 6 JULY 2019
HARP ART LAB proudly presents the BZZZ! International Sound Art Festival. This year's edition of BZZZ! is a kökkenmödding of Sound Art, Mechanical Techno, DIY Electronics, Loft Punk, Millophonia and Heroic Jazz.
FRI 5 JULY 19:00 / 7 PM
RUTA VITKAUSKAITE - VOICE CRACK
GRAHAM DUNNING - MECHANICAL TECHNO
MANU LOUIS - CREAM PARADE
MIKAEL ERICSSON - MILLOPHONIA
SAT 6 JULY 19:00 / 7 PM
MATEO MENA - HYPERCUBES
ELI GRAS - DIY SOUND ENGINES
PSYCHICEYECLIX - HACKING & REWIRING
MIKAEL ERICSSON - MILLOPHONIA
Harp Art Lab, Harplinge Windmill
Kvarnliden 8, Harplinge, Sweden
Graham Dunning [b. 1981] is self-taught as an artist and musician having studied neither discipline academically. His live work explores sound as texture, timbre and something tactile, drawing on bedroom production, tinkering and recycling found objects. He also creates visual work, video and installations drawing on these themes.
Much of the work evolves through experimentation with different processes: considering the methods by which sounds become music; process as a continuum encompassing both improvisational and procedural methods; and testing analogous processes across different media.
Graham has performed solo and in ensembles across the UK, Europe and Canada, and exhibited in the UK, Europe, New Zealand and USA. He teaches Experimental Sound Art at the Mary Ward Centre in London and also gives various independent workshops. He has released through Entr’acte, Seagrave, Tombed Visions and more.
STATEMENT
As an artist I make things in various different formats, but generally to do with either sound or found objects. My background is in experimental music and this continues into the art I make and how I go about it. I use experimentation and play as a main part of my making process. I also like to set myself restrictions for my projects similarly to the way scientific experiments are conducted. Noise – like record crackle or tape hiss – often features in my work, and a visual equivalent in dirt, dust or decay. I often try and repeat a visual process with audio, and vice versa.
My work explores time and commemoration: How people store their memories, in personal archives – photographs, audio journals, post-it notes – and what becomes of those archives. I find discarded objects interesting in themselves, for the stories that they suggest or that can be read into them. Collecting things has always held a fascination for me, both to do myself and to look at the way others do it.
MANU LOUIS
Manu Louis was described by French newspaper Libération as “the braggart of kitsch". That’s the price to pay for an eccentric songwriter and jack-of-all-trades composer who spends his time decontextualizationg high and low culture to create provocative juxtapositions. His general blueprint remains the same throughout all of his efforts, but the ingredients he uses may vary: from dissident chanson française, heroic jazz and 20th-century contemporary music to art-pop and DIY electronics.
In 2016, Manu Louis released his debut album, Kermesse Machine, on Igloo Records and performed at over 200 festivals and clubs across Europe, the U.K., Japan and China, refining his solo show into what's become a must-see. Surrounded by a village of electronic instruments, a guitar and video projections, Manu delivers a passionate performance that eventually switches gears into an impromptu discotheque that gets the audience moving.
Apart from his digital activities, Manu also composes music for chamber orchestras, string ensemble and fanfares. Cream Parade, his newly recorded album, is being prepared for release in 2019.
“The braggart of Kitsch.” Liberation
"more colourful than a unicorn vomiting a rainbow" Gonzai
“This is Wagner in clown shoes, Morrissey on a carousel, and John Shuttleworth recognised as Poet Laureate” Musicomh
"It’s a rowdy, joyous affair full of eminently danceable tunes." The Underground of Happiness
« Manu Louis is back to give the world a well needed carnavalesque twist » Local Suicide
How to describe the work of Belgian musician Manu Louis? And is it separable from his feverish artistic expression? Imagine Lou Reed with the latest digital plug-ins, imagine Andy Warhol sampling trumpets and trombones, Bertolt Brecht glitching out, David Byrne discovering FruityLoops at CBGB. It's no coincidence that Manu Louis released on Berlin label New Pangea, or that his songs speak about making songs, dancing songs, connecting aesthetics and emotions, the artistic pose, reason and feeling – and all that with a rhythm at the core of his communication: moving and thinking and what he plays. The « Liceo Mutante » people already know this from the last time he came to town. Liceo Mutante
RUTA VITKAUSKAITE
Ruta Vitkauskaite’s (b.1984) musical interests are widely varied – while working in the field of classical composition (PhD at Royal Academy of Music in London, Masters at Lithuanian Academy of Music), Ruta has also been active initiator of experimental music projects (music visualization, acoustic surround, music personalization), organizer (2006-2013 director of Druskomanija festival and workshop series the Process in Lithuania, 2012-2017 facilitator of New Music Incubator with Martin Q Larsson in Nordic and Baltic countries, and now - across EU), performer (violin, piano, voice, electronics). While living in UK, Ruta has developed deep interest in music education (Learning Trainee at BCMG, Fellow at Open Academy at RAM, in 2013 working creatively with people living with dementia). Currently, Ruta is deepening her research inmusic personalisation (through her work with Spatial Opera Company, SE/LT, and her solo performance Something Personal (performed at The BZZZ Festival 2014), and delivering music as an experience through work with communities (through the site-specific workshop-based project WALKING OPERA).
VOICE CRACK
Voice cracks - is a performance/installation I do on my own. This is basically a song cycle, mixing whispering and unconventional vocal sounds with some violin and percussions, but all 'embrased' by the pre-recorded sounds that work as an installation or connection between songs. The idea is that this is a rather quiet performance, so I also used WiFi headphones for the audience to wear: I perform quietly in the corner, a few people can listen to it acoustically, while others can wear the headphones with live sound stream, and walk around the area to up to 200m away.
PSYCHICEYECLIX
I have been making/creating music as Psychiceyeclix since 2001, making 6 ep’s/albums released on Cyborg Recordings, Doubledgescissor, Tingo Tongo Tapes, Future Music, Kiff Recording, Junkyard Productions, Fature Music, Dismissive Records, Linear Obsessional Records, Videopunks. I use hundreds of different instruments/devices, i do not believe in any one style or technique.
I began rewiring & modifying devices in 1999, first hacking samplers then rewiring keyboards, megaphones & anything that generates a noise! I have sold various Psychiceyeclix bent devices to – USA, Japan, Denmark, France, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Ireland, Czech, Brazil, Australia, Slovenia, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Thailand, Canada, Malaysia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Portugal, Saudi Arabia…getting on every corner of the globe!!!!
ELI GRAS
A multidisciplinary artist, Eli has worked in several creative fields.
She has created the art works releases "Museum of the Dry Bugs" (Gagarin Records), “Grass Velvet” and the acousmatic radio art workand release “Xylotheque” (WORM residency) and the CDs “Tasmanian Robinet” (UnPop) “Duplicat” with Pelayo Arrizabalaga, “Baranda” (solo), “POLO” and “El Avión” (with Motor Combo) published by La Olla Expréss; took part as a collaborator in “Deep Gray Organics” by Alain Wergifosse (Geometrik), as well as contributing with tracks to labels such as Classwar Karaoke, Ego Twister, Monster K7, Dude Tapes and Espais Netlabel (with Obmuz) and Nereida Prod (with Motor Combo) among other compilations (festivals, etc). Also appears as one of the main artists featured in the documentary “Visionary Sounds” of Pablo López Jordán. She’s also published several object-books of tales and poetry.
Musically, she has walked a long and wide path since the early 80’s, from experimental music to pop rock, through Greek music, electropop, minimalism, improvisation, choral, funk, electronics, concrete, electroacoustics and visual-sound works. She has been a member of the groups as Etnia, OBMUZ, The Shower Sisters, Laptopless Orchestra or Ome Acustics band, and worked improvisation in collaboration with many artists as Pelayo Arrizabalaga, Pierre Bastien, H.J. Roedelius, David Fenech, Alain Wergifosse, Nuno Rebelo, Quicu Samsó, Adele Madau, Rosa Arruti or Juan Crek, also with visual artists as Sebastian Neistch and her collaborator Mar Morey...) In addition to being a member of Motor Combo (with Florenci Salesas, electro-pop-dadá), Eli works the solo projects “UnPop” (dada-folk, “one band girl”) and have played in many venues and festivals around Europe as Sonic (DK), Worldtronics (DE), Experimentaclub (ES), Blurred Edges (DE), Vigo Jazz Fest. Imaxinasons (ES), Jardins Efémeros (POR), Lab30 (DE), Sonar (ES), LEM (ES)... and did residences at Worm (ND), Estruch (ES), De Perifeer (ND), Sonoscopia (POR) or Champ des Possibles (FR).
She is mainly a composer, experimental luthier DIY person, and built/performs her sound and visual installation “Peeled Piano” and “Saló Sonor” currently working together with Mar Morey (visuals), as well as solo experimental improvisation music performances and workshops/talks (children/adults).
Aside from musical projects and sonic experimentation, she has also been involved in some other creative areas, like graphic design, script writer for animation films, special effects assistant for publicity, radio, illustrator, photographer, videographer...
MATEO MENA
Mateo Mena is a spanish composer and electronic instruments builder. With background in academic music and electronic engineering, in the latest years he has been developing designs in the field of analog electronics, with pieces such as sound sculptures, new musical instruments, sonic gadchets and even electric insects. He is an active part of the galician independent collective "Metamovida", as well as the bands "Nostoc", "Buzz" and "Napal". He combines his creative facet with teaching electronics workshops, which revolve around our way we relate to sound and technology, approached from the DIY aesthetic.
One of his latest instrumental design, The Hypercubes, a series of cubic modules capable of generate, control and modify electronic sounds merely by themselves, has been presented live in numerous concerts, tours and even inventors' fairs over Europe, such as those in Berlin, Rome or Lisbon, where the instrument was awarded with the "Best project in the Electronics category" prize.
He is currently focused in the compositions of the pieces for his first studio album, with the hypercubes.
Mikael Ericsson works with various modes of expressions and projects, such as drawing, sculpture, sound- and videoinstallations. In 2010 he founded Harp Art Lab with Julie Ericsson. The vision was create a platform for developing, innovative, interdisciplinary ideas and to invite artists to create new works in the historical building of Harplinge windmill. In 2012 he created, Millophonia, a permanent, site specific sound art installation for Windmill and Self-Playing Pipe Organ at Harp Art Lab. He is the Chief of Artistic Operations at Harp Art Lab
HARP ART LAB
Harp Art Lab is a laboratory for sound art based in Harplinge windmill, a few kilometers north of Halmstad on the Swedish west coast. The Lab is a unique platform for developing, innovative, interdisciplinary ideas and we work with artists and communities of interest to create performances and installations.
Our main methodology is a socially engaged and discursive sound art practice. The motivations behind our work are predominantly environmental, political, and social in as much as we are attempting to re-mediate contested territories in a scientific and creative way to the public. Harp Art Lab is a non profit organisation founded by Mikael Ericsson and Julie Ericsson in 2010.
HARP ART LAB
Harplinge windmill, Sweden
++70 7304631
ericsson (at) harpartlab.se
