Deviations from and into sound

Event information

2 day workshop

18 February 2012, 10am - 4pm
10am-1pm: Bending a radio, facilitated by Juan Matos Capote
1pm-2pm: light lunch (provided) and Q&A
2pm-4pm: Sound improvisation strategies for here and now, facilitated by Alfredo Costa Monteiro:

19 February 2012, from 10am - 1pm
10am - 1pm: practice in groups and Q&A facilitated by Juan Matos Capote and Alfredo Costa Monteiro
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Part1 - Bending a radio:

Introduction
Circuit Bending is the term used to designate creative and innovative modifications, based on short-circuiting low-voltage electronic devices, with the aim to create new musical instruments and sound generators.

Battery-powered radios are devices used very often by the circuit bending community in their practice, and their sounds, original or modified, have an important role as sound generators in sound art and performances.

During the first four hours of the workshop, we will dismantle a radio and modify its sound outputs by creating short-circuits and adding different electronic components (in a non permanent manner, no soldering) such as potentiometers, photo cells, etc. It is an experimental and creative search, based on trial and error.

Considerations
To participate in this workshop it is not necessary to have knowledge of electronics. During the workshop, the necessary skills and electronic knowledge will be taught.

Each attendee has to bring one or two battery-powered radios (preferable AM). The device must run on batteries and at low voltage (9 volts maximum). Attendees will be provided with the necessary tools. There will not be soldering.

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Part 2 - Sound improvisation strategies for here and now:

Introduction
It was since the prepared piano works of American composer John Cage, composed in the 30's, that musical instruments began to acquire a new status within the avant-garde music. Given to the possibilities offered by these new approaches to the instruments, the musical focus, away from the parameters of contemporary-classical composition, went slowly into new areas where sound could be expressed more freely, blurring new situations, new practices and ways of understanding music.

Today, free improvisation has become even richer and more abstract due to the incorporation of new technological means or simply new preparation techniques, acoustic or amplified. Circuit bending is one of these possibilities.

Considerations
This second part of the workshop will be focussed in the use of the modified devices built during the first part.

Some specific aspects of sound, as texture, dynamics, timbre, silence or permanence, will be developped ; every personal question will be discussed as a common question, analyzing forms, gestures and political contexts.

The aim will be to create certain structures, certain ways of producing sounds related to listening, sharing or decision making, and develop collective and individual situations.

The workshop will be more practical than theoretical.

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Maximum participants: 12
Minimum participants: 6

Deadline for inscription
13 February 2012