The Kunst & Æter festival hosted by LYDWERK and SNYK brought together some interesting people, mostly fellow radio conspirators from the past years, for a series of performances, talks, presentations and workshops on the topic of radio art. We performed a Tonic Train concert and gave a presentation of Mobile Radio and other temporary transmission projects.
Setting the scene the radio art panel – Richard Thomas, Anne Hilde Neset and Pit Schultz. Who gets the award for best hand gesture? (They all did brilliantly!) Richard excelled at his talk on the following day by removing himself from the room to ‘have a word with the builders’ who were making a racket outside
Tonic Train performance. Little to see except two people sitting at a table: does the intense concentration show? Our Danish friend in the audience was amazed by the perceived development of ‘musicality’ in our work! (That’s a first. Playing live for 28 seconds on the pop music channel last time we were here must have rubbed off on us…)
Happily, Marold Langer-Philippsen introduced a visual element with his radio and video transmission performance
Marold also gave a miraculous workshop in which he managed to get all participants to make short radio features in a very limited amount of time. We were engaged as interviewees – coincidentally both Knut and I were placed in bicycles, well it is Copenhagen isn’t it? Being ridden around in a box by Inuk and Karl was pretty hairy (quite appropriate given the large fluffy on the mic!)
After a long time planning by Mikkel Myer, our hosts Aux and Lab managed to secure a circuit bending workshop. The participants were extremely keen, the organization was superb, a workshop to end all workshops!
Bending toys and video mixer (don’t try the mixer at home, before some proper research on the net…)
A few of the extra components so lovingly provided
Bend on the radio take one. Everyone was interviewed by a journalist from the cultural channel of Danish state radio
Bend on the radio take two. Accompanied by our advocates from the workshop, Sarah and Knut are invited to play as Tonic Train live on the Saturday morning show of the most popular channel in Copenhagen. Squashed between Tina Turner and Earth Wind and Fire we manage 28 seconds of improvised bleeping noise to one million people, before the DJ intervenes….
The joy of so many toys
Equipment organizer and one of the resident experts Michael, hard at work on one of his many instruments
Mikkel’s drum baby
The second rehearsal of the Copenhagen Electronic Orchestra. Our workshop was designed to lead up to a performance on the last evening, with each person playing an instrument they built during the previous few days. Knut instructed the group in improvisation and conduction techniques. They have already been offered a second gig at a festival in Sweden in September 2007, giving them a nice incentive to keep rehearsing and building instruments
We go to Denmark to play a gig, and talk about future projects
Our host Mikkel Meyer shows us his studio, bursting with self-built electronics and secret lives…..
Tonic Train at Plex, Copenhagen on the 5th September 2006. Knut also gives a talk about Resonance104.4fm
