newcastle

notes taken at the Archiving Australia's Experimental Music session by Carla Teixeira from the National Film & Sound Archive on Thursday 01/09/2009 at This is Not Art 2009 festival. (+ links & info found whilst writing these notes up)

- archives are stored in Canberra, but there are NFSA offices in Sydney and Melbourne

- experimental music & sound art is only a very small part of the NFSA's collection, though they would like to increase its proportion and help preserve Australia's history in these fields

- not all of an artist's work is archived; the artist curates their own collection and selects representative works to be archived

- "mapping the landscape"

- Warren Burt's article on "Some Musical and Sociological Aspects of Australian Experimental Music" on Resonate Magazine

- Percy Grainger - there's a Grainger Museum in Melbourne (soon to be opened?)

- Kay Dreyfus article "Music by Percy Aldridge Grainger" ::: Muse link ::: Kay Dreyfus' Australian Music Centre page

- Percy Grainger and Burnett Cross 1951 "Free Music Machine"
The 'Free Music Machine' was created by musician and singer Burnett Cross and the Australian composer Percy Grainger. Grainger a virtuoso Pianist and pupil of Busoni, had been developing his idea of "free music" since 1900: based on eighth tones and complete rhythmic freedom and unconventionally notated on graph paper. Grainger had experimented using collections of Theremins and changing speeds of recorded sounds on phonograph disks and eventually developed his own instruments. Graingers experiments with random music composition predated those of John Cage by 30 years with "Random Round" written in the 1920's. -- from 120 Years of Electronic Music site

::: Percy Grainger: the pictorial biography by Robert Simon (google book)

- Keith Humble 1970's "Social environment I" (?)

- Robert Rooney (VHS tape - music & interview)

- NMA Magazine - New Music Articles ::: Rainer Linz' NMA page on Frog Peak Music

- Clinton Green (Melbourne) Shame Files Music label / site ::: also check out his zines!! very informative

- "Wireless House" in Glebe, Sydney. NFSA collection works play triggered by sensors as you walk past. originally this was a community wireless where people would gather and listen to radio serials, songs, programs, news etc ::: stories & memories from Glebe residents can be heard via the ABC Pool site

- donating new works? : here's a guideline on what to provide

Call Me Your Experiment was a workshop held in Newcastle's Civic Park on Friday 02/10/2009 as part of the This Is Not Art 2009 festival

Alison Currie explained her project, but I missed the start of the workshop so I might have misunderstood the whole aim. What I gathered was that we had to learn and perform a dance when our mobile phones rang. Her idea was that mobile phones often interrupt us and the ring tone could be used as a song to dance to, and slow us down from being a slave to the mobile and answering too quickly. It was a type of mobile phone flash mob. We were given the song 9-question_it.mp3 via bluetooth - her friend had written it. A few of us played the song on our phones at the same time - or slightly different times, so there were some nice phasing sounds.

The music sped up in the middle of the dance so we had to do the steps quicker towards the end. Alison said she was surprised - happily - that everyone picked up the steps within the short amount of time during the workshop.

I thought it was fun - it was good to do some stretching & exercise in the park in the sun too. but I think my battery would have been flat or the caller had hung up the call by the time I'd finished the dance if I had received a call. :)

here's a quick video of Alison teaching the steps & demonstrating the dance :

video page ::: .mov file ::: .flv file ::: archive.org page

Alison Currie is an independent dance artist interested in creating work for alternate spaces, and unsuspecting audiences. Her major project 42a will tour nationally in 2010. Adelaide's Experimental Art Foundation page has some details of Alison Currie's 42a's 2008 performance.

video snippets from the Opening Party at This is Not Art 2009
http://www.thisisnotart.org

Australia's largest festival of experimental electronic arts and culture, "Electrofringe", will burst through the cracks of Newcastle from October 2 – 6, 2008, for its eleventh year as part of "This Is Not Art". More than 100 emerging and established artists from Australia and overseas will take part in 80 events over five days including workshops, gigs, screenings, performance and public intervention.

Electrofringe in 2008 brims with new ventures. These include an artists-in-residence program and a three-week interactive media exhibition. New program gems include a hybrid media/dance performance, an all-girls soldering workshop, a chorus composed for Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones, an audiovisual "love-in", and a chamber recital for robots.

Special international guests include Birchville Cat Motel (NZ), Domenico Sciajno (Italy), xtine (US), The League of Imaginary Scientists (everywhere) and The Green Eyl & Sengewald (Germany). Japan is well represented by elongated harshcore musician Maruosa, noise artists Pig & Machine, and experimental multi-instrumentalist KK NULL.

Electrofringe 2008 features an impressive screening program including award-winning highlights from the Japan Media Arts Festival and SIGGRAPH 2008, surround-sound selections from New York's Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Centre and eclectic works from France’s Arcadi festival. There are also two specially curated screening reels called ElectroEtre and ElectroProjections compiled from open, international call-outs.

Head to: www.electrofringe.net for more details, and see you in Newcastle!

Electrofringe 2008 is directed by Alex White, Elmar Trefz and Somaya Langley.

-- electrofringe & the other festivals as part of This is Not Art are my favourite festivals in the world - very grassroots. Newcastle becomes abuzz with creativity and people at this time of year. I hope you can all check them out this year!