A young girl playing HTGold (2008, by Goto80 and Mats Andrén) during the opening of Playlist. Definitely, kids are the best audience for art. Thanks Rosa for this nice video.

Here you can find my set on Flickr. And these are by Rosa Menkman, who did a really good job (thanks, Rosa!). Some nice shots can be also found here and here.

iMAL, Center for Digital Cultures and Technologies is proud to announce Playlist. Playing Games, Music, Art, an exhibition focused on the artistic reinvention of obsolete digital media. Produced and hosted by LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (Gijón, Asturias) in the frame of the Mediateca Expandida, Playlist now moves to Brussels enriched with twelve new participants and a broader range of artworks.

Playing Games, Music, Art

What happens when the emotional investment you made in your old computers brings you back to the garret where you sent them years ago? When you can’t no longer suffer to work with sophisticated machines that, while promising you more freedom, actually force you to wear the straitjacket kindly designed for you by some corporate guy? When you decide that’s time to put your hands on the machine?

Reinventing the medium: from music to visual arts

What happens is an act of reinventing the medium. Along the Nineties, many artists started working on the reinvention of obsolete, digital as well as analogue, technologies such as vinyl’s, vintage computers, game platforms and alike. Hacking software, circuit-bending hardware, they turned “dead media” into powerful tools of artistic creation. Playlist is an exhibition that explores this kind of research, focusing on the relationship between musical research and visual research, in the belief that the first, rather than the latter, has often been the driving force in this process.

Chiptune, 8-bit punk and media arts

The core of Playlist is the exploration of the “chiptune scene”, spread out from the manipulation of obsolete game technologies in order to create new instruments to play music. The show demonstrates that the retro-gaming phenomenon in visual arts can be considered an outfit of a pretty musical phenomenon, that in a bunch of years spread out all over the world through festivals and clubs, occasionally influencing mainstream musicians; and that visual and musical research progressed on parallel paths, in the quest for lo-fi sounds and low-res aesthetics, synthetic colors and notes.
Playlist proposes artists from the chiptune scene and the media arts world sharing attitudes such as DIY, recycling, subversive refusal of programmed obsolescence, aesthetics of the glitches from electronic materials. On display, artworks (objects, installations, videos, computer-based and printed works), but also instruments, tools, software’s, hardware’s, records, 8-bit music, movie documentary, platforms and communities.

Presented artists

2 Player Productions (US), Alex Bond / Enso (US), Boogerlab (NZ), The C-Men (NL), Paul B. Davis (UK), James Dingle (US), Jeff Donaldson / noteNdo (US), Julien Ducourthial (FR), Entter (SP), Dragan Espenschied (DE), Gino Esposto / Micromusic.net (CH), Gijs Gieskes (NL), André Gonçalves (PT), Chantal Goret (BE), Goto80 (SE), Jodi (BE / NL), Mike Johnston / Mike in Mono (UK), Joey Mariano / Animal Style (US), Rosa Menkman (NL), Raquel Meyers (SP), Mikro Orchestra (PL), Don Miller / NO CARRIER (US), Erik Nilsson (SE), Nullsleep (US), Tristan Perich (US), Rabato (SP), Gebhard Sengmuller (AT), Alexei Shulgin (RU), Paul Slocum (US), Tonylight (IT), VjVISUALOOP (IT)

Production

Playlist is an exhibition produced by and firstly exhibited at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijon (Spain) from 18.12.2009 till 17.05.2010. The Brussels adaptation is produced by iMAL, Center for Digital Cultures and Technology.

Curator: Domenico Quaranta (IT)

Practical Info

Playlist, playing Games, Music, Art
June 4 – August 21, 2010
Opening the 3rd of June, 18:00 – 23:00
Open Tuesday > Saterday: 11:00 – 19:00
iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology
Koolmijnenkaai 30 Quai des Charbonnages, 1080 Brussels
(metro Comte de Flandres/Graaf van Vlaanderen)

Press Folder

Press Release (pdf)
Press Images (zipped folder)
Flyer (pdf)
Poster (pdf)

More info on www.imal.org/playlist

About iMAL, Center for Digital Cultures and Technology

iMAL (interactive Media Art Laboratory) is a non-profit association created in Brussels in 1999. In 2007, iMAL opened a new venue, a Center for Digital Cultures and Technology for the meeting of artistic, scientific and industrial innovations, a place dedicated to the contemporary artistic and cultural practices emerging from the fusion of computer, network and media.
iMAL is: (1) a laboratory and a research, experimentation & production workplace for artists in residence (2) an education center which organises workshops targeted to creative people (artists, designers, developers) under the direction of leading international artists (3) an art&culture center producing exhibitions (e.g. “Infiltrations Digitales”/2004, “Art+Game”/2006, “Holy Fire, art of the digital age”/2008), concerts, performances, conferences in order to create critical, interdisciplinary encounters between the public, artists, technology, and society.

… as part of the concerts series conceived for the exhibition Mediateca Expandida: Playlist.

Jeremiah Johnson, Torn Text, 2009, unicode, textfile. Click here to view full-size and fully enjoy the ANSI texture

Out of the amount of press the exhibition Playlist. Playing Games, Music, Art (LABoral, Gijon, 18.12.09 – 17.05.10) is generating, I’d like to point to a few nice articles:

Marie Lechner, «Playlist» secoue les puces, in Liberation, 04.02.10, available online at the URL http://www.liberation.fr/culture/0101617292-playlist-secoue-les-puces (fr).

Valentina Tanni, Old new media asturiani, in Exibart, February 9, 2010, available online at the URL http://www.exibart.com/notizia.asp/IDNotizia/30414/IDCategoria/1 (ita).

Greg J. Smith, 8-bit Rockers, in Serial Consign, 04.02.10, available online at the URL http://serialconsign.com/2010/02/8-bit-rockers (eng).

Regine Debatty, Playlist – Playing Games, Music, Art, in we-make-money-not-art, 10.01.10, available online at the URL http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2010/01/laboral-playlist.php (eng).

Regine Debatty, Playlist, it’s not (just) about nostalgia, in we-make-money-not-art, 15.01.10, available online at the URL http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2010/01/previously-playlist-playing-ga.php (eng).

Regine Debatty, Playlist – the physical dimension, in we-make-money-not-art, 18.01.10, available online at the URL http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2010/01/playlist-when-video-game-gets.php.

Yéssica Alonso, Reciclaje tecnologico como arma creativa, in I like magazine, Issue 4, February 2010. Downloadable pdf (spanish).

Anders Carlsson, Playlist Exhibition: Materialism vs Symbolics, Music vs Visuals, in Chipflip, December 22, 2009, available online at the URL http://chipflip.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/playlist-exhibition-materialism-vs-symbolics-music-vs-visuals/ (eng).

Yves Bernard, PlayList à Laboral: 8-bit / chiptune, in ArtNumeur, January 2010, available online at the URL http://www.erg.be/blogs/artNumeur/?p=162 (fr).

Marco Rossari, “Se non sai cos’è, è net art”, in Wired, issue 11, January 2010, p. 103. Downloadable pdf (ita, 2.6 MB).

Arnau Horta, “Super Mario es el mensaje”, in La Vanguardia, May 5, 2010, pp. 21 – 22. Downloadable pdf (Spanish).

Elena Duque, “Mediateca Expandida: Playlist”, in Artecontexto, Issue 25, 2009.

Ed Halter‘s contribution for Playlist‘s catalogue (full pdf here) has been featured on the web magazine Vague Terrain.

Playlist Exibition. Low-tech 8-bit art from VjVISUALOOP on Vimeo.

Domenico Quaranta (ed), Mediateca Expandida – Playlist, exhibition catalogue, Gijon (Asturias, Spain), LABoral Centro de Arte y Creaciòn Industrial, December 2009.

The second issue of “Mediateca Expandida”, the magazine published in conjunction with the exhibitions in LABoral’s mediateque, is out. It features texts by Matteo Bittanti, Ed Halter, Kevin Driscoll and Joshua Diaz and myself, plus about 30 artists and a music CD. You can download the full pdf from here.

Back from Gijon, I just uploaded my (bad as usual) photos on Flickr. Regine Debatty and Valentina Tanni posted something better on their own account. Soon the official pictures will be available as well!

PLAYLIST.  PLAYING GAMES, MUSIC, ART

CURATOR: Domenico Quaranta
DATES: 18.12.2009 – 17.05.2010
VENUE: Mediateca Expandida de LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación
Industrial (Los Prados, 121, 33394 Gijón – Asturias)
MORE INFOS: www.laboralcentrodearte.org

ARTISTS:

Paul B. Davis (UK), Jeff Donaldson / NoteNdo (DE), Dragan Espenschied (DE), Gino Esposto / Micromusic.net (CH), Gijs Gieskes (NL), André Gonçalves (PT), Mike Johnston / Mike in Mono (UK), Joey Mariano / Animal Style (US), Raquel Meyers (SP), Mikro Orchestra (PL), Don Miller / No-carrier (US), Jeremiah Johnson / Nullsleep (US), Tristan Perich (US), Rabato (SP), Gebhard Sengmüller (AT), Alexei Shulgin (RU), Paul Slocum (USA), Tonylight (IT), VjVISUALOOP (IT).

CATALOGUE:

Texts by Matteo Bittanti, Kevin Driscoll and Joshua Diaz, Ed Halter, Domenico Quaranta. Music CD included.

Along the Twentieth Century, music has often been the driving force behind crucial innovations in visual arts, and the starting point for many artists. Without forgetting the role played by music in the development of abstract art, it was mainly during the Sixties that music provided a fertile ground for new approaches, new theories, new art forms, new aesthetics. John Cage was a musician working with artists and engineers. The very first performance (the Untitled Event at Black Mountain College in 1952) was a musical event, such as many Fluxus events during the Sixties. Furthermore, Fluxus adopted music notation for its peculiar “scores”. It was thinking to music that Umberto Eco first introduced the concept of “opera aperta”. And at the very beginning of Video Art lies the manipulation of the electronic signal, first experimented by Nam June Paik in music.
PLAYLIST is an exhibition that wants to explore the role played by music in the adoption and manipulation, since the mid Nineties, of obsolete, digital as well as analogue, technologies: vinyls, old computers, game platforms and alikes. It’s our feeling, on the one hand, that electronic music culture has been of great importance for the development of low-tech, home-based media art; and, on the other hand, that – such as for the early Video Art – the manipulation of the digital stream is mainly grounded in musical research.
The core of PLAYLIST will be the exploration of the “8bit movement”, spread out from the manipulation of obsolete game technologies in order to create new instruments to play music. The show will demonstrate that the retrogaming phenomenon in visual arts can be considered an outfit of a pretty musical phenomenon, that in a bunch of years spread out all over the world through festivals and clubs, occasionally influencing mainstream musicians; and that visual and musical research progressed on parallel paths, in the quest for lo-res sounds and aesthetics, synthetic colors and notes. For the first time, retro-gaming will be explored through the lens of musical production and distribution, displaying not only tracks, but instruments, tools, softwares and hardwares, skins and graphics, but also discographies, platforms and communities. Thus, PLAYLIST will serve as a starting point for an archive / collection of materials produced by artists and musicians, and as a relational context where visitors can practice with tools produced by artists, and take part in workshops, lectures, improvised performances.
Furthermore, PLAYLIST will try to provide a context for this kind of research, not necessarily game related, selecting seminal projects and artists that helped forging the conceptual frame in which retro-gaming took place.