Shannon O’Neill

Liquid Architecture 9: Festival of Sound Arts
Sydney 11 –12 July 2008
@ The Factory Theatre
105 Victoria Rd, Enmore

TICKETS: $12 (including booking fee)
From The Factory Theatre box office (02) 9550 3666 or online at www.factorytheatre.com.au

Liquid Architecture, Australia’s premier national sound-arts festival celebrates its ninth year with live performances, surround sound presentations, audio-visuals and recorded work, screenings and installations, featuring our most imaginative musicians, composers, sound designers and media artists in a sense-specific feast for the ears.

SYDNEY PROGRAM
Friday 11 July – 7:30pm
$12
TOY.BIZARRE (Bellac)
ROBERT NORMANDEAU (Montreal)
LAWRENCE ENGLISH (Brisbane)
NAT (Melbourne)
JACQUES SODDELL (Bendigo)
KUSUM NORMOYLE

Saturday 12 July - 7.30pm
$12
ANDREW PEKLER (Berlin)
MARCUS SCHMICKLER (Köln)
METALOG (Sydney/Melbourne)
KAZUMICHI GRIME
NICK WISHART + HIROFUMI UCHINO
HEIL SPIRITS
IVAN LISYAK
TOECUTTER

An international screening program featuring new A/V works. Plus an installation program exclusive to Sydney, featuring:

CÉDRIC PEYRONNET (Bellac)
JODI ROSE
RENE CHRISTEN
MELISSA HUNT
MARK BROWN
JASON SWEENEY
JESSICA TYRRELL

The first TEN people through the door each night will receive an ERIKM cd - Stéme (Room40). Giveaways courtesy of Room40.

FULL PROGRAM AND TICKETING DETAILS: www.liquidarchitecture.org.au

My review of this year’s NOW now festival has just been published by RealTime.

UTS Music.Sound.Design Symposium 2008

February 13 - February 15

Investigating Cross - Disciplinary Practice in the Areas of Music, Sound and Design.

Featuring : Kees Tazeelar (Netherlands) / Ernest Edmonds (UK) / Yasunao Tone (Japan)

+ Many More

Three Days of Keynotes, Panels and Workshops from 10am to 6pm at UTS.

Two nights of performances from 8pm at the ABC Studios, Harris St featuring Donna Hewitt, Julian Knowles, Philip Samartzis, Kees Tazelaar, Peter Blamey, Robin Fox, Darrin Verhagen and Yasunao Tone, all in glorious eight channel surround sound.

And… Robin Fox in Residence in the new UTS Interaction Studio

All free and open to the public!

For more information, the full program and contact details to book your place at the performances check out:

www.hss.uts.edu.au/utsmsd2008/

Dear Friends,
This year’s Golden Eye Awards hosts the first Sydney Sound Sports
event. A bit like Theatre Sports but
a lot noisier. Come along and join the audience on Wednesday October
17 at the Great Hall, level 5,
Building 1 (The Tower) at UTS.
Time: 5:30 sharp!!
Hope to see you there

Electrofringe is just around the corner, and this looks to be a particularly good year. I’ll be there as usual, doing a few talks. No gig this time, but I am contributing to Patchwork, an exhibition of ‘patch art’. Here’s mine:

It’s a screenshot of an AudioMulch patch that I’ve been using for the past year or so for live performance, in conjunction with a Behringer BCR controller.

WHAT: SOUND OF FAILURE: Experimental Music in a Post-digital Era

WHEN/WHERE (TWO VENUES):

Saturday August 25, 6pm:
Petersham Bowling Club (Performances)
77 Brighton St, Petersham
Hosted by the irrepressible Schappylle Scragg.

Saturday/Sunday August 25/26 11am-5pm:
DON’T LOOK Experimental New Media Gallery (Installations)
419 New Canterbury Rd (Near Marrickville Rd), Dulwich Hill
Endurance performances at Don’t Look Gallery from 12-5pm Sunday.

WHO:

PERFORMERS (Petersham Bowling Club):
Est Et Non, Tom Hall (Brisbane), Lecter Macabre, Marquis De Sound, Glen Remington, Starella, Vilhelm the Tortoise & Friends (Belgium), Alex White

INSTALLATION ARTISTS/ENDURANCE PERFORMERS
(Don’t Look Gallery):
Catfingers, Cleaninglady, Gregory Chatonsky (Canada), The Contingent Ensemble, Wade Marynowsky, Lecter Macabre, Marquis De Sound, Monoperro, Eva Mueller, Vienna Parreno, Cara-Ann Simpson, Subscape Annex (USA)

CONTACT: Greg Shapley - Ph: 0401 152 434
EMAIL: dontlookgallery@gmail.com
WEB: http://soundoffailure.com for a complete program.

SOUND OF FAILURE
Experimental Music in a Post-digital Era

We live in an era of failure. On the global stage, the President of the most powerful country on earth has overseen thousands of deaths in two failed wars. In the third world the stench of poverty seeps through the pores of humanity in the guise of genocidal skirmishes, starvation and disease. Fundamentalists of all creeds goad each other like contestants on some new deadly reality TV show. And the optimism of the ’90s is washed away in a tide of apathy, indifference and hopelessness.

So where does this leave culture? If art is holding up a mirror to society, how long before the mirror shatters in sympathetic resonance to the horror it beholds?

A couple of months ago Don’t Look Gallery put out an open call to sound artists to propose a piece for an event called the ‘Sound of Failure’. From dozens of responses, 20 artists have been chosen to perform at Petersham Bowling Club on Saturday August 25, or to install works at Don’t Look Gallery, Dulwich Hill over the weekend of August 25/26.

These works generally employ technological failure, both as a euphemism for the state of the world, but also as a way of exposing, exploring and problematising the digital façade. These artists have attempted transcend the small rectangular screens and the latest Microsoft releases, opting instead to look at unintended consequences of technology – when it misbehaves or just gives up the goat.

Some artists use humour. Starella, for instance, juxtaposes ‘instruments’ such as ‘old wine bottles’ with digital technology and lyrics written on the backs of beer coasters. The failure in her musical sound comes from spending her life slipping through the gaps of every system she has known: family; society, and professional systems. In her performances she feels her way through drunken rants and musically attempts to determine what went wrong.

Others employ the literal failure of the technology itself. Tom Hall, a renowned sound artist from Brisbane, uses the degenerate sounds formed from the destruction of flimsy CD media combined with the glitch/skip/malfunction from ageing and damaged CD players. These form the basis of a live performance that combine in a progressive and layered manner, juxtaposing the usual frustration experienced when one strikes this inferior malfunction.

A detailed program is available from http://soundoffailure.com.

Sunday, 19 August, 2007
SPLINTER at NightTime #3

As part of the NightTime concert series the Splinter Orchestra will
perform in the massive foyer at Carriage Works, allowing for further
explorations in density and spatialisation.

“NightTime is an evening of music, improvisation, performance &
interventions. Each NightTime will hone in on live artworks from
(sub)cultures around the city.”

NightTime is co-ordinated by: Trevor Brown, Rosie Dennis and Lara Thoms.

Sunday, 19 August. 7pm start. $15 entry
Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St, Eveliegh.

Electrofringe 2007 Program Online!

The full program for Electrofringe is now online. This year sees an unprecedented diversity in the Electrofringe program, as well as a stock of brilliant and stimulating events of the calibre you’ve come to expect from the October long weekend in Newcastle. Themes include accessibility and collaboration in electronic arts, wearable art, rethought radio and new approaches to electronic music. Screen works, contemporary dance, immersive and site specific works are nestled alongside dynamic panel discussions, workshops and gigs.

International guests include Tim Hecker (Canada), Leafcutter John (UK), Sebastien Roux (France), Jason Kahn (USA) and Ralph Steinbruchel (CH) alongside local artists including Robin Fox, Machina Aux Rock, Darrin Verhagen, SpatnLoogie, Sanso-Xtro, Pimmon, Shannon O’Neill and Gail Priest, plus may more.

Head to the Electrofringe website, www.electrofringe.net to check out the program and stay tuned for further updates.

I’ve been appointed program manager of ANAT’s ‘Embracing Sound Project’ (ESP). Over the next year I’ll be mapping the state of sound arts in Australia, networking and liaising with artists and organisations to see what sort of infrastructures might be desirable, and advocating sound arts to funding bodies and the media. It’s going to be interesting, travelling to parts of Australia that I’ve never been to and meeting lots of people.

There’ll be more info soon on this blog, as well as various email lists and on a forthcoming blog at ANAT, but please get in touch if you have any immediate ideas.

This job is in addition to teaching at UTS, doing a PhD, running Alias Frequencies, oh and trying to make art - so I’m a busy boy right now. I’m going to have to learn how to say no! =)

One thing I’ve let go of is Liquid Architecture, and it was great to go out on a high, with a very successful festival at Carriageworks. See Flickr for some of my photos.

WHAT: Don’t Look Gallery Cult Movie Fundraiser (+ lucky door prize + popcorn!)

WHEN: Saturday July 28, 6pm (please RSVP)

WHERE: Petersham Bowling Club
77 Brighton Street, Petersham

COST: $20 full/$10 concession

CONTACT: Greg Shapley - Ph: 0401 152 434
EMAIL: dontlookgallery@gmail.com
WEB: myspace.com/dontlookgallery

Don’t Look Gallery Needs Your Help!

On Saturday July 28, we’re having a Cult Movie Night at Petersham Bowling Club to help raise money to keep Don’t Look Gallery going. For $20/$10 you get four hours of challenging and quirky full length films, shorts and obscure (perhaps even bizarre) public service announcements. Some highlights will include the controversial 1932 pic ‘Freaks’, and the post-WWII US propaganda short, ‘Make Mine Freedom’.

We’ve had a few big expenses lately (including a broken window) and digital projectors don’t grow on trees! So please show your support so we can keep up a bit of Kulcha in the outer-inner-west.

If you know you can make it please RSVP so we can have some idea of numbers. Thanks for your support!

Greg Shapley
Don’t Look Gallery