Performances at the Mobile Music Workshop

We had 3 yesterday: TokTek, alias Tom Verbruggen, The HandyDandy and Cathy van Eck’s Hearing Sirens.

The Handydandy (Bernhard Bauch, Florian Waldner, Gordan Savicic, Julia Staudach, Luc Gross, Nicolaj Kirisits) made a pretty fun gig by playing music on their mobile phones as if they were rock guitars. The phones, used only as interfaces, are connected via Bluetooth to a computer network, a virtual opposite to the “human network” music-band.

TokTek’s performance blew everyone’s mind. The artist explores new modes of interaction in live performance. He structures the unbridle clicks and cuts of his circuit bend gadgets to a fragile disturbance. Sampling with a joystick Tom creates unlogic dynamic compositions. Started by playing an old vinyl of lessons of french, then went wild with buttons, keyboards and knobs, later grabbed a joystick, then had a go at a guitar, kid’s toys, etc.

By looking for information about Tom Verbruggen online i discovered another of his work called Moederkoek, which translated is mother-cake but refers in English to the placebo. Tom performs while his mother bakes a cake in a self-assembled kitchen. Tom samples his mum’s baking and the sounds its produces in real-time to realize an improvised composition. At the end of the performance, the cake is baked and served to the audience.

He also creates installations such as the Crack-Canvas. Using STEIM crackle box hardware, the artist has created paintings that produce sound. Each painting can produce sound by itself but when connected with other paintings forms a ‘painting orchestra’. By connecting cables between the paintings, the sound changes, while the cables length, colour and form, form a drawing on the wall or in the space the paintings are hanging.

Crack Canvas and Crackle Canvas