“Short Circuit: A Festival of Electronics” at The Roundhouse, Thu 12-Sun 15 May 2011.

I was there last Thursday. A friend got me in for free, we were both late trying to figure out our seats in the dark. Big round tables, sit-down minimal electro with the most amazing background visuals ever. We  stayed for Alva Noto + Ryuchi Sakamoto. 

At times it felt like the songs were cut-off too fast, as if one was allowed to feel the phenomelogical impact of sound, but yet not be allowed to be transported to this other time/ space, only maybe momentarily. Usually I am very proud of the London audience and their trained ears, but also their respectful behavior as attentive listeners. Well, this was not the case this time, with people bringing their aghhhhh i-phones out for a picture, only to spoil the illusion for the rest of us... But saying that, the whole atmosphere was more like festival-gig-interactive experimentation rather than formal concert vibes, so at the end didn’t really matter. Best entertainment factor of the night was Berlin based synth-boutique by Schnieders Buero. A carousel-like installation at the lower ground floor, where anyone can experiment with different frequencies and tones on this massive purpose-built new modular and hardware synth installation. Found myself having a duet with a random guy who just happened to get in tune with my short circuit! loads of fun! 

http://www.last.fm/festival/1778257+Short+Circuit+presents+Mute

I wanna take Laurie Anderson's "Talking Pillow" home: “Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s”, at The Barbican, on until 22 May 2011.

Featuring Trisha Brown’s live performances/choreographies, rare video documentation of Gordon Matta-Clark’s dissected buildings series, sculptures, photography as well as Laurie Anderson’s most popular audio pieces, like The Handphone Table, 1978, this exhibition is a great opportunity to experience the interconnections between these three key figures of the informal ‘downtown movement’ of 60s-70s New York; discover moments of cross-fertilizations of ideas and art forms, all coming together to form the vibrant artistic community we nowadays call Soho. 

The exhibition is curated in such a way as to not only do justice to individual works but also to shed some light into how and why ‘New York city in the early 70s was Paris in the 20s’. Imagine a city on the verge of bankruptcy, followed by the disappearance of major industries, leading to many artists, musicians, film-makers and performers taking over its derelict industrial lofts, turning them into live/work studios, using them as galleries/art spaces. Thus giving life to a new kind of experimentation period, where the formalism of white cube minimalism and Warhol’s infamous socialité parties, were now replaced by a mood for more ephemeral urban interventions that were in dialogue with everyday life, like Gordon-Matta Clark’s Open House, Greene Street, 1972 or their culinary communion Food, 127 Prince Street, New York, 1971, moving towards a different kind of political art, and eventually opening the space for subsequent generations of contemporary artists and performers. 

Questions of the body, the phenomenological impact of sound, spatial relationships, socialized architectures, and movements in between, are all very pertinent here, together with beautifully orchestrated moments when the performative becomes architectural and vice versa. Coming out of the exhibition one can’t help but wander what is the relationship of the body to its environment today? How can we use urban spaces as places for public interaction, play and art? 

“I am walking on a tight rope. 

Backwards and Forwards. 

Backwards and Forwards.

All my family is around me. 

If I fall I will crash them [...]

A very thin line. 

A line that is made by my blood”

Says Anderson through her Talking Pillow,1978 directly to the visitor’s ear 30 years later. 

I wanna to make her pillow home...

http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?id=11398