RANSIENCE – Ofer Smilansky
‘Transience value is scarcity value in time’ Freud Transience is an audiovisual performance in which the digital distortion of natural elements and found objects offers a reinterpretation of the symbolism contained in the 17th century still lives called Vanitas. The intention of the artist is to celebrate the beauty of the transience nature of things. While in these paintings the objects themselves act as reminders of the passing of time that leads to decay and death, in Transience their treatment in time and space recreates such impression. The natural elements and found objects are filmed on a macro level and are given sonic properties. Thus a kind of surreality made of dreamy landscapes emerges, characterised by sharp visual contrasts and intense rhythmical changes. Transience is performed live on large scale screen and sound system.
(Note that Staplerfahrer, The Monarchy and John Fanning will perform immediately after one another in a trilogy of performances adhering to a short time frame)
STAPLERFAHRER (Tilburg, NL) link > staplerfahrer.nl
Staplerfahrer is Steffan de Turck, a Dutch sound artist playing around with crunched and broken sounds, circuit bended gadgetry and electro-magnetic waves. Years ago, he became interested in "musical noises" while circuitbending his own audio equipment.
The surprises he discovered by doing so, was his introduction into the world of bleep, click and crackle. From then on, the fascination for electronic sounds grew stronger and stronger, as did the need to process these sounds and apply them into a musical format… both live and as physical/virtual releases.
THE MONARCHY (Den Haag/Tilburg, NL)
The Monarchy is a developing performance and sound art project initiated by Steffan de Turck (NL), John Fanning (US/NL) and Leilani Trowell (US/NL). The project focuses on interpretations of monarchy by using found objects, primarily items from the trash and general cast-offs of our modern society. Fanning and Trowell play King and Queen, De Turck is the lowly serf who generates sound in his Small cardboard shack and is the general slave of the King and Queen who live in a much more ornate cardboard castle. The audience is allowed to see into the castle via a camera interface which will project the inside of the castle on the outside of the castle itself.
Issues of narcissism, abuse of power, entitlement, mistreatment of the general public, bizarre psychosexual disorders as well as the overall question of the necessity of monarchy are examined in a unique way bridging humor, research, speculation and improvisation. The performance on 18th November will be a test of ideas by the Monarchy and will be their first performance.
JOHN FANNING (New Hampshire, USA/Den Haag, NL) Link > massaccesi.com John Fanning is an artist living and working currently between Den Haag, Holland & New Hampshire, USA. His work encompasses installation, performance, sound, video, sculpture and conceptual ideas. Embracing a DIY ethic from an early age Fanning has been a self-publishing ‘zine editor, university radio & live party DJ (touring three times fresh out of high school in Europe & Japan) and conceptual/experimental fashion designer concurrent to his main focus areas of visual art & experimental performance. He has performed & toured extensively in the past 7 years, primarily in Europe. He is currently exploring an idea called "Re-formance", subverting and redefining the idea of how a performance is presented to the public, especially within the context of what could be a concert or a live art execution. The "Re-Formance" by Fanning for 18th November will be a shorter test version of a slightly longer performance about boredom and laziness which will be executed at Interpenetration festival in Graz, Austria on 16 December 2010.
(THE GREAT WAVE OFF) KANAGAWA (Budapest, HU/Den Haag, NL)
Link > myspace.com/kanagawarocks
(The Great Wave Off) Kanagawa is a collaborative music project by Áron Birtalan and Dániel Gál which has it's origins in Budapest, Hungary. Starting with a basis of GameBoy tracker programming made human and emotional by Birtalan (who also occasionally plays the more traditional instrument known as a guitar), live drumming partner Gál adds human tension and natural timing to create an experience which is almost simultaneously introspective and extroverted yet equally experimental and poppy. One could coin all kinds of terms to genre-ize this but it reaches deeper than your typical handheld videogame reprogramming/chip-addicts and instead uses the platform of personal technology to get REALLY personal. Throughout the years (The Great Wave Off) Kanagawa (formerly known as 'failotron') performed shows in the United States, Asia and all over Europe, including the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Italy and Hungary.