October 23, 2008

SicKL Open Lab 003: October 2008



Dear friends,

SicKL Open Lab (SOL) is back with its third season this coming Saturday (25th October) at 8pm!
In this SOL 003 October lab, we've invited musician-sound artists Ronnie Khoo (Furniture) & Jazmok (Bintang Bendehara) to test out several sound experimentations on their savvy laptops. Also on the bills are experimental video shorts from Lesly Leon Lee, and Felix Wong and Mohd Fuad Bin Md Arif.
Come out, wear light, stay tuned, and feel the heat at SicKL!

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Venue: Studio in Cheras, KL (SicKL)
No. 75, 3rd Floor,
Amber Business Plaza,
Jalan Jelawat 1,
Cheras 56100, Kuala Lumpur.
(1 minute walk from Cheras LRT Station, Star Line)

Date & Time: 25th October at 8pm

ADMISSION BY DONATION

For driving directions: Yandsen 012-9198031

*Please wear casual and light cause we are warm!

*You are welcome to bring your brooze!

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RONNIE KHOO
broken electronic keyboard + laptop

Ronnie Khoo is a recording enthusiast who works from a home studio. His projects include playing in rock bands, scoring for independent film, and tampering with electronic equipment to make them squeal in unexpected ways.


JAZMOK
Laptop & Kaoss Pad

Jazmok is a malaysian-based sound artist. His favourite music instruments are mobile gadgets,as the medium of producing his sound.He is interested in malay classical rhythm and other native cultures in malaysia.The sound characteristic of Jazmok is describe as various of oscilator wave and ambient with gong atmosphere. He loves experimenting with sound and had produce several of interactive installation while performing.


MOHD FUAD BIN MD ARIF
Video “I was dupe” (10 mins)

Synopsis:
I am here to satisfy my alter ego which is highly motivated to the idea of making you hate me (in what I’m doing). So this could be my first and could be my last coming here.

Bio:
MOHD FUAD BIN MD ARIF is currently a lecturer in the Faculty of Art & Design at UiTM Shah Alam.


"The Dogs" by Felix Wong (30 mins)

Synopsis:
Confession of a gangster, facing ordinary dilemma just like you and me. We then will see unexpected “elegant” life of gangsters.


LESLY LEON LEE
Video “Search For” (11 mins)

Synopsis:
Friends, lovers, relationships, spirit, gods, religion. We search for concrete holds of meaning in them in this sometimes meaningless life. Where then is meaning in anything? As the existentialists say, the only meaning is this life is ours to create. With that comes great freedom and meaning. But also, an abyss or our greatest nightmare.

Bio:
A lover of all forms of arts, from painting to photography to film to music, he is always challenging himself to come up with genuinely original works. Yes, some say everything has been done before and there is no such thing as pure originality. But he feels it’s something worth striving for, though in the end it may not exist. Deeply connected with nature, he feels most at home in the thick of a forest, with all the wild creatures. He expounds uniqueness and hates the globalisation and homogenisation of humanity. Still struggling between the gray areas of believing in something and keeping it to himself versus spreading it, since he believes that the main reason of strife and wars is one party trying to change another’s views to that of her own. But at the same time, isn’t sharing what makes us unique? When does sharing cross the line into force feeding? Visit http://beinglll. net for more works.


SOL happens bi-monthly on the last Saturday of the month.


For more information, please contact:

Siew Wai: swsuny@hotmail. com / kokbuffalo@yahoo. com
Sow Yee: truely_au@hotmail. com

October 18, 2008

GOH LEE KWANG OCTOBER EUROPEAN TOUR

- concert - October -
a mini Eastern European tour plus

10/22/2008 - Tuzrakter, Budapest, Hungary
solo, duo with Peter Szabó, stereo DJ mixer!

10/23/2008 - Grand Café, Szeged, Hungary
solo

10/24/2008 - Simultan Festival, Timisoara, Romania
solo

10/25/2008 - C17, Wien, Austria
duo with Tim Blachmann & more, stereo dj mixer!

11/1/2008 - Blinzelbar, Hamburg, Germany
solo, duo with Birgit Ulher, trio with Birgit Ulher & Heiner Metzger,
Stereo DJ mixer.

October 09, 2008

LIVE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS


Date - Thursday 16th Oct 2008
Time - 2030
Venue - Republic @ Sunway Pyramid (new wing)
Price of admission
- rm 18 at the door
- rm 15 pre sold tickets

Artists performing -

. Justice Yeldham (Australia) - main act
http://www.myspace.com/justiceyeldham
http://dualplover.com/justice.htm
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=justice+yeldham&search_type=&aq=f

. Anam (Scotland) - supporting act
http://ricecooker.kerbau.com/2008/07/05/friday-18th-july-2008-music-bloodsport-sickl/

. Love Affair (Malaysia) - supporting act
http://www.myspace.com/wehateloveaffair

. Flica (Malaysia) - supporting act
http://www.myspace.com/flicasound

LOCATION MAP AND DIRECTIONS HERE

http://autopilotdreams.blogspot.com/

October 06, 2008

SABAW Media Art Kitchen presents FETE DELA WASAQUE - a 2-night festival for adventurous music and related visual art.

SCHEDULE:
OCT 14, (TUES) 9PM: Mag:net Cafe Katipunan, AGCOR Bldg. 335 Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City (150 php)
OCT 15, (WED) 8PM: Green Papaya art projects, 41 T.Gener St. cor. Kamuning Rd.,
Quezon City (Free)

Presenting two nights of handmade music that blur the lines between electro-acoustic, free improvisation, industrial, free jazz, performance art and freeform-noise, and will be paired with the intensity of live video performances (vjing), exquisite homemade machines, real guitars, absurd costumes, and even more live action on stage. FETE DE LA WASAQUE will be hosted by SABAW Media Art Kitchen in cooperation with Greenpapaya art projects and Mag:net Galleries.
Expect two nights of insanity going on and on till the break of dawn at Green Papaya art space and Mag:net cafe Katipunan - including one of the very extreme and rare performances from Australia's Justice Yeldham. Cavite's E.X.I.S.T. sound art collective will electrify our nerves thru their homemade electronics and circuit-bend gadgets, while Manila's New Media Arts Manila (N.M.A.M) will surely melt your brain with rapidfire audiovideo-shrapnel. Alongside the live video performances of N.M.A.M., performance and media artist Mannete Villariba and editor Edsel Abesamis will provide video assualt as well.

On the first night, Tengal's Gangan Series Project will manifest itself this time as the Gangan Trio featuring Tengal on no-input mixer, drums and objects, Blums Borres on guitar, Caliph8 on turntables, while Tad Ermitano takes off his vj hat and conducts the trio. Circuit-bender wiz Erick Calilan (Ugong) will challenge his old band mate from the now defunct Sound Existence, PJ Soliven (Nyangbinghi), alongside the live script video programming of Mannette Villariba. Not to mention the avant-jazz/punk outfit, Radioactive Sago Project will perform improvised electro-acoustic "WASAK" music written and conducted by Francis de Veyra; while walls of industrial soundscapes of doom will break room walls with the heavy-hitters, Trojan Whores.
On the following night, Blums Borres will invite you to his all live, all improvised ambient solo guitar lounge. Tengal and Tad collaborate on an audio-visual "cooking show": Tengal stirs the complex and unstable nature of the sonic textures from the mixer, both live and processed - letting it boil and simmer; while Tad Ermitano who literaly "cooks up" non-newtonian fluid (i.e. ketchup, starch, suspensions, paint, blood and shampoo) into a "visual soup" using a loudspeaker, face-up, as a pot with cameras positioned on top of it. Elemento will drive some nerve-shattering noise with their intricately-crafted sonic machines, while analogue noise maker Inconnuictu will team up with ambient electronica ace Blend:er, and Ugong.

And finally Australia's leading audio artist and founder of the pioneering Australian record label Dual Plover, Lucas Abela (Justice Yeldham), will kill off whatever brain cells you have left on both nights!
SABAW ends the year with a wall shaking acoustic-meets-digital assault stirring acts on two nights of positive madness.

PERFORMERS:
Lucas Abela aka JUSTICE YELDHAM has been performing for well over 15 years and is one of the leaders of Australian "noise music".
His early performances were crazed extensions of turntablism. Instead of turntables he'd use motors turning metal discs at 2000 rpm, and instead of record needles he'd use skewers or knives. He once used a glove that he had imbedded with record needles - Freddy Krueger style.
Incorporating everything from electro-acoustic trampolines, amplified samurai swords to high powered turntables constructed from sewing machine motors into his performances, in recent years he's been using sheets of glass that he blows through, screams through, bites and breaks.
Lucas has toured over 30 countries with this new act, appeared on numerous television shows, and even crashed a John Peel session at the BBC.
BLEND:ER is an electronic music creator and a noise enthusiast who lives in Cavite, Philippines. He started experimenting with audio acrobatics and technoid sonic landscapes in 1999. Being included in various album anthologies like Mood Swing Theater Volume 1 (2004) released by Kittenwhip Compilation and S.A.B.A.W. Anthology of Noise, Electronic, and Experimental Music (2004), Blend:er aka (Cris Garcimo) has often collaborated with E.X.I.S.T., SABAW and Electronica Manila artists.
BLUMS BORRES guitarist and media artist who experiments with sound, video, and animation. Formerly a technical director at Toei Animation Philippines, he has a BA in Multimedia Design from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. His work has been featured at the Australian Center Moving Images (ACMI), and in cinemas and television in Japan. His career in post production spans over 14 years and has involved himself in both professional productions and education. He currently teaches 3d animation at DLSU-CSB.
CALIPH8 is a beat smith, graffiti bomber and soothsayer. A lynch-pin of various groups and ensembles, he's probably the most sought after sound manipulator in the Philippines. A graduate of the U.P. College of Fine Arts, his output extends to more than just sniffing aerosol paint and flexing wrists with fat markers--he also creates visuals and projects them while manipulating audio and creates sound collage.
He is a member of A.M.P.O.N. hiphop collective, electronica group Drip, and was part of Downearf, a trueschool hiphop trio back in 1997.
EDSEL ABESAMES is a video editor / motion graphics person / director / racketeer / guitarist / poser / anime fan / overweight 32 year old / discontent drunkard. That about sums it up.
ELEMENTO is the brainchild of experimental multi-media artist Lirio Salvador, and has created a number of experimental electronic instruments based on his own concept of ethno-industrial art/music. Probably the most influential and astonishing homemade circuit-benders and instrument builders in the country, he established the E.X.I.S.T. sound art collective back in 2002. He creates his assemblage of musical instruments using day to day materials that are found in his present environment, including bicycle gears, drain cleaning springs and stainless steel tubes.
INCONNU ICTU a.k.a Roger Llagas Lopez is a post-musician, experimental composer-improviser, multi-instrumentalist, visual art enthusiast who resides in the shoe capital of the Philippines. "Inconnu Ictu(s)" means an "unknown man's blow or a stroke", as a sound constructor he explores his interest by using obsolete electronic gadgets, pedal fx boxes, defective rhythm consoles, found objects, d.i.y microphones and circuit-bent electronics.
MANNET VILLARIBA is a performance artist, painter, sound artist, visual programmer and designer. He has been active in diverse fields of art and design - including research and development. Yielding the outputs of sounds, images, and light through analyzing and transforming the numerical values gained from various sensors and input devices, he is a visual artist pursuing sensual peculiarity and interaction.
NYANGBINGHI (PJ Soliven) and UGONG (Erick Calilan) used to perform together as a duo called Sound Existence back in 2005. They are active leaders and members of E.X.I.S.T., taking part in producing shows, worshops, exhibitions both in Cavite and Manila. While Nyangbinghi utilizes mainly a laptop as an instrument, UGONG performs using home-made "cracked" electronics that are circuit-bent and rewired to make electronic squeels, blips, hisses, and clicks.
RADIOACTIVE SAGO PROJECT is probably the country's most successful avant bands that crossed over to mainstream music, having released 3 successful albums and have been radio darlings 'til this day. Instead of playing their usual popular hits, they will perform an experimental electro-acoustic piece by Francis de Veyra, the group's main composer. Francis studied atonal and modern composition in the conservatory of music in the University of the Philippines where he was almost sued and banned from the university for his infamous recital piece called "Wasakan".
"TACSIYAPO", is a new piece which will premiere on the 14th. The composer explains: "TACSIYAPO is an expression in kapampangan [a local dialect] meant and used to vent out anger and frustration. The piece was inspired by an interesting phenomena in a restaurant in Tarlac where they have people throw anything in a wall be it cups, plates, cats, or even TVs. Upon throwing them on the wall (that is painted with vandals of the words that are 'cancers' of our society), they shout 'Tacsiyapo!'. This piece tries to 'throw' an array of sounds and textures, wherein the performers will try to vent out their angst, not physically, but thru sound. The group will use electronic music, spoken word, bass and electric guitars, kaoss pads, percussions and the audience."
TAD ERMITANO is a media artist, writer and filmmaker. As far as the media art goes, he is interested in algorithmic/procedural editing and composition, new uses for the moving image and have been lately drifting into elementary robotics. His work "Quartet" was exhibited in the recently concluded International Symposium for Electronic Arts (ISEA) in Singapore.
TENGAL is a Manila-based interdisciplinary media artist, composer-musician, media art impresario, and filmmaker. He curates and organizes media art projects, has collaborated with various artists, and has performed in various shows in the Philippines and abroad. He attended the Berlinale Talent Campus 2006, in Berlin, Germany; the 5th Asia-Europe Foundation Art Camp: Re-Vision Bangkok | New Media Art and Interactivity, in Thailand; and most recently at Cellsbutton II: Yogyakarta International Media Art Festival, in Indonesia. He founded SABAW in 2005.
TROJAN WHORES is composed of Pow Martinez, Sam Kiyoumarsi, and Thomas Mcwalter, and they create harsh industrial soundscapes with doom metal elements.

More info at: http://wasakfete.tk/ or email tengald@gmail.com

October 02, 2008

Southeast Asian Video Screening featuring work by Kok Siew Wai and friends.

http://bsap08.blogspot.com

Southeast Asian Video Screening will be held at Valentine Willie Fine Art Project Room
from 20 September - 11 October 2008. The exhibition highlights some of the most
exciting and challenging screen-based practices from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and
the Philippines.

Working in collaboration with curators around the region, the screening brings together
video works and experimental films from four neighbouring countries, providing
Malaysian audience with a rare opportunity to study and compare the various trends and
styles in video art that has emerged through the different contexts and cultures that have
made Southeast Asia a diverse and complex region.

From Indonesia, art curator Agung Hujatnikajennong features in his broad yet in-depth
survey, some of the most exciting artists from Bandung, Yogyakarta and Jakarta working
with the video medium. Manila-based film critic and lecturer Alexis Tioseco will compile a
selection of video works that not only looks into the formal innovation of emerging Filipino
names but also engages with the socio-cultural history of the nation.

'The More Things Change...', curated by David Teh, will showcase Thai experimental
shorts from this year's Bangkok Experimental Film Festival. Last but not least, Simon Soon and Erna Dyanty will curate a Malaysian survey that identifies various approaches and trajectories in local experimental film-making.

For screening schedule, please visit http://bsap08.blogspot.com

Please join us for drinks with Bombay Sapphire this Saturday (20 September 2008) at 7:30pm on our opening night.

Valentine Willie Fine Art
1st Floor, No. 17, Jalan Telawi 3,
Bangsar Baru
59100 Kuala Lumpur

+603 2284 2348
or email simon@vwfa.net
WORKS:
Thailand

Nitipong Thinthupthai, 'Krasob'
Nawapol Tahmrongrattanarit, 'Bangkok Tanks'
Pathompol Tesprateep, '4 Feb 2006 Live @ Bangkok Code'
Arpapun Plungsirisoontorn, 'Repeating Drama'
Micahel Shaowanasai, 'Observation of the Monument'
Pramote Saengsorn, 'Observation of the Monk'
Thunska Pansittivorakul, 'Middle Earth'
Uruphong Raksasad, 'Roy Tai Phrae'
Jakwawal Niltumrong, 'Man with a Video Camera'
Anocha Suwichakornpong, 'Black Mirror'


Malaysia

Chris Chong 'Kolam' & 'Minus'
Azhar Rudin 'Eaten by Time'
Chi Too 'Reading Kafka in America'
Idora Alhabsih 'Overall Condition: Normal'
Nazim Esa 'For the Love of Drowning'
Au Sow Yee 'Passing II'
Kok Siew Wai 'Leap'
Chan Seau Huvi 'I want to be a Good Woman' & 'Butterfly'
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c u r a t e d b y S i m o n S o o n & E r n a D y a n t y

In compiling a survey of Malaysian video works for the Southeast Asian Video Screening, all attempts at defining an all-over thematic or visual trend from our selection were largely abandoned. Instead, we began charting the various forms of experimentation that video artists have engaged in. This, in turn, complicates the discourse that experimental video exists as a uniformed aesthetic that is largely esoteric and inaccessible. Interestingly, we found that recent video works highlighted in our Malaysian screening can be contextualis ed within three main trajectories.

Filmmakers such as Azharr Rudin and Nazim Esa who use short films or experimental videos as their platform for bolder exploration of the medium constitute the first category. While they are just as comfortable with working on the feature film format, often it is through their short films that the alternative and interesting approaches to narration are explored.

Contrary to the fictive immersion of the short narratives, we have also identified a number of filmmakers and video artists such as Chris Chong and Chi Too who have worked within the documentary genre. Often, these works are more critical of the language of visual representation than their usual documentary counterpart, playing with and investigating into new structures of signification that can affect a different understanding and experience of the social as well as the personal.

The third trajectory can be considered to be geographically specific and formalist in orientation. Au Sow Yee, Kok Siew Wai and Chan Seau Huvi are all active participants in SicKL, a studio for experimentation with various artistic disciplines. Monthly performances are held in their Cheras (a suburb in Kuala Lumpur) studio, featuring poetry recitals as well as sound, video and performance art. They represent both a more performative approach to video art - video as a documentation of female bodily drives (Siew Wai and Huvi) - as well as an interest in exploring abstraction through the video medium (Sow Yee). As such their works often push the boundaries of video art further, turning to consider the fundamental aspects of the medium.

Last but not least, we have also included a short work by Idora Alhabsih, who is still completing her studies in filmmaking overseas, as an indication of a direction that an emerging generation of artists who have increasingly found video to be both an affordable and challenging medium to base their artistic practice on.

Across these disparate trajectories, Malaysian experimental video and film draw strength from its diverse approaches – short narrative, experimental documentary, video abstraction, and performative documentation. Many of them propose new visual structures of conveying meaning that disrupts the homogenised format of the feature film. Its heterogeneity, as noted by David Teh (curator of the Thai compilation), could challenge the safe experience of the easily consumable feature film, which ultimately provokes us to think more critically through its stimulating formal registers.