| Concept
for "happy metal XXL" at the "stateX-new
forms" festival 2-3 July in Den Haag
Happy metal
Over a long time Staalplaat has created many different mechanical
orchestras using all sorts of consumer electronics and having
learned how to control them and use them to compose. Previous
highlights of Staalplaat Soundsystem performances include the
very peculiar "Composition for Eight Refrigerators",
performed at the German garage festival, and "Sweet Sissy
and the Ballroom Hiss", performed at the Belgian Vooruit
Geluid festival.
The latter starred 12 large floor polishers, making their characteristic
noises and dancing like ravers on their own in the middle of
a hall usually reserved for raves and rock concerts. On the
balcony and the stage we had placed smaller gadgets such as
coffee machines and food mixers, which, directed by us, commented
with their own noises on what was going on the dance floor.
Or the installation for 60 vacuum cleaners and 2 cement mixers,
performed at the ENCI Cement factory in Maastricht, and the
piece called "Avantilator" for one hundred office
fans in Helsinki. For "floating islands" - our most
recent project, a big swimming orchestra for the opening of
the new Dutch embassy in Berlin - we have made a new relay box
capable of switching 48 separate channels.
Our warehouse and basement is full of machines waiting for a
new challenge, we are ready and would like to merge it all in
to one big monster show named Happy Metal.
For the "stateX-new forms" festival The Staalplaat
Soundsystem monster show will create in de vrije academie what
we called "musique korrekt" using all our self-built
and customised everyday tools, translating them into the new
contexts of a monster orchestra. Instruments such as 120 flute-playing
vacuum cleaners 6 pogo dancing tumble dryers, 100 table ventilators,
4 drumming jig saws, 200 radios plus a frenetic choir of 24
prepared kitchen mixers and more are connected so that they
can be controlled by sound sources, using customised light organs
and relay systems. The 4-arm-turntable together with some other
soundfeeds (cd-players, additional turntables, etc.), will be
the heart of the installation. We, and other invited guest
turntablists, will play it all day. Reinterpreting a modern
tradition of sound installation, the Staalplaat Soundsystem
aims to use Fluxus elements, mechanical and constructive elements
of sound art combined with the dynamics of the DJ culture. Every
event is tailored to fit its environment. Give the Staalplaat
Soundsystem an interesting or challenging space to work with
and the space gets transformed into an immersive environment
with many of the characteristics of the world of experimental
music and performance in which Staalplaat has always been one
of the vectors.
Within the current mood of worshipping the latest technology
in media art, Staalplaat Soundsystem provides a breath of fresh
air, reminding us of the 100-year tradition of noise-making
machines and junk art, in which "mad" inventors and
various kinds of artists operating in the margins of the art
world meet. Anton Nikkilä /Avanto festival
Documentation of the show in Den
haag
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