For the Octopus festival in Paris (may 2nd 2008) we developed a new version of our avantilator performance using parts of the architone concept and other machine instruments.

On the 2nd oktober we took part in an evening of musikprotokoll feturing the FM3 Buddha Machine with our own interpretation of the little box:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYh9pVD96GA[/youtube]

We finished a new installation called “Tschumifoon” for the beautiful tschumipaviljoen in Groningen.

Out of the glass Tschumipavilione we build an instrument wich is made playable by the audience via mobile phone. The glass windows are transformed in to speakers, and 8 independent sound channels can be selected and controlled by phone.
Inside the pavilion 8 groups of mechanical instruments are installed that are triggered by the single sound channels.

The TSCHUMIFOON was running from 28 April till 2 July 2007.
The opening was Saturday 28 April at 4 PM.

more images below

CHEW-Z was a festival organised by Massimiliano Viel and the people arround the plattform sincronie.

CHEW-Z Colliding HEterophonic Waves was inspired by the book “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” by Philip K. Dick and was dealing with his ideas of perception of reality. Staalplaat Soundsystem was invited to play togethet with the Icarus Ensemble as well as solo parts for this two concert evenings. A YOKOMONO solo part was done but only with records cut especially for this event based on the material of Fausto Romitelli’s “La sabbia del tempo”. We did a analog live remix of this material. We played a MACHINE orchestra solo part and a piece called “Can-D” by Riccardo Nova together with the Icarus Ensemble, Riccardo Nova’s electronic manipulations and our MACHINES.
Compositions by:
Riccardo Nova, Otolab, Fausto Romitelli, Staalplaat Soundsystem, Giovanni Verrando and Massimiliano Viel

Conductor: Giorgio Bernasconi

Icarus Ensemble:
Giovanni Mareggini (flute), Nicola Zuccala’ (clarinet), Andrea Menafra (guit), Marco Pedrazzini (keyboards), Kumi Uchimoto (keyboards), Paolo Ghidoni (violin), Luciano Cavalli (viola), Matteo Malagoli, (violoncello)

Our project YOKOMONO got a Honorary Mention Digital Music at this years Ars Electronica Festival. We showed a new version of the Installation wich turned out very nice.

YOKOMONO confronts viewers with a set-up consisting of 4 “vinyl killers” – little toy record players in the form of VW buses, each equipped with a needle and a small VHF transmitter. The “vinyl killers” circle around on specially prepared loop records, whose loops initially contain “digital silence”. The records are manipulated and prepared to create interferences, noises and rhythms, which are transmitted cross-wise by the VHF transmitters on two different frequencies to four groups of radios corresponding to the walls of the room, thus opening up a four-channel space-sound system. Additional radios on a circling toy train move through the different transmitter frequencies, thus permanently altering their sound and making the range and order of the frequencies visible.

The sound is determined by many factors – the wear and tear on the records and the primitive sound transmission (MONO) changes the original “digital silence”, adding mechanical and analog characteristics, while the rotation of the vinyl killers and the movement of the visitors in the room destabilize the VHF transmission to the radios, the transmitters interfere with one another and other transmitting devices such as mobile phones, and the gradually decreasing battery power of the vinyl killers changes the playing speed of the loops. All of this makes YOKOMONO an unstable, incalculable system, in which distortion and erosion, the obliteration and destruction of the sound are part of the concept.

You can read a review made by the german-french arte-TV here:
http://www.arte.tv/de/kunst-musik/kultur-digital/Ars_20Electronica_202006/1316374.html

We also did a yokomono performace at the O.K. center media deck and spontaneously invited our friends chris (wirmachenbunt) and owain for some improvised vj-action. you can see some ‘crappy cellphone cam’ impressions here .

“Nose Dive on Linschoten ” was a new mechanical sound orchestra, containing 7 motor driven sirens, 20 big sound boxes and 24 metal grinders, at A Glamorous Night in Linschoten presented in the garden of the of the Linschoten castle (10 till 20 august) more information you may find here: http://www.huistelinschoten.nl/home.html

For the Stuttgarter Filmwinter we did a Philharmechanic Workshop with kid’s building instruments from old vacuumcleaners and all sorts of toy-instruments and other noise making things. The workshop resulted in a performance of the kid’s as Young Philharmechanic Orchestra Stuttgart. The orchestra was conducted on a simply number-based system, the kid’s used flash lights on the half dark stage to switch on and of their instruments while iluminating them. For this we prepared light sensitive switching boxes for the single instruments.

foto: marian murat

At Avanto festival we gave an instrument workshop for children aged 9 to 12 at the Ateneum Art Museum. The result of the workshop was performed by SSS together with the young participants of the workshop at the Kiasma Theatre under the title Staalplaat Soundsystem & The Helsinki Filharmechanic Youth Orchestra. The orchestra was conducted on a simply number-based system, the kid’s used flash lights on the half dark stage to switch on and of their instruments while iluminating them. For this we prepared light sensitive switching boxes for the single instruments. The performance was a part of Kids’ Avanto.

Staalplaat Soundsystem & The Helsinki Filharmechanic Youth Orchestra at Kiasma Theatre on Sunday, November 20th at 19:30.

This workshop held at the HFG in Karlsruhe was trying to explore the potentials of dead computers as msusic and sound making instruments. Half circuit bending, half hardware hacking - the workshop ended after 3 funny days in a concert with all the students.

The project was performed July 2 & 3, 2004 at the State X/New Forms Festival in The Hague, Holland. A sound art installation, household articles combined with techno culture, a collection of past performances and installations? Let’s do it! Preparations get started, ambassies are consulted, power units, cables and money arranged. Trucks and containers hired to be filled up with stacks of vacuumcleaners, taperecorders, ventilators, washing machines, turntables and kitchen utensils. Loads of it…. The Vrije Academie, everything positioned neatly, clusters of horns, bells, tubes, rotating and pumping mechanical parts. Moaning engines, spastic mixers and grinders bathing in colored lights, a kinetic wonderworld of musical weirdness. An event of almost mythical proportions and a great start for the 2004 edition of State X/New Forms!
Jan Borchers

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 hase created 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.

Happy Metal in Den Haag 2005
[audio:http://www.staalplaat.org/snd/SSS_No_time_for_space.mp3]
Geert-Jan Hobijn (NL), Carlo Crovato (UK) Wessel Westerveld (NL) Radboud Mens (NL) Jorg Monker (NL) and Martijn Grunwald (NL)