Cybersonica
is London’s annual festival of electronic music, sonic art
and audiovisual fusion.
Now in its sixth year, the festival is a leading
international event for anyone interested in the theory and practice
of how new technologies are shaping and changing the way musicians,
DJs, VJs, digital artists, audiovisualisers and creative software
developers make and present their work. The festival brings together
a vibrant community of sonic and audiovisual innovation, nurtures
new talent and showcases the freshest and latest work in the field.
Cybersonica 07 will bring challenging new work
to an international audience - gathered through invitation, commission
and an open call for works. The festival aims to showcase both live
audiovisual performance and sonic art works that contain the most
exciting contemporary approaches to creative interactivity - moving
beyond the screen, keyboard and mouse and responding to physical
input, proximity, sound, kinetics, elapsed time and the surrounding
environment.
Why do we make this festival happen?
Cybersonica has always sought to encourage fresh, new talent and support
established sonic creators, innovators and developers.
To stay fresh and experimental, the festival regularly reinvents itself -
shifting focus, reprioritising established programming strands and extending
its range of activities. The festival is never themed – although key
issues and developments do emerge each year through the researching and collating
of current work in the field.
That said, a distinct approach and shift for Cybersonica 07 is our decision
to highlight and refocus on the live performance and exhibition of work –
moving away from the more discursive, presentational and demonstrative focus
of the past three years. We want to get back to what excited us in the first
place – engaging showcases of playful, interactive sonic artworks and
innovative, energetic and enjoyable live shows aimed at new audiences in unique
venues – such as Tate Britain, Millbank; The Junction, Cambridge; and
Kinetica Museum, Spitalfields.
But more than this, we’re aiming to showcase artists who seem to have
developed a special relationship with their technology that allows them to
rise above the techo-fetishism of many exponents in the field to produce work
that has depth, meaning, humour and emotion – technology based artworks
with soul.
As the review for the Cybersonica 06 sonic art
exhibition on Digital Planet, BBC World Service so aptly exclaims,
“This is what people
should be doing with technology!”
Cybersonica is run by Cybersalon founding artists-in-residence at The Science Museum's Dana Centre. |