Prague Biennale 1 IMPROVisual

June 26 2003 at Club Roxy Prague Praha 1, Dlouhá 33 starting from 11 p.m.

June 28 2003 at NoD Gallery Roxy experimental venue, 1st floor Praha 1, Dlouhá 33 starting from 11 p.m.

Organised as a special project of the first Prague Biennale, IMPROVisual is a two-night event dedicated to the live interaction of sound and image. For the first time, a Biennale proposes live VJing as a kind of artistic practice. IMPROVisual will be held at the Roxy, one of the most prestigious alternative music venues in Europe, in the center of Prague. The artists selected are the Canadian duo [ s k o l t z _ k o l g e n ], who will present an ultra-minimal, black-and-white performance of glitch music; the 242.pilots, a video improvisation ensemble, award-winners at Transmediale, who will present a special collaboration with the sound artist Kelly; Otolab, who will perform a techno polyphony of laptops; and Phase, resident VJ crew at the Roxy. Excerpt from the essay in the catalogue: "IMPROVisual ventures to explore the ways in which the liveness of digital media performances brings a new kind of contact with reality into the audio-visual work. Electronic music is a pure sound event in which there is no specific image of the sound source, allowing the music to suggest new visual landscapes. Works investigating the live interaction of sound and image are freed up to concentrate on improvisation instead of reproduction, as reality no longer means an external thing. Improvisation is like a black hole, a secret taboo of rational thought...A Jewish philosopher, Vladimir Jankélévitch, after Henri Bergson, tried to put at the heart of his meditation this strange concept...The mystic origin of the Roxy club, a former Yiddish theatre, seems to suggest an almost theological meditation on the essence of moving images. The Jewish prohibition of representation and iconoclastic condemnation of idolatry of images could be considered a secret mystic ground for this live visual music..."

Playlist:

[ s k o l t z _ k o l g e n ] (Canada): Ovskii, acoustic pigment in real time (glitch music, b/w bitmap)

BLIND: hc gilje (242.pilots) featuring Kelly (Norway) (lapjazz, electronic, nato.0+55 performance)

Otolab (Italy) : Duetto.swf (experimental techno, Flash .exe)

Phase (Czech Republic) + aXoltl Corp. (Belgium): Industrial Mix, (jungle, drum¹n¹bass, visual: film loops mixed with midi-integrated industrial video)

More info: http://www.roxy.cz http://www.praguebiennale.org http://www.dioxyde.net http://www.nervousvision.com http://242pilots.org http://www.otolab.net http://www.phase.cz

curated by lavinia garulli Further info: lavinia@flashartonline.com (subject:improvisual)