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AV FESTIVAL 2008 ANNOUNCES THE UK PREMIERE PERFORMANCE OF JOHN CAGE 1960's LEGENDARY VARIATIONS VII
AT BALTIC CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
Friday, February 29th 2008
AV FESTIVAL 08
in NEWCASTLE, GATESHEAD, SUNDERLAND, MIDDLESBROUGH
(28 FEBRUARY - 8 MARCH 2008)
UK's LARGEST ELECTRONIC ARTS FESTIVAL CELEBRATES BROADCASTING
One of the highlights of AV Festival 08 (the UK's largest international festival of electronic arts) will be at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art on Friday February 29th. It is the first ever restaging in the UK of John Cage’s Variations VII, a work rarely heard since it was first performed at 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, held in October 1966 at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City.
"My project is simple to describe. It is a piece of music, indeterminate in form and detail ..........using as sound sources only those sounds which are in the air at the moment of performance, picked up via the communication bands, telephone lines, microphones together with, instead of musical instruments, a variety of household appliances and frequency generators....... they produce a situation different than anyone could have pre-imagined."
(John Cage on Variations VII, 1966)
Variations VII is one of Cage's key works of the 1960s which has gained an almost mythical, legendary status.
This new performance of Variations VII at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art will extend the Cage legacy by combining the equipment used in the 60's version with what is available now in telecommunications and audio technology. The performers will be Japanese American composer, Atau Tanaka, who has just taken up the post of Chair of Digital Media at Newcastle University, and Newcastle-based experimental music ensemble, :zoviet*france: (Ben Ponton & Mark Warren).
Tickets
Tickets for this event are priced at £6 and are very limited. Tickets will go on sale in January. If you would like to be informed when tickets go on sale, or be put on a waiting list for tickets, please email info@avfestival.co.uk with "Variations VII Tickets" in the subject line.
EXHIBITION & FILM SCREENING
Friday 29 February - Sunday 2 March 10:00 - 18:00 Exhibition & Film, Variations VII BALTIC/Free
To accompany the special performance of Variations VII, the documentary film John Cage Variations VII from the 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering series will be screened in BALTIC's cinema and an audio recording from the original performance in 1966 will be presented in the Cube space at BALTIC.
The film was produced by Billy Klüver and Julie Martin for Experiments in Art and Technology and directed by Barbro Schultz Lundestam. A DVD of the film, which also has an audio recording of the full 1966 recording, will be available for sale.
Background
9 Evenings, organised by the foundation Experiments in Art and
Technology (E.A.T.), were a series of performances by ten New York
artists working with engineers from Bell Telephone Laboratories, to
create works which incorporated new technology. The artists
included Robert Rauschenberg, David Tudor, Yvonne Rainer, Deborah Hay, Robert Whitman, Steve Paxton, Alex Hay, Lucinda Childs and Öyvind Fahlström.
Cage's Variations VII was an attempt to turn the entire 69th Regiment Armory into a reception and broadcast space.
"Variations VII along with two preceding works, Variations V and VI, are unique in the extensive use of electronics and in particular use of photocells as a trigger device for activating and distributing sound."
The work is a highly unusual composition in that it does not have the meticulous instructions and scoring concepts he used in his earlier Variations works.
E.A.T. engineer Billy Klüver describes the original performance:
"For "Variations VII" John Cage wanted to "use sounds available at the time of the performance". 10 telephone lines were installed in the Armory by New York Telephone Company. He had lines open in various places in New York City including Luchow's, the Aviary, the 14th Street Con Edison electric power station, the ASPCA lost dog kennel, The New York Times press room, and Merce Cunningham's studio. Magnetic pickups on the telephone receivers fed these sound sources into the sound manipulation system. Cage also had 6 contact microphones on the performing platform itself and 12 contact microphones on household appliances such as a blender, a juicer, a toaster, a fan, etc. He also had 20 radio bands, 2 television bands, and 2 Geiger counters. Oscillators and a pulse generator completed the sound sources. Thirty photocells and lights were mounted at ankle level around the performance area, which activated the different sound sources as the performers moved around. Cage invited the audience to move around freely and many stood near the performance area."
A DVD of Variations VII is being produced by E.A.T. and Artpix and will be available for the first time at the Festival.
AV Festival 08 is the UK's largest, international festival of electronic arts, and features visual art, music and moving image. A biennial event (the 2008 festival is the third, the first was in November 2003) AV Festival 08 will span four cities - Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough - throughout its nine day period.
AV Festival 08 will run from 28 February until 8 March 2008 with the theme of 'Broadcast' to coincide with the beginning of analogue switch off in the UK.
AV Festival 08 is supported by Arts Council England, North East, Newcastle City Council, Gateshead Council, ONE NorthEast, Middlesbrough Council, Sunderland City Council, Tyneside Cinema, Northern Film & Media, UK Film Council.
EDITOR'S NOTES:
AV Festival
c/- Tyneside Cinema at Gateshead Old Town Hall, West Street, Gateshead, NE8 1HE, UK.
Tel: +44 (0)191 2328289, ext 112
Email: info@avfestival.co.uk
Variations VII by John Cage: Presentation of October 15, 1966 / produced by Billy Klüver, 32 min., 19 s is an audio recording of a performance of "Variations VII," presented within the framework of 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering at the 69th Regiment Armory (New York, N.Y.), October 15 and 16, 1966. Courtesy The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology, 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering fonds.
About AV Festival 08
AV Festival 08 - Broadcast
28 February - 8 March 2008
Newcastle Gateshead Sunderland Middlesbrough
AV Festival 08 will address the theme of broadcast through the work of sound artists, musicians, internationally renowned artists and filmmakers from across the globe.
Other highlights of AV Festival 08:
Slovenian artist Marko Peljhan works with telecommunications technology, contemporary architecture and sustainable energy. An artist of unparalleled ambition, Peljhan has worked with the Russian Space Programme, and plans to launch his own telecommunications satellite. After building the art-science laboratory, Makrolab, which has been installed in inhospitable and remote locations around the world, Peljhan is currently working on laboratories for the most challenging environments on earth - Antarctica and the Arctic circle. Peljhan was the featured artist at the world's most prestigious electronic art festival, Ars Electronica, in 2007.
NewcastleGateshead
Radiophonia at The Sage Gateshead will feature some of the pioneers of modern electronic music. This special event will include performances, talks and workshops which delve into radiophonic music techniques. Radiophonia celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the renowned BBC Radiophonic Workshop which composed the theme tune to Dr Who and was a key player in the evolution of electronic music. It will include an illustrated talk with original Workshop member, Dick Mills and interventions by UK sound artist Brian Duffy. One of the highlights will be a rare UK appearance by French electronic music luminary, Jean-Jacques Perrey, performing with American musician, Dana Countryman. The event will culminate in an exceptional radiophonic DJ set by UK band, Broadcast (Warp Records).
An Open Air Radio Rally for amateur radio enthusiasts will happen in Newcastle's historic Grainger Market in collaboration with Waygood Gallery, who will also run an amateur radio club for artists, musicians and those interested in gaining an amateur radio licence for two way broadcast.
Yokomono by German / Dutch sound artists Staalplat Sound System is an installation of radios and toy cars called 'vinyl-killers', which takes place at alt.gallery. alt.gallery is the only gallery in the UK dedicated to visual art, music culture and sound art, and is based within alt.vinyl record shop.
In Sunderland
Aeriology is an exhibition by Australian artist Joyce Hinterding at the Reg Vardy Gallery in Sunderland. She will wrap the gallery in at least twenty kilometres of copper wire, transforming it into a beautiful, yet operational, giant radio antenna, listening to the earth.
A brand new commissioned audio art work will resonate within Sunderland's Winter Gardens for the duration the festival
In Middlesbrough,
The Atlas of Electromagnetic Space visualises the radio spectrum in a spectacular interactive screen-based installation. Initiated by Spanish curator, Jose Luis Vicente, it will be unveiled at the new Institute for Digital Innovation at the University of Teesside and then will tour to the CCCB in Barcelona.
The full programme for AV Festival 08 will be announced in January 2008, but you can sign up for regular updates on www.avfestival.co.uk
Variations VII by John Cage: Presentation of October 15, 1966 / produced by Billy Klüver, 32 min., 19 s is an audio recording of a performance of "Variations VII," presented within the framework of 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering at the 69th Regiment Armory (New York, N.Y.), October 15 and 16, 1966. Courtesy The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology, 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering fonds.
Ends.
For AV Festival 08 press enquiries please contact:
Nicky Harrison, White Hot Communications
Tel: 0191 280 8020 / 07824 390826
Email: nicky@whitehotcomms.co.uk