Placard@Peam2004
curated by
Eric Namour
http://nosignal.slab.org
with special thanks to
Enrico Glerean

Placard@Peam2004: a unit of placard 7 | 'headphone concerts for headphone people'

project definition and guidelines
"Every year is a test inducing the next year's idea, the format itself is never really defined".
"As it goes on the festival grows, always trying to tend to what I think is it's real 'sci-fi' idea which would be the permanent headphone room network for live performances [...]
(erik minkkinen ~ placard founder)

Placard (French for 'closet' ) is a concept which saw the light 6 years ago in France (Paris was the first city to launch it). Its main intent was to create 'listening rooms' where one would listen to performances exclusively through headphones set and the event would be broadcast over the internet. After the first Paris event, the 6th edition went 'global' and ran for 95 days. Some international 'rooms' included Japan (Tokyo), France (Paris, Marseille, Nantes....), Spain (Barcelona during the Sonar festival), USA (New York, San Fransisco), Austria (Vienna) and UK (London, which introduced the concept of 'bring your own headphones'). This year's edition will be launched on the second week of May and will run, once again, for over a 95 day period of time. For more info.

Placard@Peam2004

Peam2004 will be the first electronic arts festival to host the launching of the Italian placard on Sunday 23 May under the banner 'placard@peam2004'. Such event intends to:
1. invite electronic Italian artists to converge towards Pescara for that event.
2. host English and French artists who have played in other previous placards to
    'phisically' expand the network further
3. cross-stream the entire placard session giving the chance to other festivals to
    commute. Potential contemporary placards will be Naples (with the avatar41
    network) and Helsinki (with the Pink Twins project)
4. host exclusive headphone sets by artists already invited at Peam2004

/line-up:
The placard will run for about 8 hours with sets including soundscapes/field recordings, experimental laptop performances, DJ sets amongst other (see individual artists below). The sound performances will be an approx. 30minutes set and the line-up will be set accordingly

...........
:: line-up ::
..........
3.00_e/n (no.signal | london_uk) - random sound prelude
  - http://nosignal.slab.org
3.30_pink twins (hk_fi) (live interaction from placard helsinki, Finland)
  - http://www.pinktwins.com
4.00_e.g.ø (venezia_it) | live encoded sex with piano
  - http://egzero.org
4.30_bitstream (uk) [live interaction from Placard Poitiers_France]
  - http://goto10.org/
5.30_thorsten Sideb0ard (hightpoint lowlife_uk) [live interaction _ london, UK]
  - http://www.highpointlowlife.com
6.30_hypolips (active suspension | fr) | (dsp / list | pescara_it)
  - http://www.activesuspension.org/ | http://mou-lips.com
7.00_erik minkkinen (paris_fr) [live interaction _ paris, france]
  - http://www.w-deco.com
7.30_e/n | kinotek - lowercase Audio/Video set
 
  - http://nosignal.slab.org | http://www.kinotek.org
8.00_steinbruchel (synchron / domizil / list / line | zurich_sw)
  - http://www.synchron.ch
8.40_leafcutter john (planet mu | london_uk) [live interaction _ london, UK]
  - http://leafcutter.33-rpm.net/
9.00_Miky Ry & Ape5 (ba_it)
  - http://www.autistici.org/ape5/refusematerial/
9.30_marco messina (mousikelab/avatar41 | naples_it)
  - http://www.mousikelab.it
10.00_mass (dsp_rec /avatar41 | naples_it)
  - http://www.dsprecs.com
10.30_terra + frame (avatar41 | live interaction from naples_it) |
  - http://www.dsprecs.com
11.20_yaxu paxo (slub / london_uk) - live code-based performance
  - http://yaxu.org
11.45 > 1.30 am > various dj sets/cross performances with other placards

invited artists

Marco Messina (dsp_recordings | na_italy)
After a period of Djing in underground venues and occupied faculties, in 1991 Marco joins the Neapolitan band 99 posse in which he starts focusing much more in sequencers, synthesizers and various samplers. He has co-founded with Retina.it the electronic music label Mousikelab currently distributed all over Europe and is a member of the electronic artists network avatar41.

He has collaborated with Giancarlo e Krypton, Peppe Voltarelli, Speaker Cenzou, Pino Daniele, Antonio Infantino, Solis String Quartet, Subsonica, Papa J, Vladimir Luxuria, Retina.it, Bruno B, Maurizio Capone, Mandara, Linton Kwesi Jhonson, Dennis Bovell, Bala Perdida, 24 Grana, General Levy along with Frame, Mou, lips!, Mass also from the avatar41 network.

TERRAe (dsp_recordings | na_italy)
The project TERRAe was born from an idea of C. Notarangelo e P.Basso and is centred on the use of what they define as 'low tech' instruments, mediums available to the majority of people. The sounds of TERRAe are in fact electric masses, noises of electronic devices whilst the computers used are part of the mass production. The sound can range from pure electronic music to more beat-driven techno. They have performed in the main Italian festivals such as Naples' Sintesi (2002) and Beat out 2003, Arezzo Wave and International festival of electronic music and digital arts Dissonanze in Rome, both in 2003.

Website: http://www.dsprecs.com

Discography:
- Hinterweldler Ep 12'' ; Label (dsp) - 2002 - Sintesi Ouput O1 CD; Label (Sintesi Archivio 01) 2003 - Avatar41° CD; Label (dsp) - 2003
Festivals:
· Sintesi Festival 2002 (Naples - Italy)
· Beat out 2003 (Naples - Italy)
· Arezzo Wave 2003 (Arezzo - Italy)
· Dissonanze 2003 (Rome - Italy)

e.g.ø (italia)
Enrico Glerean (e.g.ø) is a musician and programmer. His artistic research is based on two keywords: "code" and "memory". Using sounds and software developing, he encodes images and feelings into sounds and vice versa.

Has played and took part to exhibitions and festivals in Roma, Bologna, Piacenza, Padova, Venezia, Siracusa, Ginevra, Helsinki, Tallinn, Vilnius, Vienna, New York. He also compose soundtracks for videos, installations and contemporary dance performances.

Website: www.egzero.org

Frame (italia)
Frame are Davide Mastropaolo and Leandro Sorrentino, with some other musicians depending of the nature of the project. Frame was born in 2001 during the making of the soundtrack for the movie "L'inverno" directed by Nina di Majo, shown at 56th edition of Berlin Film Festival. The project is a "sound concept", closely related with the images, creating a soundscape for them.

They have published the soundtrack for "L'inverno", and other soundtracks for other short movies (directors Gianluca Iodice, Andrea De Rosa).

Website: www.framebox.it

Mass (italia) Mario Masullo aka mass was born in 1976 in Naples; his work is focused on sound, on its physical part, and how inaudible frequencies can modify soundscapes and can stimulate emotional reactions. He has collaborated with Davide Rovito (DEFRAG SOUND PROCESSING); with dez, ilic and terrae he founded BLK studios and the label DSP recordings. He has curated the sounds for "Self Organized Structures" with Bianco-Valente, audiovisual work shown at sonarsound (romaeuropa festival 2003) and for other installations. He is the art director of the sound section of Sintesi festival in Naples.

Website: www.dsprecs.com

mou,lips! (list / dsp_recordings | ps_italy)
mou, lips! is Pescara-based Andrea Gabriele's solo project born out of his collaboration with Emanuela De Angelis. After their 2003 release "Peanuts and shells geometria" on the French label List, the duo has been getting a fair international attention. Mou, lips! explores the ways to an organic, cinematic and ambient electronic sound where progressions are imbued into rarefied landscapes yet melted within human presence sensation.

Sonorities between concrete music and elegant electronic tend to create imaginary paths recalling the atmosphere of German labels Sonig or Mille Plateaux. Mou, lips! represent the emergence of an Italian territory in continuous transformation and redefinition and being a symbol of a possible "sweet new glitch".

As a duo, they have performed in Paris and at Rome's dis.lab festival (part of dissonanze). As a solo project, Gabriele has been invited to perform at sintesi festival in Naples, Net Mage in Bologna, avril.dot festival in Paris. Website: www.mou-lips.com

Yaxu Paxo (uk) Gut-wrenching techno messing with a programmer's mind pre-occupied with computer code. Somehow the music got messed up with the code, the structure of the code describing the movement of sound. Yaxu is one founder member of a new movement called TOPLAP, a crew writing and manipulating code during live performance. You see the programmer play live, the same as you see a guitarist play live - the process is brought back to the fore.

Ralph Steinbruchel
the sound with neither beginning nor ending
Steinbrüchels musical work deals mainly with the sound in itself. In the studio he is working steadfastly on the creation of sounds. The arrangement, the agglomeration and the accumulation as well as losing and finding those sounds is establishing the creative process of his livesets. Sounds form up to patterns and landscapes. In his experiment with and in the electronic, steinbrüchel has not lost the awareness for beauty. His productions follow special aesthetics. Calmly flowing, the sound is capturing a space. Then it is compressed and swings in an intensity that leads the listener to the inside of the sounds.
Steinbrüchel lives and works as a producer and designer in Zurich, Switzerland.

Selected Discography:
- circa : cd : 03 : LINE [line_012]
- zwischen.raum : minicd : 01 : domizil [domizil15]
- red8.4- : mini_cdr : 00 : synchron [sync02]
- oo:dedaih 3"cd by synchron

Kinotec
Kinotek is an electronic video experimental project using the possibilities of the digital real time elaboration's techniques of images and new media language's strategies.
Born in Rome, Italy, on 2001, from the synapses activities of Mattia Casalegno ( already member of the minimal electronic group metaXu ) and Giovanni D'Aloia, Kinotek crew has took part in Italy and abroad at numerous events, electronic arts festivals and performances, ideating synaestetic systems and hybrid experimental pieces between sound and visual languages, and collaborating with numerous sound artists, composers, graphics, video artists around Italy and Europe.
Kinotek promotes and encourages ecological strategies in the actual technologies' use ideating and performing interactive strategies between visual fluxes and kinetic energies.