On February 6, 2010, New Forms Festival and the Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition (CODE) Live promise a unique event combining a new generation of music, video manipulation, and interactive art. The evening features LA Riots, The Golden Filter, Junior Boys DJ Set, Konrad Black, VJ Electrabelle and an array of local musicians and artists at The Hangar in Great Northern Way Campus’ Centre for Digital Media – 577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver.

Audiences will discover new music, tinged with disco, dance-rock, techno and genres in between. Robert Willis, director of the News Forms Media Society and producer says the event is a new musical direction for New Forms Festival. He reveals that some of the music is “Nu Disco”, inter-generational in appeal as younger attendees will appreciate the latest trend from the blogosphere of renewed interest in 1970s and early 1980s, disco mid-1980s, Italo disco, and the synthesizer-heavy Eurodisco aesthetics, while older audiences will recognize the original 80s sounds, reflecting disco and new wave sources from Blondie to Soft Cell, such as with The Golden Filter.

Not surprisingly, The Golden Filter lists Saint Etienne, The Cure, Donna Summer, Pink Floyd and The Human League as significant influences on their musical style. The origins of the band’s name, The Golden Filter lie somewhere in the cosmic seas of darkness and desperation and the way in which the tides rise above that, with a reference about 70’s gauzy photography.

Willis anticipates, “This night is going to be quite the eye-opener for those from around the world and for Vancouverites as well”. He states, “The realization of our vision is about new media art, music, film, technology-based installation and performance accessible to a wider audience.” The event will also help local artists express and present their work on a platform that has international credentials as being at the forefront of emerging movements and modes.

James Daniels, curator for the visuals component of New Forms Festival and the Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition (CODE) hopes that audiences will also appreciate that a lot of talent goes into the interactive video projections. Daniels says:

All the VJs shoot their own footage that is mixed and manipulated live with the music, often eight or ten tracks at a time. At their best, the rhythms, colours, and textures of the visuals can affect the crowd in ways that positively affect the musical direction of the night. As the lines between sound and light can be blurred enough to have the audience question which one is affecting the other. Then local VJ artist, Electrabelle can start having fun.

Electrabelle is Suez Holland, who has been providing visuals for concerts, performances and live events for over 12 years, with a focus to create magical environments that enhance the audience’s connection to the music or performance. Electrabelle is designing a few surprises using sound-triggered LEDs and musically charmed video projections. A tiny spy-camera booth will be hiding somewhere in the wonderland of the Great Northern Way art installation space, inviting people to send a close-up image of their eyes to the big screen.

Additionally, New Forms Media is providing the visuals for the other CODE Live evenings for the Cultural Olympiad at the Hangar. Information on CODE Live events during Winter Games 2010 is at http://www.vancouver2010.com/more-2010-information/cultural-festivals-and-events/code-connect-create-collaborate/code-live/.

For more information about New Forms Festival, visit http://code.newformsfestival.com/.

ENDNOTE:

For more information about CODE Live, see article on the Province:

http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/Creativity+tech+savvy/2520314/story.html

Excerpt: CODE is the Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition. And that is what exactly?

“At its heart, it’s a very simple idea,” says Rae Hull, director of media programming for VANOC’s Cultural Olympiad. “With all of the digital technology that shapes most of our everyday lives, how could we use it to connect even more people into the spirit of creativity around the Cultural Olympiad?

“Right now, can we extend all of what the Cultural Olympiad is to people who aren’t here. And get them involved, participating and developing their own unique works and exploring the extent to which digital technology releases creativity.”

Simple enough to say. But in order to maximize the potential of technology in inclusive and participatory ways, CODE became as far-reaching as the Internet and also as intimate as taking in an art show that reacts with your cellphone before groovin’ to some kickin’ DJs.

Liza J. Lee is the Co-founder and Blogger for Artistrun ArtConverge.

© 2010 ArtConverge (ISSN 1918-9273‏)

Contact:

Ingrid Doerr, CANAMADE
151 West Cordova, Vancouver, BC
604.681.8844
vancouvermarket@gmail.com
www.canamade.com

© 2010 ArtConverge (ISSN 1918-9273‏)

To help win the bid for Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Games, the BC Liberal government leveraged the province’s vibrant arts and culture scene as the “second pillar” of the Games. But late 2009, the BC government announced sudden and severe arts cuts, to the shock of Vancouver art organizations and Vancouver artists, particularly before the fast-approaching 2010 Olympics. In 2011, $47 million will be reduced to $3 million and again to 2.65 million by 2012.

In the “The world is Watching” in the Vancouver Sun, John Furlong (CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Games) acknowledges that Vancouverites sometimes don’t seem as pumped as you might expect for a town gearing up to handle one of the world’s biggest events and cautions Vancouverites to show the world how we know how to celebrate, by creating city-wide street parties that last into the wee hours, “The biggest crowd that’s ever gathered in Vancouver is coming. Now, the game plan must be to leave a lasting impression. We won’t get another chance at this — to put on a bash that billions of people will see — for another generation, if ever.”

Global Audience for Vancouver Art Organizations

With the 2010 Winter Games in less than one month and in spite of the nearly 92% arts cuts in BC in the midst of a global recession, Vancouver artists and Vancouver art organizations are starting to seriously prepare for the increased exposure from a global audience for the 2010 Olympics. At last the excitement of being a host city has finally taken hold.

In “Artist Juneo Lee Eng Keong In-Between the Scrolls”, Dr. Lycia Trouton , Vancouver public artist comments on the global reach of her launch of Juneo Lee’s artistic vision targetted to the Pan Pacific context. She mentioned the fact that Vancouver had just opened the Biennale, which is connected with the upcoming Cultural Olympics, part of the 2010 Winter Games, “Path of God” Chinese artist’s laughing Bhudda head with a more serious ’static grin’, a serious socio-political subtext.

Cultural Olympiad Showcases Vancouver Artists

Working in close partnership with the creative community, the Cultural Olympiad showcase of Canadian and international arts and popular culture will feature an unparalleled variety of music, dance, theatre, visual arts, film, outdoor spectaculars and digital media experiences from January 22 to March 21, 2010.

The Cultural Olympiad’s digital edition, CODE stakes out a space in the digital realm where audiences and artists can connect, create and collaborate. From February 4 to 21, 2010 for 18 days, CODE Live takes over three well-known sites and rolls out a lineup of powerful interactive art and cutting-edge music. CODE Live is easy to take in and get to — close to public transportation hubs and bike routes with four evening events:

Hard Rubber: Drum and Light Festival — CODE Live Night Life
Martyn, 2562, Deadbeat and more — CODE Live Night Life
Jamming the Networks: Modern Deep Left Quartet, Mike Shannon and more
New Forms Festival (also producers of Midforms) presents: LA Riots, The Golden Filter, Junior Boys DJ Set and more.

Coming soon are two exclusive articles about the 2010 New Forms Festival in partnership with Cultural Olympiad CODE Live event and grace-gallery, a regularly featured venue on Artistrun.org (Icons and Demi-Gods) on an upcoming event to showcase Vancouver artists during the 2010 Winter Games.

ENDNOTES:

www.stopbcartscuts.ca
www.vancouversun.com/sports/2010wintergames/world+watching/1279335/story.html
http://www.vancouver2010.com/more-2010-information/cultural-festivals-and-events/code-connect-create-collaborate/code-live/
http://code.newformsfestival.com/
www.grace-gallery.com

In 2009, Artistrun (established in 2000) applied for grants for the Cultural Olympiad as a non-profit society called Artistrun Media Society.

In 2010, as BC arts faces almost 92% in arts cuts, Artistrun Media Society can no longer exist. The Artistrun blog is changing to a for-profit sole proprietorship model, managed and directed by Liza J. Lee.

© 2010 ArtConverge (ISSN 1918-9273‏)