As it celebrates its 30th anniversary, Glasgow-based arts organisation Cryptic has announced the full line-up for its boundary pushing Sonica Surge audio-visual festival, to be held in September.
It includes the world premiere of a work made using 1980s computers, an examination of surveillance technology by a Kyiv-based artist, work which blends field recordings and machine learning, hip-hop performed in English and Shona, a radical re-examining of Islamic art – and “robot techno” made using dot matrix printers and thermos flasks.
Hailing the festival as “an innovative taster” of Cryptic’s work over the last 30 years, artistic director Cathie Boyd promised “mind-bending, jaw-dropping and unforgettable AV [audio visual] work from internationally renowned artists and incredible homegrown talent.”
The festival opens with the world premiere of a new version of CBM 8032 AV by Berlin-based artist Robert Henke, also one half of musical duo Monolake. The piece uses the very basic sound and design capabilities of five Commodore home computers from the 1980s, re-animating visuals which seemed cutting edge at the time and projecting them onto giant screens accompanied by a soundtrack.
Also featured in the festival is Japanese composer Tatsuru Arai, whose over-arching project of what he calls “trans ages music” seeks to integrate classical compositions into the modern technological landscape. In Glasgow he will present a piece called Re-Solarization.
Meanwhile German-based, Nairobi-born sound artist Joseph Kamaru, who records and performs as KMRU, will explore the overlaps between natural and artificial sound using field recordings and machine learning, and Glasgow-based Zimbabwean rapper Eyve will perform alongside “audio reactive visuals” from Veronica Petukhov.
Also using machine learning is Egyptian artist Ahmed El Shaer. His AI Heaven promises a radical experiment in what Islamic art could look like in the hands – or rather the mind – of artificial intelligence.
Elsewhere Moritz Simon Geist will give a performance of dance music titled Hard Times – Rough Sounds!, only with the usual DJ tools ditched in favour of items such as metal fingers, dot matrix printers and vacuum flasks.
From Ukraine comes George Potopalsky who generates strange 3D landscapes using real aerial footage to which he applies algorithmic filters, while performers from closer to home include tuba and euphonium duo Dopey Monkey, the Glasgow African Balafon Orchestra, and Scottish-Nigerian sound artist Samm Anga.
Reflecting on the Sonica line-up and anticipating a “48-hour explosion of intoxicating art”, Creative Scotland’s head of music Alan Morrison praised the festival for offering “a platform for some of the most enthralling multimedia work being made anywhere on the planet, bringing together international pioneers and home-grown innovators.”
Sonica Surge will be held on September 29 and 30 and will run at Glasgow venues Tramway and The Hidden Gardens. Celebrating half a century of Scottish-German cultural relations, it is presented in partnership with Glasgow’s Goethe-Institut.
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