Cultivated nerdism reached Chelsea's
Eyebeam Atelier this weekend: The
Blipfestival celebrated international artists and performers who are well into chiptunes and 8bit music.
Celebrated what? Some of you might ask now. Well, for the ignoramus amongst us: There are several lads and ladies around who were nurtured by early video games, wasting away their spare time after school playing games on Ataris, commodore 64s, portlable Game Boys and early consoles. All games had particular soundeffects combined with their moveable visuals. Some of you might be able to recall the music coming out of rather crappy speakers of the machine involved while you or your children were playing yet another level of Asteroid,
The Great Giana Sisters (one of my early favourites, I have to admit), Frogger, Tetris, X-Wing,
Super Mario Land (a later favourite of mine) or whatever game they were into before or instead of sleeping. Those sounds are now remixed and new songs are created with the early sound programs. Different approaches are taken, some include other music instruments such as a guitar or a set of drums, others include vocals or dance-beats: the old sound of the nurseries enters stage and dancefloor.
Saturday night at the Eyebeam was a sold out night.
Dress code: hoodie, jeans and trainers for the masses and a little costuming for a few extroverts, "nerd chic" presented by a few hipsters who tried to look like Giana or Mario themselves. I was especially struck by a girl with bright red tails and a red xtra large "Nintendo Rehabilitation Center" shirt and a pretty heavy looking japanese underground
Grindcore DVD at the merch table that was kind of re-evoking the prejudices I had when I first heard of that kind of music. That night, people were happily bouncing to the tunes of
Mark Denardo,
Tree Wave, and watched the visuals of
No Carrier and other artists that were brought together by The Tank and the 8bitpeoples community.
After about three hours I felt three very urgent needs:
1. to get rid of the second half of the now stale "Brooklyn Weisse" I bought with a little to much enthusiasm upon arrival (man - they should NOT be allowed to call that stuff "Weisse", it tastes like a mixture of wet dog, sugar and vinegar)
2. to sit down, and
3. to FLY HOME TO WITTEN IMMEDIATELY AND PLAY
COMMANDER KEEEEEEN!!!!!
Back home she is. Celebrating Christmas holidays with her friends and family from the 23rd of December onwards. Getting into the right mood at the annual (and indeed very German) Corvus Corax Christmas concert in Berlin - and then beaming over to Witten for the rest of the package.
Always remember: INTER DEUM ET DIABOLUM SEMPER MUSICA EST.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, FOLKS!
There she is, sitting in front of her computer and checking back on her flight schedule online. Apart from a little naughty delayed flight in sweet little London town, everything seems to be okay, the big iron birds are all on time it seems. Got my stuff in my bags, handed in all papers, and still got one precious day left in The City - intending to meet friends to have a proper last supper and say goodbye for now.
[verbal]
I already got lost after the sections on ancient Greek and Roman art. Felt quite Pergamon to be there. Maybe the first signs of the coming transition evolving from my unconscious.
I kept strolling around, watching for suitable images to catch with my not so new anymore favourite toy. I spotted quite a few new things, and got to know art from Oceania for the first time in my life. Quite impressive. I skipped most of the Medieval section though, as I was more drawn to the classics.
As the attentive reader already knows, she is well into sculptures and steel-art, using a welding torch as a drawing instrument and combining cultural influences from Mali with her own North American experiences - frequently drawing on contemporary social and political topics, too.
This afternoon she prepared little pieces of steel-art for a giveaway art project that took up the idea of the "Art-in-a-Box" project in California where people used old cigarette automats to sell small pieces of art instead of small rolls of tobacco, filter and paper.
I was lucky with my timing, because by now she is already on her way to Mali again for another two months of togetherness with local artists and friends.
