Solder Soldiers v2.0

Solder Soldiers v2.0
Bathysphere take over the gallery space at Fabrika for a 2 week exhibition of DIY electronic sound art, installations and hardware hacked instrumentation. Buttons to press, knobs to turn, strange and bizarre sounds to be heard.

Works by Stu Smith (A.S.M.O), Michael Emanuel Gatt, John Richards, Neil Unreal, Circuit Ben

The exhibition runs from Monday 14th to Saturday 26th June at Fabrika Independent Arts Centre, 68 – 70 Humberstone Gate, Leicester.
Open daily 10am to 5.30pm

Solder Soldiers v2.1

On Friday 18th there will be a special concert with performances by John Richards, A.S.M.O., Circuit Ben, Neal Unreal, Gez McCoy and hardware hacked visuals by Iain Sharp.

£5 on the door, bring your own beer

ASMO

(Anti Social Musik Order) is the 'circuit bending' project of artist and musician Stu Smith. He works with self made instruments custom built from the modified circuits of electronic toys, keyboards and other discarded gadgets. His work explores the sonic landscape of 'circuit bent' instruments and their integration into existing modular synthesizer systems. He writes and performs with the groups Threep and The Buoys and has performed at concerts and festivals across the UK, Europe and New York.

Michael Gatt
Michael Gatt is an acousmatic composer and sound installation designer who deals with site-specificity and site-type specific works. He studied in Leicester within De Montfort University and completed a degree in Music, Technology and Innovation and a Masters, which focused on site-specific sound installations. He has worked at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), under the supervision of Yann Geslin, for a year as part of a European project (CASPAR) that investigated the long-term preservation of digital objects. Whilst at the GRM he became fascinated with musical projection and their tool for performance – the Acousmonium. This experience affected his appreciation of sonic arts and has had a clear impact on his compositions since then. He has also created a number of different site-specific compositions/installations for various places around the East Midlands.

John Richards
John Richards' (1966) work explores performing with self-made instruments and the creation of interactive environments. He has worked with many leading improvisers and musicians in the field of live electronics, and is a founder member of electro-noise improvisers kREEPA, the post-punk group Sand (Soul Jazz Records), and the composers' collective nerve8: an experimental electroacoustic diffusion group. Recent concerts have included performances at IRCAM (Paris), Fylkingen (Sweden), the Bent Festival (Los Angeles), Sonar (Barcelona), and the Purcell Room, Southbank Centre (London).

In 2002, his work with kREEPA helped initiate the OIK project at STEIM, Amsterdam, that involved the hacking of commercially available hardware to create economic musical interfaces. Since 2005, he has directed the Dirty Electronics Ensemble, giving workshops and performances internationally that has included collaboration with Japanese noise artist Merzbow. He performs regularly with Nic Bullen as Black Galaxy and kREEPA, as well as releasing solo material on Bullen's label monium. In 2007, he released a piece on Gabriel Prokofiev's nonclassical label for piano and electronics performed by GéNIA with re-mixes by Vex'd and Max De Wardener amongst others. Recent work includes collaboration with Tim Wright as sevenlegspider developing systems for live performance, installations, and music for Japanese choreographer Saburo Teshigawara.

He has written numerous articles on hybridity, post-digital theory and dirty electronics: DIY and bricolage approaches to working with sound. John Richards completed a doctorate in electroacoustic composition at the University of York in 2002, and he is currently part of the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester. Since 1990, he has also taught improvisation at Dartington International Summer School.

Neal Unreal
Neal Spowage is an artist and musician who has been building unusual noise instruments from household devices and appliances for the past three years. He re-uses, re-houses and re-appropriates familiar objects with recycled components. Things found in skips, things that are about to be thrown out. Iconic objects of desire that he feels need teaching a lesson in humility. He is currently learning how to play the things he's destroyed.

Circuit Ben
Circuit Ben is a self-denying artist, currently resident in Leeds, UK. Ben records and performs under various pseudonyms, including AsPushkin, Wrongbot, and The Circuit Ben Reaction. Continual interest is held in the exchange of personality between well put-together electronics, and a less well put-together human.

You can witness this exchange at – AsPushkin.Posterous.com

Gez McCoy
Gez McCoy is a vocalist, guitarist and producer of Alternative, Experimental and Popular music who has worked professionally as a musician and audio engineer throughout the Midlands.

In recent years he has completed a HND in Popular Music Studies at South Birmingham College before successfully completing a BA(Hons) in Popular Music Production at Derby University, where he designed and built a multi-pickup, surround sound, lap slide guitar.

As a postgraduate at DMU, studying a Masters in Music Technology he is exploring electroacoustic music in order to integrate his experimental guitar and live electronics in a spatial sound environment. This has led to the development of 'The Gusto', a modular unit comprising self-built and 'hacked' effects alongside an eight-step sequencer and oscillator.

Tags: Bathysphere