atc 10th anniversary event: tonight 7:30pm

Feb. 12, 2007

Type: discussion

skies are clearing up: should be a fun night! please arrive early as we
can only admit the first 200….- ken and greg
==============================================================

The Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium
of UC Berkeley's Center for New Media announces:

**Special 10th Anniversary Lecture and Party **

The Re-Dematerialization of the Art Object
Matmos, Musicians and Sound Artists, SF

Monday, Feb 12, talk: 7:30-midnight
* Lecture: 7:30-9pm
* Anniversary Party featuring music from Tycho, Eats Tapes,
Ripley, and Kid Kameleon, 9-midnight.
* Note Location: Hearst Mining Building, UC Berkeley (*)
* Flyer: http://iso50.com/matmos/
* Capacity limited to 200.
ATC Lectures are free and open to the public

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In her 1973 anthology "Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art
Object from 1966 to 1972" art historian Lucy Lippard charted a radical
drift in art-making away from the material construction of objects and
towards the conceptual dissemination of ideas. In our own work as
Matmos we have attempted to re-consider this tradition, and in
particular, to reverse its direction of flow: we start from a concept
and move towards an engagement with objects selected or dictated by a
conceptual allegiance, in the process creating a hybrid construction
halfway between conceptual origin and pop music outcome. As our title
indicates, the conditions through which music is realized have
recently entered a second phase of "dematerialization": through the
widespread adoption of "soft synths" and acoustic modelling on the
production end, and the widespread practice of filesharing and
downloading on the reception end, music is entering a seemingly
re-dematerialized cultural moment, in which objects become
optional. We'd like to talk about the limits, risks, and possibilities
of this moment. As is our tendency, this will likely commence as a
formal presentation and entropically dissolve into a far looser and
more inclusive chat.

=====================================================
Matmos is M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, aided and abetted by many others.
In their recordings and live performances over the last nine years, most
recently with Bjork, Matmos have used the sounds of: amplified crayfish
nerve tissue, the pages of bibles turning, a bowed five string banjo,
slowed down whistles and kisses, water hitting copper plates, the runout
groove of a vinyl record, a $5.00 electric guitar, liposuction surgery,
cameras and VCRs, chin implant surgery, contact microphones on human hair,
violins, rat cages, tanks of helium, violas, human skulls, cellos, peck
horns, tubas, cards shuffling, field recordings of conversations in hot
tubs, frequency response tests for defective hearing aids, a steel guitar
recorded in a sewer, electrical interference generated by laser eye
surgery, whoopee cushions and balloons, latex fetish clothing, rhinestones
on a dinner plate, Polish trains, insects, ukelele, aspirin tablets
hitting a drum kit from across the room, dogs barking, people reading
aloud, life support systems and inflatable blankets, records chosen by the
roll of dice, an acupuncture point detector conducting electrical current
through human skin, rock salt crunching underfoot, solid gold coins
spinning on bars of solid silver, the sound of a frozen stream thawing in
the sun, a five gallon bucket of oatmeal. http://brainwashed.com/matmos/

=====================================================
ATC Primary Sponsors: UC Berkeley Center for New Media (CNM), Center for
Information Technology in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), College of
Engineering Interdisciplinary Studies Program (IDS), and the Office of the
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost.

Additional Sponsors: Intel Research, BAM/PFA, Townsend Center for the
Humanities, and the Berkeley Consortium for the Arts.

ATC Director: Ken Goldberg
ATC Associate Director: Greg Niemeyer
ATC Graduate Associate: Irene Chien
Curated with ATC Advisory Board

(*) Hearst Mining Building is next to Evans Hall:
http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/BC45.html
(alas, there is no on-campus parking!)

Feb 12 Lecture and Party Flyer: http://iso50.com/matmos/
Coordinated by Matt Earp (special thanks to Greg and CITRIS)
Catering by Picante, Sound by HavokSound SF
Outdoor Mobile LED Video Light Sculpture by Steve Beck

*** Announcing also our New Website design with archival info
*** on all 99 ATC speakers….
***
*** http://atc.berkeley.edu/