SmartShanghai | MP3 Monday: eArts Festival

~~MP3~~ Monday: eArts Festival

By Morgan Short, Oct 20th, 2008 | In Nightlife

Little did you know, a music festival is transpiring in Shanghai right under your very nose -- or maybe you did know and you just didn't really care, but then this article isn't for you I guess.

The eArts Festival is happening right now and if you've never heard of it, perhaps you know it by its other name: The "Thing that Autechre is supposed to play at. Isn't that in Pudong somewhere? When is that anyways?" Festival.

About Autechre: They ended up canceling for some reason or another, but who give a shit 'cause seriously... what the hell has Autechre done for you lately?

Nuts to you, Autechre.

Anyways the eArts thing started on October 18 and live performances by various electronic/ experimental artists will be occurring right up until October 22. That's three more nights of neat blips and bleeps, and other experimental wackiness that will leave you edified off your ass.

So in lieu of MP3s today, I think it would be a much bigger service to you, reader-who-is-interested-in-the-Arts, to let you know the details of these upcoming performances so you can make it down to check them out.

So today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, stuff will be taking place at 7:30pm in Xujiahui Park as part of the Final Cut portion of the eArts Festival (if you want more details about all the stuff going on for eArts, head off to their webpage here.)

There is no entry fee for these events. See the map below for the location.

October 20: Dead J with Chen Xiongwei
If you're hip to the Chinese experimental electronic thing, you've heard of Beijing DJ Dead J before, and you might remember him from an Antidote show. Or perhaps you saw him at Pirates last year (remember Pirates?).

Or perhaps not. At any rate, Dead J is an interesting guy, coming from digital hardcore origins and a bunch of IDM/breakcore releases on Sulumi's Shanshui label.

For his performance Monday night he's partnering with video artist Chen Xiongwei to merge his music with some video psychedelia.

October 21: Q2008 by Feng Mengbo
Apparently, this one it has something to do with video games. More specifically the merging of live music, video games and painting with Feng Mengbo's Q2008 software.

In the words of the promoter: "the work allows viewers (public audience, artist, player, curator) to assume several of these roles during the course of his presentation, which implies a reconfiguration of the audiences into a cinematic experience as well as into a process of art-making. The time-based nature of his game software shifts itself out of its usual context, and as it comes off of the screen, allows the game character to interact dynamically without a proscribed outcome."

October 22: "Screenplay" by Marclay feat. Elliott Sharp, Wu Na, Bruce Gremo, Wang Li Chuan, Ben Houge, Yan Jun (Top Floor Circus opening)
This one sounds real interesting: "Screenplay is a video score in which found film footage is combined with computer animation to create a visual projection to be interpreted by musicians."

Three different ensembles of local and international musicians will be performing improvisations stuff at the cue of video projections. The layering of the film will guide the development of the performance.

Sounds intricate. And opening is Top Floor Circus... to top it all off (har har).

So for sure don't miss that one.

All images with this article are from "Final Cut-Processing New Media in Public Space" promotional materials. Final Cut is organized by Arthub's Davide Quadrio in collaboration with Defne Ayas.