Open Frame 2013

Open Frame, the annual exploratory music and media festival by Room40, returns in 2013 and seeks out the transformative and transgressive practices of sound.

In its eighth edition, Open Frame serves as a counterpoint to the nostalgia driven and ultimately familiar approaches of other long-standing Queensland music and arts festivals, by featuring a multi-event program that shatters expectation and brings together an otherwise disparate list of artists through a cohesive theme.

The theme of Open Frame in 2013 is The Future Is Noise, in which Italian futurist Luigi Russolo’s 1913 manifesto L’Arte dei Rumori (The Art Of Noises) is responded to throughout the festival program. The performers and speakers at Open Frame this year are linked through diverse and fascinating approaches to volume, musical innovation, complexity, rhythm, and through the absence and presence of performance in sound.

Curated by Lawrence English, the Brisbane-based media artist, composer and director of Room40, Open Frame launches with two fascinating and in-depth events at Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art (IMA) in late August, followed by an interstate satellite event at the Lismore Regional Art Gallery. September sees Open Frame move to the Brisbane Powerhouse for three events which reflect the creative re-generation and renewal so often associated with Spring.

The Open Frame festival program this year features some of the most progressive and dynamic figures in sound and music as of 2013 from Australia, Asia, North America and Europe. Key artists performing and presenting at Open Frame include Laurel Halo (USA), a classically trained, Pitchfork and The Wire approved electronic musician, revered sound art pioneer Akio Suzuki (Japan), minimalist guitar-guru musician Mark McGuire (ex-Emeralds, USA), prolific Spanish audio/no visual avant-garde master Francisco López, British musician and author David Toop, and Blank Realm, Brisbane’s favourite psych-rock family jam band.

In 2013 Room40 and Open Frame have teamed up with the International Cities of Advanced Sound (ICAS) as an exclusive Australian partner. The ICAS network, including such prestigious festivals as CTM (Germany), MUTEK (North America/South America/Spain), Unsound (Poland) and TodaysArt (Netherlands/Belgium), reflects on the aesthetic and societal agency of contemporary sound creation through innovative programming, education and democratic values in experimental and abstract music.

Open Frame is presented by Room40, with invaluable support from partners Brisbane Powerhouse, Institute of Modern Art, International Cities Of Advanced Sound, The Thousands, and Time Off.

Open Frame – program details

Thursday August 22: David Toop [UK], Greg Hainge & Amelia Barikin – panel discussion (IMA) Info

Thursday August 29: David Toop [UK] & Akio Suzuki [Japan]  (IMA) Info

Friday August 30: Akio Suzuki [Japan] (Lismore Regional Art Gallery) Info

Thursday September 12: Francisco López [Spain], Angel Eyes & Heinz Riegler (Brisbane Powerhouse) Tickets

Friday September 13: Mark McGuire [USA], Blank Realm & Circular Keys (Brisbane Powerhouse) Tickets

Thursday September 19: Laurel Halo [USA] & Objekt [Germany] (Brisbane Powerhouse) Tickets

Saturday September 28: Westhead Project featuring Jim Denley, Monika Brooks & Dale Gorfinkel (soundwalk, venue TBC)

www.room40.org

 

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