Moogfest 2017 managers have finally revealed the detailed program of the 4-day event which is to acquaint us with innovative technologies, art and music.
This year Moogfest will be held in Durham, North Carolina, May 18-21. The venue is going to be the place for more than 300 performances, workshops, panel discussions, master classes, movie screenings, broadcasts, sound installations, interactive art experiences.
Besides, there will be more than 260 innovators will deliver speech or performance featuring any focus of the venue: art, music or technology. The lineup includes Flying Lotus, Animal Collective, Gotye, Suzanne Ciani, Derrick May, 808 State, Jessy Lanza, Simian Mobile Disco, Syrinx, Visible Cloaks, Princess Nokia, Pye Corner Audio and more. Dr. Kate Shaw, an experimental particle physicist working on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN Geneva, will meet you here and you’ll also have the opportunity to listen to Joe Davis, a pioneer in creating art with genes and bacteria at MIT Media Lab who has founded new fields in art and biology and currently is into inserting 3D moving images and holographic data into living cells - the collaborative project started by his colleagues at Harvard.
Moogfest Workshops
Each visitor will be able to immerse himself into practicing or even a bit of esotericism as the workshops allow interacting with artists, creators and inventors participating in Moogfest and teaching us the way how we can change the future.
Composer and laughter meditation workshop leader Laraaji welcomes you to his sessions, you’ll have the chance to build your own theremin or square wave oscillator, drop in the contact mic workshop arranged and piloted by the industrial noise project of Margaret Chardiet – Pharmakon, get curious with the DJ lessons for children sponsored by DJ K-HAND techno music producer widely known in Detroit, anyone can also use laser projectors for generating abstract visuals, take part in the practice workshop fixed up by S1 Synth Library to learn the principles of making modular patches for female and non-binary individuals.
Masterclasses with Moogfest Artists and Creators
DJs Greg Belson and Peanut Butter Wolf will share their incredible and immense experience with the guests.
Gotye, an artist, is going to give a workshop dedicated to the late genius of electronic music Jean-Jacques Perrey.
Lars Larsen, a founder of LZX Industries and video synthesizer designer, is ready to distract himself from hard work in order to discuss the potential of modular analog video synthesis and an average video artist’s work days.
Gerhard Behles, a founder of Ableton Live and electronic musician, will talk about the actual access to the music working tools and bold release of new concepts.
Hacking Systems
Elliot Inman will teach the visitors how to slice and dice a square wave oscillator having a single integrated circuit enjoying the full DNA sequence of a modular synth organism, improvise with the online radio station making a radio piece yourself, while Ico Bukvic, a founder and director of Virginia Tech’s Digital Interactive Sound and Intermedia Studio, will tell us how to use affordable and ripe hardware and free soft (open-source) in order to construct musical devices producing in real time.
Black Quantum Futurism
Moor Mother and Afrofuturist Affair will guide us through their lectures and practice featuring futurist traditions, quantum physics and African cultural traditions of consciousness, time, and space.
The participants of the workshop are going to find themselves creating future maps and quantum time capsules, shift cause and effect, learning about timescapes and soundscapes – the interplay between them; use a DIY sci-fi lens to explore and reclaim mindspaces; make sound space to fight pressure as well as cultivate and exercise own unique superior identities.
Spatial Sound
Virginia Tech’s ICAT faculty will direct the workshops focused on the spatial audio experiences in a 3D audio Space Jam. Any guest can explore all the various ways of spatial audio controlling in a high-density loudspeaker array, the workshop will teach you how to use SuperCollider program to code spatial effects – you’ll be surprised once again what a mighty thing the sound is and how versatile it appears to be in hands of an engineer who knows the way of making it a part of an artwork.
Instrument Design
Dave Smith is willing to do the biggest favor – ok, not a favor, of course, but a precious lesson: the greatest synth maker is going to give a master class on Prophet introducing you to the very details of his stunning creature. Dave Rossum, an instrument tech pioneer, will share with us the story of his career and shed light on some personal moments of his life. Michael Ashton, Moog’s engineer, will teach the participants how to build their own synthesizers themselves – from the concept to the printed circuit board and chassis.
The Engineer VIP workshop comprises two 3-hour sessions (two days are dedicated to them) guided by Moog engineers who would help the visitors to get acquainted with the analog synthesis basics and create the Moog synthesizer and sequencers which have never been released.
All the workshop-assembled synthesizers will make up a limited edition featuring 100 units.
Techno-Shamanism
Techno-shamanism seems to bring technology and cosmos together making mechanization face meditation, traditions – advanced innovations, turn ephemeral ideas into tangible results, next generation products. Among these workshops there will be a meditation session brought to you by the famous yogi and musician Laraaji, you’ll have a chance to get closer to yoga and mandala art as well as to listen to the lecture given by Amos Gaynes, Moog’s engineer, on the bond between music, dance and shamanism.
Protest
A humanitarian and UNC Music and Technology Professor Dr. Mark Katz will lead a discussion together with musicians and scientists whose concern is to promote music as a social and political tool; Dr. Will Boone will let you know everything about power of blues and gospel music as something which helps us resist the opposition; EDM/social justice nonprofit Give a Beat will have a conversation with you about dance music and tech making people strong in front of someone’s might and after mass imprisonment as a mental recovery. Taeyoon Choi, an artist and educator, will offer a workshop on creating convincing, attention triggering signage, while Protest Stage performer Mykki Blanco will be heading a masterclass.
STEAM Noise
The technical producer DJ K-HAND will share with kids (and anyone interested) all the necessary information about DJing principles; Lile Stephens is going to give a lesson to teenagers (10-18) about theremin constructing. Metropolarity, a collective from Philadelphia, will let you know whether you’ve got some unique superpower (reveal your superhero identity) helping not only to touch upon the issue of collective choosing but also to tackle it successfully.
The Future of Creativity
Trend Hunter’s Armida Ascano will cover the topic of the next generation’s role and possibilities. MIT’s artist-scientist Joe Davis will delve into interstellar communication research, while Dr. Steven Goldfarb, Duke professor Mark Kruse and CERN scientist Dr. Kate Shaw will take part in a discussion (of course, giving an access to anyone willing to attend) about the Large Hadron Collider, physics and math in developing countries.