Blog Entry
NewForms Festival
It's September, and the NewForms Festival is upon us again. For those that aren't familiar with the festival and what it's about, here's the lowdown:
New Forms Media Society is a non-profit society and media arts organization founded in 2000 that nurtures and connects local and international arts, science and grassroots communities through the annual New Forms Festival. By promoting Canadian Artists in collaboration with the international arts and technology world, the NFF facilitates multimodal art works and engages in discussion on their role in our cultural environment.
Each year the festival takes on a central theme. Past themes have included Technography and Ecologies.
This year NFF06 looks at the Transformations of culture, art and movement in media arts.
In less lofty terms, it means that the week of September 19-23 there will be an excellent selection of music, art, and gatherings worth attending. In addition to what I'm covering here, there's also a lot af visual art and meetings going on.
Music
Clearly my favorite portion of the festival, there are several performances centered around different genres of electronic music with international names and some of my favorite locals.
- Subtle Formations - Focusing on ambient music and the interplay of visuals and music
- Morphing - Focusing on breaks-oriented music, including hip hop, rock, two-step, and jazz-infused techno
- Timestretch - Focusing on the evolution of techno within electronic music
Additionally, this last weekend contained a prelude to all the activities in the form of Newforms in Dub, featuring performances from a rather wide variety of different forms of electronic music all sharing a dub influnce and bass-heavy sound. Deadbeat headlined with his usual selection of dubby minimal techno, while Maximus + Clearcall had what I could only describe and minimal drum and bass, Kuma + Tusk with dubstep, and Micheal Red and Calamalka played a very enjoyable mix as well. While it sounds like I'm gushing, this was definitely one of the most enjoyable events I've been to this year. I have some photos up Flickr, for those that are interested in that sort of thing.
ArtCamp
New this year, there is a BarCamp-style get-together for artists on Thursday the 21st, conveniently named ArtCamp. Much in the style of BarCamp, it's calling itself an un-conference and is a loosely organized meeting of people interested in technology, art, the convergence between, or just want to hang out with other people regarding the festival at large. Similar to BarCamp, every one in attendance must participate in some manner.
It looks pretty interesting and worth checking out. I'll probably poke my head in for a while. Stop by the wiki to add yourself to the list and get more information.