The Centrifuge curates, produces and delivers the “Supernatant” programme of Workshops, “Make Sessions”, Lectures and Seminars. These have been designed to enrich and enliven artistic, cultural and electronic music festivals, outreach events, universities and beyond. Supernatant is a multi-faceted project focussing on artistic and technical practice at the interface of sound, experience, science, interactivity and future technologies.

We can provide a tailored solution to your requirements. Below is a recent example of such a programme for The Culture Yard, Elsinore, Denmark in December 2011 focusing on “creative electronics”.

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Outline of event: The goal of the workshop & seminar session is to provide the audience with a greater understanding and appreciation of the state-of-the-art creative and technical processes that go into music and media creation and publication across a variety of areas.

Summary of session:
missaw – discussing the major changes occurring in the music industry as a result of the advent of digital music and the changing roles of artists, music publishers, record labels and consumers;

Nick Bugayev – showcasing new digital tools and technologies for creation, from his experience as a founder of music software company Liine and a developer working with Lemur and Max For Live interfaces;

Scrubber Fox & DJ Stuff – the repurposing of old and obsolete equipment to produce contemporary audio and visual content;

Beat Frequency – using instruments such as the theremin in new and unusual ways;

Mr Underwood – building and using novel devices to interact with and make music from their environment;

Short description of event / group / organisation / organiser: The Centrifuge is a UK-based electronic arts collective, operating a digital record label and organising events around Europe. The musical focus of the organisation revolves around the expression of the experimental aesthetic in electronic music, with particular focus on electronica, glitch, ambience and minimalism, acid, IDM, electroacoustic music and drill & bass.

In the past 12 months we have organised events in numerous European and North American locations including London, Manchester, Malta, Barcelona, Oakland, Hamburg and Berlin) in a variety of formats such nightclub events, workshops, outdoor performances, art exhibitions and installations.

More information on contributors:

missaw
missaw is Dr Wassim Alsindi, The Centrifuge’s founder, events promoter, artist manager and label curator. As such he has a wide-angled perspective of the challenges facing the music ‘world’ and ‘industry’ (the two are quite different) and will be sharing his approaches to building a music organisation which is consistent with our increasingly digital and connected future.

Following a short but prolific academic research career spanning the fields of photophysics, astrochemistry and ultra-fast laser spectrocopy he undertook an Innovation Fellowship to engender an entrepreneurial culture in the academic research world. He later worked in a technical business post in a small university “spin-out” company, before focusing fully on his vision for The Centrifuge which is in its 5th Anniversary year in 2012.

Nick Bugayev
Nick Bugayev will speak about his work on the Plastikman Live tour using Max for Live. Plastikman Live was ‘number one’ live electronic show of the year in 2010 by the readers of the largest electronic music portal Resident Advisor.

Nick Bugayev has produced electronic dance music, composed commercial music for video games, developed interactive art installations and created sound art for contemporary dance choreographies. He is one of the founders of Liine – a company whose mission statement is to redefine the way people interact with sound. Since founding. Liine software has been featured on the front cover and inside such media as The Guardian, Future Music, Computer Music, Sound & Recording. Nick holds a degree in Electroacoustic Composition from the Montreal Music Conservatory and he is concurrently doing a PhD in Music Composition at the University of Huddersfield.

Scrubber Fox & DJ Stuff
Scrubber Fox and DJ Stuff are audiovisual artists and hardware bend-makers. Using home-built modifications and circuit-bending techniques, it is possible to take antiquated and obsolete electronic equipment such video game consoles (e.g. Megadrives, NES, Atari 2600) and turn them into AV engines, using the existing sound and graphic chips within them. Such hardware can then be utilised as an “instrument” for avant-garde music and visual generation.

Beat Frequency
Beat Frequency is an theremin expert and espouser of experimental techniques to control, play and manipulate them and their sonic output. He will give a masterclass in how conventional and avant-garde theremin use varies, discussing and exhbiting techniques. If EVNTS funding is awarded then we would be able to supply a few “demo” theremins for an audience participative workshop experience.

Mr Underwood
Mr Underwood is an electronic and electroacoustic musician and hardware maker. As an advancement of last year’s opening seminar piece, he will be demonstrating new developments in the MIDI Octopus as a tactile instrument which turns every surface into a “playable” instrument using a series of resonating tentacles.

Eutechnik
Eutechnik is a Berlin-based composer, music programmer and hardware maker. He will be discussing the modification of methods of data input to computers, from traditional devices such as mice and keyboards and music-focussed ones such as MIDI controllers into ‘tangible’ interface devices which use people’s knowledge of real-world events. His augmented reality system uses a camera as a data input device and symbols as control objects which the software recognises as being unique and then tracks their movement. This gives the ‘musician’ and indeed the ‘audience’ the ability to control sound and visual events simply by playing with objects.