version 2.0

recapitulation of the month of sonic mayham at the CIANT gallery

Rafani, assisted by Antena, Darina Alster and Dog Translucent. This performance was the final in the ADD soundsystem 2.0 at CIANT Gallery. It was an attempt to blow the system, I expected that the speakers would get damaged in this performance. All the channels have been open to feedbacks and other foul noise, all the technology has been pushed to the limit. Performance was ended by pulling the plug on the whole system and thus the exhibition ended too. The performance then continued in disassembling of the installation.
What came as a surprise was, that the speakers did not get damaged after all. I still use them until today and they are still quite fine.

DJane Deus Ex Machina feat. Mikatchu & DJ Francoise Perrin at CIANT Gallery, Prague. Jeanette played four turntables which occupied four channels of the installation (and she was fabulous…). Fifth channel was taken over by Mikatchu on microphone, sometimes assisted by Dan Vlček.

Improvisations by Stanislav Abrahám and Michal Cáb aka Lasonick & Cabowitz. Recorded sounds from the session were taken, remixed and mastered to create the soundtrack you can hear.

Prague based Swiss artist and musician Anja Kaufmann aka Akita.Y brought some toys and frequencies. Three channels of the ADD soundsystem were dedicated to three harmonies derived from Schumann resonance. One channel was hooked up to a walkie-talkie connected to another one which gallery visitors could use and take outside of the gallery. It also could create really nice “feedback sabre”. Fifth channel was connected to a vintage 80’s 3D video game.

Viktor Takáč presents Pražští pěvci
conducted by Mgr. Stanislav Mistr

Viktor Takáč made an attempt at combining the ADD soundsytem with live choir. He sampled five fragments - motifs of simple folk song (about a mosquito wedding) to be played over the sound system. Even not synchronized, fragments all played in the same rhythm so it was possible for the singers to join in adding more motifs and parts of the songs. However, here the ADD soundsystem has lost the battle: as the speakers have not been perfectly designed, human voices sounded, well - somewhat awkward. If you play electronic sounds there is no reference point and you can get away with imperfections. But where the human voice enters, we all have expectations what it should sound like.
Another unexpected fault encountered was the well soundproofed gallery space. Although ideal for sound installation, the conductor at one point eventually wiped sweat from his forehead and exclaimed frustrated: “This is a killer space for a choir! There is no ECHO!” As an alternative the choir made an unexpected improvised performance in the street for general unsuspecting public - an exquisite treat.

Slovak musician Slavo Krekovič has made a very interesting contribution to the ADD soundsystem. The setup went in the opposite direction from the intentions of the ADD soundsystem. His response to decentralized control of the sound was to take up all channels and control them centrally in a custom built Max/MSP patch. He could then rotate the sound around the room at his command and viewers had only a limited control over the spatial distribution of sound. Very clever!

Bethany Lacorin aka Beseppy offers an open mic and this guy grabs it. Soundsystem is dedicated to collection of audience sound effects.

This was a difficult day with lots of technical problems in Marek’s setup. Preparations and troubleshooting took so much time that eventually the audience (his students) left, but we had lot of fun just improvising afterwards. One day I hope to upload here some fragments we recorded.

with BLN

Five channels of speech in shorter and longer looped fragments. You can’t get those voices out of your head…

Petr Krušelnický aka Antena