The 2022 Cybersalon Art birthday party
By Wael Elazab
The annual Art birthday is every January 17th, and it’s a chance to appreciate and present art in celebration. Artist collectives, radio stations, independent creatives and learning institutes across the world took part.
Art’s 2022 and 1,000,059th birthday showcased creativity and freedom of expression. This year, the Salonistas dedicate their contribution to Dr Amin Medosh, Cybersalon co-founder who passed away in 2017. Resonating, still, and featuring in his book New Tendencies (2016); Dr Amin’s art and tech movements remain an inspiration for many.
In the Dr’s honour, in level-up Cyber “O. P.” Salon style 👊🏼🔥🕹 Eva “Pixel” Pascoe presents – London’s John Horsley, Irina “Miss Naivety” Shtreis, Alexis K Scott, Hypnaton straight outta Moscow, Lucy “Heavy Lifting”, Dan Stapleton and DJ Ryan Battles – on the fly and streaming, while coding the creation as you experience it by Simon Sarginson.
A global creativity festival
Delivered with Hydra, the eye-candy is courtesy of Simon Sarginson and Dan “S” Stapleton. The visuals and accompanying sonics – are in real-time, broadcasting live on-air with the twitch.com web and app platform, and OBS Studio software tool. The piece has to be seen and heard for yourself. Open internet search, copy and paste – – > > Cybersonica Soiree II Art’s Birthday < < – – or go straight to Cybersalon’s Youtube channel. New Beginnings, the theme.
“[Lockdown] was an opportunity for experimental music,” says Dan S, … the extra time, “Many people were bored; [low-noise] inspires creativity.” But, for Hackney local Alexis K, pandemonic months had riven his groove. Often with friends and at venues, the cessation, then isolation, and life’s mutation, feeling, “… forced, into changing,” also eked creativity out of him. “It wasn’t just the music, the dancing, meeting people, going places, … it was all of it,” looking for that, as much with his heart, as his ears; vibing with music is seeing him through.
Conversely, music journalist Irina, was seeking connections with people she couldn’t see otherwise, through music. Just landed, and introducing herself from Glasgow Airport, she is presenting tracks from her 3D spatial audio project, which was initiated by Middlesex University. Her experience in Reykjavik was “liberating.” John, too, saying, “A coping mechanisms was being creative, time to reflect.” The insanity is not lost on him, “When the walk is the same walk every f*** day, … I tried to entertain myself.”
Moods, experiments and explorations
“A beautiful journey,” Eva said of the collective’s incredible work. Eva also remarked that many creatives accustomed to performing live, “… Really didn’t like being stuck at home – or moving [their artform] onto computers, but people found a way,” she surmised, “The future will probably mix live play, with online collaboration.” The circumstances of lockdown-life, for East London born and Yorkshire bred, Lucy, gave time to bubble novel ideas and surface, as Heavy Lifting. Performing from her home in Sheffield, using TidalCycles software, “A live coding sequencer,” describes Lucy, which offers seemingly endless customisation, “Your imagination’s the limit; it’s made for small bits of code, and turning them into music.”
In Moscow, Sasha, as Hypnaton, also produces music with bespoke software, Raymond Sampler, that he coded himself. “It’s not fully generative and needs a human interface, to me it’s an instrument,” explains Sasha, who wants to build bridges. “I’m inspired, since my teenage years, by artists like Aphex Twins, which very nicely connected the experimental music with pop music,” he says. However, his students aren’t taking well to Raymond Sampler, “I couldn’t understand it,” says Sasha, who laughs as he continues, “I eventually realised, that I’m comfortable using this software, because I had written it.” But for his students, “Music making involves ego, I made it, I pushed the button … It’s important. After two years of teaching, I figured out, that generative music is not creatively fulfilling for people who didn’t make the instrument.”
Ryan, in his converted garden shed studio, says fondly, “I haven’t dj’d so much since my early twenties.” Now in Essex, it was as a journalist in Scotland, where he would deejay in the evenings and run clubs during the early 1990s, to this day. He launched a weekly vinyl-only night in London called POV, just before lockdown. “We had three nights booked and managed only one, before … Everything was taken away.” But Ryan also talks of the change that happened, “Through social media, through digital, there was a growing a sense of community.” Initially, the lack of human reaction, crucial to a Dj’s set, was burdensome when streaming, “I couldn’t relate to it as [being] a live performance without having people there.” In time, that experience changed as the community grew, “[The months of physical solitude have] been powerful, the last two and half years … I’ve made good friends and met people from all over the world.”
Tschüss, ciao, falou et adieu
To see out the festivities, Alexander Felch and Paul Gründorfer from Sound Art Collective present, Postcard from Vienna. “I’m really tired on online now,” says Alex, “That’s the main outcome.” Recorded live in Vienna, their video features paper hats, “The metric, Austrian easter egg,” Italian bio-algorithms and artificial intelligence.
Until next year, may the EI* be with you.
N.B. *Entertainment intelligence, “Because AI can also be entertaining,” according to Alex.
Video and soundtrack from the event
