:::: Presentations ::::
.. Primary Participants ..
Friday, Feb. 19 ~ 2:30 to 5:30pm
Saturday, Feb. 20 ~ 9:30am to 5:30pm
Sunday, Feb. 21 ~ 9:30am to 5:30pm
~.~
Abhinay Khoparzi (India)
Abhinay Khoparzi is good friends with technology, new and old, hard and soft, and loves
putting together old components for new uses. He is also a cinematographer, editor and
music composer with an agile hand for percussions. In the past, he has been a technology
reviewer and continues to do so at a personal level hence remaining updated in quick
solutions for innovative needs. He is currently developing a new software and technology
platform for a first generation art-music product. He is one of the founders of 3rd Thought
Entertainment and 3rd Community.
also at http://www.myspace.com/3rdthought
Aparna Panshikar (India)
Aparna Panshikar was born into a family renowned for its passion and
achievements in various forms of performing arts, and had an early introduction
to Indian Classical music from her mother Meera Panshikar, a disciple of
Padmavibhushan Kishori Amonkar and Pandit Bhaskarbua Joshi. Her own
individual singing style has been well received, and often awarded, by audiences
as well as connoisseurs in innumerable concerts around India and several other
countries, with a repertoire ranged from pure-classical to semi-classical forms
and also experimentation in combining North and South Indian Classical music,
as well as several collaborations with international electroacousticians, most
notable including Lawrence Casserly (see below), with whom she has performed
in several countries since 2006.
Album releases so far include: HMV - 3 titles
released as "HMV presents A Voice for the New Millennium", 2000; Inreco
Records released a 'jugalbandi' (fusion) between Aparna singing the Indian
Classical style with Sudha Raghunathan singing the Carnatic Classical style of
music, under the title "UNITY" in 2000; Mook Sound, South Korea published a
fusion between Indian music composed and sung by her, and Korean music
played by leading exponents from that country, under the title "Winds from
Ayuta", in 2002. This won the "Critics' Best New Release Award" in South
Korea for 2002; Mook Sound went on to release another title "Diamond Sutra"
and "Punyapur ki Sarita" in 2003; Deep Emotions ( Silk Road Communications )
released "Shivoham" - a collection of verses by Adi Shankaracharya sung by
Aparna, accompanied with sarod and keyboard, 2004.
In addition to her albums and her work with Lawrence Casserley, she has also
successfully worked with Greg Turner - an American musician based in South
Korea playing Indonesian gamelan(!), with whom she first exchanged ideas,
followed up with basic music pieces and finally created a song, without ever
meeting each other. She has also worked virtually with Kai Turnbull, of the
Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA, but Kai eventually came down to
India and recorded classical pieces directly from her, modified to suit western
rhythm patterns as used in pop music. When she travelled to France for a
promotional tour of her album 'Shivoham', she worked with the composer and
singer Rudolfe Burger to create an experiment that resulted in a small concert for
music lovers and connoisseurs. She has participated in and led various seminars
and discourses in recent years and is presently taken up with establishing her
dream "Bandish ~ The School of Music", as an umbrella institution for
supporting learning, research and propagation of Indian music all over the world,
and also as a convergence point for musicians of all description.
Arun Mehta (India)
Arun Mehta is a software writer, lead developer of the Ruby on Rails based platform ‘Skid’,
which is designed to make it easy to develop new web-based modules to meet the growing
communication and educational needs of children, particularly those with mental challenges
such as cerebral palsy and autism.
His experience in human rights began with 15 years volunteering with Amnesty International,
including two as president of its Indian section. More recently, he has campaigned
vigorously for the rights of persons with mental challenges.
He has made academic contributions to address the communications issues of persons with
autism. He is chairperson of the computer engineering department and a professor, at JMIT
Radaur, Haryana, India.
He is the founding president of the very recently started Bidirectional Access Promotion
Society, bapsi.org, which unites technological, legal and campaign efforts in promoting
the ability to communicate, of those who are chronically information poor.
Bettina Wenzel (Germany)
Bettina Wenzel is a vocal-artist, searching beyond the limitations of the human
voice. Besides her composition of vocal pieces, she establishes relationships
between video and voice, in a play between reality and illusion, trying to stick
both sides together as close as possible by real time interactions between voice
and images. In her piece ‘fresi.son’, walls subtly start to move and to turn into
waves in response to her voice. A virtual dialogue between light and voice is the
main subject of ‘neon.son’. The pieces for voice & tape create the illusion of a
virtual choir. Her recent works ‘black-fan-quartet’ and ‘tree’ developed in
collaboration with the filmmaker Shrikant Agawane, were presented at the
National Centre for Performing Arts during an arts residency she served in
Mumbai, August 2009.
Dafna Naphtali (USA)
Dafna Naphtali is a sound-artist/improviser/composer from an eclectic
musical background. As a singer/guitarist/electronic-musician she
performs and composes using her Max/MSP programming for sound
processing to alter the sound of her singing, vocalisms, and
personalized recordings, as well as the sound of any musician playing
with her. She collaborates and performs regularly with many well
known experimental musicians, and co-leads the digital chamber punk
ensemble, What is it Like to be a Bat? with Kitty Brazelton (http://www.whatbat.org
) and She's received numerous grants (NYFA, NYSCA, Meet the
Composer, Experimental TV Center, and commissions -- American
Composers Forum (for pianist Kathleen Supové, and for Magic Names
vocal ensemble -- 2010 premiere) and Brecht Forum. She has had
residencies at STEIM (Holland), Music OMI and iEAR at Rensselaer
Polytechnical Institute. She performs and travels widely and under
usual circumstances for her music.
Dafna also teaches and gives workshops at universities in the US and
Europe, and holds a Masters in Music Technology from New York
University, where she is part-time faculty . She has been teaching,
programming and consulting about computer music since1995 at
Harvestworks in New York and as a freelancer, and has done sound
design and/or programming work for the projects of many artists at the
forefront of digital and interactive music. Dafna can be heard on
Mechanique(s) (Acheulian Handaxe), on What is it Like to be a Bat?
(Tzadik/Oracles) (4 Stars, All Music Guide), Her newest CD Chatter
Blip with Chuck Bettis is being released December 2009 (Acheulian
Handaxe).
In CeC 2010, Dafna will perform in both composed and aleatoric/
improvised formats--in a duo with Hans Tammen, as well as in a new
collaborative experiment with the versatile Hindustani Classical
vocalist Vidya Shah--in a collision course of the acoustic and the
electronic with live audio processing, creating holistic
interconnections on the large and small scale between two worlds.
This work is funded in part by the Composer Assistance Program of the
American Music Center.
Dafna can be heard on Mechanique(s) (Acheulian Handaxe), on What is
it Like to be a Bat? (Tzadik/Oracles) (4 Stars, All Music
Guide), Her newest CD Chatter Blip with Chuck Bettis is being
released December 2009 (Acheulian Handaxe).
also at www.myspace.com/dafnanaphtali
Dhananjay Gadre (India)
Dhananjay Gadre is an inveterate inventor and innovator, of the inimitably Indian
'jugaad' kind, producing an endless series of large and little electronic gadgets
and geegaws on an ongoing basis,.. so as to exhuberantly and immediately share
DIY directions on how to make almost every one of them with the larger global jugaad
community,.. whilst somehow at the same time serving as a full-time electronics
educator at the very prestigious Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology, in Delhi,
and also as a globally respected author of an ongoing series of books on programming
electronic chips, sold in several editions and translations all around the world.
Dhanya Pilo, aka DeCOY (India)
Dhanya Pilo is a visual jockey who uses her film making and photographic skills
to create images of India that are evocative, personal and compelling. Her main
idea is to create new avenues for people and herself to push their creativity
and excite the local common man through it, who is usually unaware of such
opportunities. Dark, happy and calm, Decoy works as a film maker, designer and
a visual artist from her studio in Bombay, the teeming hub of India’s artistic and
film community,... where she was recently included in the CNN ‘Hot List of 20
People to Watch Out For’ in 2010. She thrives on stories and lives of various
cultures that live close to nature sans modern technology.
In her best known public interventions, Dhanya along with a bunch of her friends
spearheaded the artistic movement called "The Wall Project" in Mumbai, which has
now spread to 4 other Indian cities. And she now has "work-in-progress" on some
concepts towards creating a bigger Public Art Resource. In between all of this,
she is also a professional yacht racer.
also at www.myspace.com/dhanyapilo & www.thewallproject.com
Emma Ota (Japan)
Emma Ota is a curator and researcher based in Tokyo. Her practices focus upon
media arts and international exchange. She has worked for the media arts
organization Trampoline, based in Germany and the UK, and co-curated the
Radiator Festival for Art and Technology in 2005. Also in this year she initiated
the project Traversing Territories, fostering collaboration between students and
young artists in Japan and the UK (which has since continued annually). In 2006
she established the project Dislocate for art, technology and locality, which
brings together international artists and experts in the discussion and debate of
the role of new media in relation to our surrounding environment.
Emma is guest curator at Ginza Art Lab, an independent artist run space and was
also co-curator of Space Rabi Adesso, Koenji in 2008. She is highly concerned
with promoting international cross-cultural communication between children,
and is co-founder of Inter-play, an organization that runs collaborative
workshops and projects between children in Japan and other countries around the
world.
Other projects have included ‘The Moon’, a groundbreaking contemporary art
exhibition of Japanese and UK artists held in the historic gardens of Kodaiji
Temple, Kyoto, and ‘A Gift to Those who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities
and the Marvels of Travelling’, an artist in residency exchange project with
participant artists Erika Tan (UK) and Mio Shirai (Japan).
As a researcher, Emma is investigating the development of media arts in Asia
and its relation to specific social and cultural contexts, particularly in regard to
ideas of place, which has led her to China, Korea, India, Vietnam, Singapore,
Thailand and Indonesia.
also at www.eonsbetween.net
Hans Tammen (USA)
Hans Tammen creates music that has been described as an alien world of bizarre
textures and a journey through the land of unending sonic operations. He
discovers hidden sound properties through means of his modified
ENDANGERED GUITAR, interactive software programming, stereo and multichannel
sound systems, and by working with the room itself. Signal To Noise
magazine called his works "...a killer tour de force of post-everything guitar
damage", All Music Guide recommended him as: "...clearly one of the best
experimental guitarists to come forward during the 1990s."
Ima Picó (Spain/UK)
Ima Pico is a visual artist and digital muralist based in Manchester, UK. Her
recent work explores media saturation in contemporary culture through the use of
photography and digital manipulation. The photographic digital compositions are
original photographs that have been further developed using digital tools. Ima’s
recent work is installation based; the digital images are printed in big formats in
order to cover entire walls. She has exhibited internationally in galleries and
museums in solo and group exhibitions and organises exchanges with artists
from different regions of Europe, America and Asia.
Ima undertakes curatorial projects under the name Black Duck to promote the
work of contemporary artists working in performance, installation, digital media
and video to an international audience. Projects include participation in festivals,
international exchanges, exhibitions and events. In each case Ima Picó works
closely with other fellow artists and organisers and the nature of the funding
achieved dictates the scale of the project.
Along these lines, Ima is also for the second year in a row serving The Carnival
of e-Creativity (CeC 2010) as a co-curator on global short-creative-videoworks.
also at http://blog.imapico.com & http://www.blackduckarts.blogspot.com/
Ingrid Lode (Norway)
Though born in the tiny town of Fraenas, nestled between mountains and the
Atlantic Ocean, studies in music led Ingrid Lode to Trondheim, the third largest
town in Norway, where she now lives, playing music, teaching and studying.
Her formal training lies in violin, piano, guitar, singing, drums, choir, jazz, plus
ballet and modern dance. She is also a trained music teacher, focused primarily
upon improvisation and singing.
Bands and projects that she is associated with include the abstract jazz trio
Kobert, and Trondheim Voices (www.trondheimvoices.com). Other projects
have involved working with actors, dancers, writers and musicians in different
crossover projects and performances. This includes performing with Aparna
Panshikar, Lawrence Casserley and other singers as the experimental band
‘Intervolution’, which was originally formed to play two concerts in Germany
and Belgium in 2008.
Ingrid is presently a student, and, besides being a freelance musician working with
her own band Kobert, and Trondheim Voices, she also works with actors, poets and
sometimes a venue.
Discography:
S. Möller –‘Urban Ghost’ (Sonor 2004) || Kobert – ‘Glowing’ (Norcd 2006) ||
Eyewaterlillies –‘Slant of Light’ (Jazzaway Records 2006) || Trondheim
Jazzorchestra & Kobert (MNJ RECORDS 2009) || Kobert – ‘Invasion of Privacy’
(Impeller Records 2009)
Ish S (India)
Ish S is a Composer, sound artist and Producer from Delhi. He has worked with Sound Art
and Video installations and while at a Residency at Sarai-CSDS released an Audio
compilation called [t0]. He also formed a music label called Sound Reasons Records
(http://soundreasons.in) to promote the new sounds of the Avant-garde and Electro-acoustic
music from around the world. His various video and Music/sound projects are - edGeCut,
diF, 4th world Orchestra, dbase and Khayali pulao His works have been showcased at
the 1st habitat Summit at the ‘Indian Habitat Center’ // School of Arts and Aesthetics
at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) // ‘World Information City conference’, Bangalore ,
India // at 1st international art | tech | media congress // ‘SoundLAB - Edition V’ //
Jayen Varma (India)
Jayen Varma has been in the world of Music for the last three decades,
performing cover songs of different genres from old time rock n roll to blues to
heavy metal to jazz-rock to raga-rock to electronic music. He has been a
freelance Bass Player doing solo demonstration performances, clinics, workshops
and concerts with various artistes and bands, including recent experimentations
with Aparna Panshikar to explore the potential of bass guitar in Hindustani
Classical Music. He considers their music as RAgaZZ, since it doesn’t adhere to
pure RAga or pure JaZZ.
Jayen is also a disciple of Mridangam Maestro and principal of Kerala Music
Academy Prof. Parasala Ravi. His studies in Indian classical percussion
instrument Mridangam enabled him to develop a new genre funk bass style,
which is widely known as Indian Slap Bass. His bass playing and works have
been appreciated by many bass players across the world including the King of
Jazz-Jeff Berlin, King of Funk-Bootsy Collins, King of Metal- James LoMenzo,
Marcus Miller, Michael Henderson, David Pastorius and many others.
His primary musical mission presently is to popularise the experimental music of
his new band and the new genre Indian funk bass across the world in the years to
come.
Joker Nies (Germany)
Joker Nies is a musician, sound-designer, sound-engineer, photographer and
technical editor for the German Sound&Recording and Keyboards magazines,
based in Cologne. Since the early 80´s, he has been experimenting with all kinds
of electronic sound-sources, such as modular-analog synthesizers, individually
designed electronic devices, DSP-based systems (like Kyma/Capybara or Clavia
Nord Modular) and software-based sound-sources. During the early 90´s,
modifying the Omnichord became his initiation into what is known as circuitbending.
Since that time a steadily growing number of devices has been
converted from simple toys into alien sound devices.
Recent activities include playing live in various constellations, software synthdesign
in MAX/MSP for the German Keyboards magazine, and production and
sound design for radio-plays. Joker also holds workshops and tutorials all over
the world on circuit-bending, creative circuit-design, and also software synthdesign
in MAX/MSP. His musical activities are centred upon an improvisational approach, even though
he also cooperates in composition-based multimedia projects with Realtime-
Research, the Quantum Quasi dance performances, and also the Suguru Gotos
Net-Body project.
Joker performs, lectures and leads workshops across Europe, USA and Mexico,
with artists such as John Butcher, Ernst Reijsinger, Thomas Lehn, Alan Silva,
Dave Tucker, Seth Josel, Hans Tammen, Gino Robair, Günther Christmann,
Georg Wissel and many others.
Joy Sharma (India)
Joy Sharma was born and raised in New Delhi, India. Finding his knack for
‘opening things up’ (read breaking things) at an early age it was clear that he was
to become an engineer, which he did in 2004, graduating from Netaji Subhas
Institute of Technology – amongst the top 5 engineering schools in India.
As a B.E. in Electronics & Communication he learnt hands-on from some of the
most decorated, world-renowned professors in India. Specializing in digital
electronics and microprocessor based applications he took up numerous small
and big projects using Atmel AVR. Thereafter he was picked from the campus
by M/s. S.T.Microelectronics India Pvt. Ltd. to work as a hardware design
engineer, where he independently designed a sub-system for TATA Sky+ Set-top
Box and made it a First Time Silicon Success – a prized achievement in the
Semiconductor Industry.
An entrepreneur at heart, he quit STMicro and started his own firm at the age of
23 to manufacture parts for the automotive sector. In late 2008, at the age of 26,
he started his second company, Gadgetronix, an amalgamation of his technical
knack for innovative creation, his entrepreneurial mindset and his wish to
improve the community he is a part of.
Gadgetronix was founded with the mission to demystify Electronics in the early
years of education, by helping kids create FUN gadgets, with their own hands,
under the supervision of Engineers with real Industry Experience. There is now a
strong following of over 1000 children in various schools in & around Delhi,
growing at a fast pace. To catch the interest of children Gadgetronix has been
placed at the juncture of creative arts and electronics.
The plans are big and the field is open … Joy believes that now it is just a matter
of catching speed, which he wishes to accomplish over the next few years
through various associations.
Kurt Korthals (USA/Germany)
Kurt Korthals was born and raised in Southeast Alaska, USA. Nearly every 3
years Kurt moved within Alaska until he pursued a life studying computer
science in Austin, Texas, and eventually found work in Berlin, Germany as a
software developer for the music software company ‘Native Instruments’. Since
his adolescence, Kurt has worked with several bands, cinematographers, dancers,
visual artists, and produces his own music with instruments and tools such as the
clarinet, various analogue synthesizers, and digital machines. His musical style is
difficult to describe as it often crosses many musical boundaries, mixing
experimental, hip-hop, world music, and field recordings to create artful
compositions of melodic instrumental music. In doing so, Kurt brings acoustics,
vintage electronics, and cutting-edge music software together, naturally, until the
songs seem to write themselves.
Lawrence Casserley (UK)
Lawrence Casserley has devoted his professional career as a composer,
conductor and performer to real-time electroacoustic music. In 1967 he became
one of the first students of Electronic Music at the Royal College of Music,
London, UK, on the new course taught by Tristram Cary. Later he became
Professor-in-Charge of Studios and also Adviser for Electroacoustic Music at the
RCM, before taking early retirement in 1995.
He is best known for his work in free improvised music, particularly real-time
processing of other musicians' sound, for which he has devised a special
computer processing instrument. He has worked with many of the finest
improvisers, particularly Evan Parker, with whom he works frequently as a duo
partner, in various larger groupings and in the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic
Ensemble. He also works as a soloist, processing sounds from voice, percussion
and homemade instruments. CDs have been released by ECM, Konnex, Leo
Records, Psi, Sargasso and Touch.
Much of Casserley's work has involved collaboration with other art forms,
including poets such as Bob Cobbing, and visual artists such as Colourscape
artist Peter Jones. He is a Director of the Colourscape Music Festivals,
presenting contemporary music in the unique environment of the Colourscape
walk-in sculpture, and he also collaborates with Peter Jones on sound/light
installations.
Casserley's ‘instrumental’ approach to live computer sound-processing is the
hallmark of his work; the Signal Processing Instrument allows him to use
physical gestures to control the processing and to direct the morphology of the
sounds. This is the culmination of forty years of experience in the performance of
live electronic work; his earliest live electronic pieces were performed in 1969,
and he has performed many of the live electronic "classics" of the 20th century;
he has also collaborated with other composers to realise their electronic
performance ideas. He is noted for the breadth and variety of his collaborations,
which cross styles and generations.
[Text by John Palmer, from the liner notes to the CD "Labyrinths" - Sargasso
SCD 28030]
Lionel Dentan (Switzerland/India)
Lionel Dentan started off playing the guitar, including studies at the Lausanne
Classical Conservatory, and then learned jazz and oriental music. He studied
Turkish Saaz with Mousto Mustafa and is now training in sitar in the style of the
Imdadkhani Gharana. However, he is primarily an electronic composer and live
performer, playing synthesizers, laptops, saaz, rebab and sitar, in radical
explorations of different genres of music ranged from Hindustani classical
through to Middle Eastern styles, via abstract electronic and ambient sounds;
intuitively and innovatively carrying his music wherever his mind takes him.
From Tabriz to Kyoto, via Baroda and a stop in Buffalo, his influences are as
complex as his personality, emerging eventually as highly individualized sounds
and genres that he describes variously as, ‘Schizophmusik, Glitchcore, Ambient,
Classicoabstract, Experimental Electro, and Lyricalnoisedeath ….’
Lionel is perhaps best known today as a leading member of the band Da-Saz; a
collective reborn in 1999 with Suchet Malhotra, and now based in Delhi. The
collective has come a long way over the years, with a variety of ethnic and
hybrid styles of projects and music, that all together aim to set out a platform for
new styles of urban music and traditional forms, through installations, jams, live
performances and albums, including the recent CD ‘Sound Reasons’ that they
helped release in collaboration with Ish S., and Sarai.
With 4 main projects, Da-saz is a platform for contemporary ideas and generative
thinking, articulating historical timeframes that are immediately relevant to the
present, whilst also presenting a unique perspective upon modernity.
As a pawn in the decadent oasis of a technological society based upon
consumption, that too often forgets the soul and our earth, Lionel’s work with
Da-saz looks to express the need to be responsible for future generations, through
music, dance, creative expression, or any art form,.. as a prayer to the universe
that is both inside and outside all of us.
also at http://www.myspace.com/dasaaz
Lise McKean (USA)
Lise McKean was born in Elmhurst, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. After finishing
her B.A. in Geography at the University of Chicago, she travelled solo to India
on a one-way ticket, eventually returning to the U.S. for graduate study. She also
holds an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, M.S.
in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, and Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Sydney.
Her doctoral research in India was based in Haridwar, where she lived in the
small ashram of Bharati Ma, a Bengali woman guru, and enjoyed respites from
ashram life at the home of Sanjay (Junior) and Sandhya Chatterji in New Delhi.
Her research concerned the Hindu nationalist movement and the involvement of
Hindu religious leaders and their organizations in Indian politics. This work led
to her book, Divine Enterprise: Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Movement,
published by the University of Chicago Press. After completing her doctorate,
she boomeranged back to Chicago. She currently works as an anthropologist
with the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she
collaborates on research and evaluation projects related to teacher preparation
and urban education. From 2000 to 2006, she was at the Center for Impact
Research conducting community-based research on social and economic justice
issues, including asset building and income support programs, online access to
public benefits, sentencing reform, youth and family homelessness, and
employment services for survivors of domestic violence. She has also worked in
publishing at the University of Chicago Press as managing editor of Public
Culture and as an editor for an early Internet project at Encyclopaedia Britannica.
For CeC 2010, Lise will present a new experimental work called 'Prairie
Mountain Soundscape', which was created especially for the incident in
collaboration with artist and photographer Tom Denlinger (http://www.tomdenlinger.com/),
photographer David Solzman (http://solzman.com/), sound artist Noé Cuéllar
(http://noe.futurevessel.com/), and litterateur Graziano Kratli, the last of
whom will also attend CeC with Lise, as a Guest Participant.
Manjula Jhunjhunwala (India)
Manjula Jhunjhunwala is an innovative educationist and educational entrepreneur based in
Faizabad, who began her career by launching a nursery school so as to offer something
better than what was available for her first son where she lived, when he came of age.
Today, the society that she established for this also runs a full city-school, a full
rural-school, a polytechnic focused especially upon teacher-training, and also an
industrial-training centre for rural youth. Meanwhile, the little nursery school she
began with has grown up into a beautiful campus constructed according to the principles
of ‘Building as a Learning Aid’.
Michael Ormiston (UK)
Michael Ormiston is the UK’s leading Mongolian Overtone (Khöömii) Singer/Teacher, and
multi-instrumentalist playing Morin Khuur (Mongolian Horse Head Fiddle), Tibetan Singing
Bowls, Ney (Turkish end blown flute), Harmonic Flutes etc., alongside live electronic
processing. His music crosses the borders between traditional, contemporary, ambient,
free-improv and meditation genres. Michael’s original compositions have been used on TV
(BBC and Channel 4), Theatre (Theatre de Complicite), Dance (Ballet Frankfurt Dancers),
and performance (London Jazz Festival). His throat singing has been used on Hollywood Films
(The Golden Compass, We Were Soldiers), and TV (BBC’s acclaimed series Planet Earth, Last
of the Medicine Men). He is one of the principal workshop leaders and performers of
Eye-Music’s Colourscape.
Paola Lazo (Chile)
Paola Lazo has been playing piano since she was 9 years old, started composing
at the age of 18, and began to take music composition lessons at the age of 19,
with the Chilean composer Carlos Riesco. She then studied music composition
formally at the Chilean University, under Rolando Cori and Aliosha Solovera,
after which she continued further with Gabriel Matthey. Meanwhile, she entered
the SCD Centre (an electronic music centre belonging to an authors’ rights
society), where she first began to explore electronic music with software
programs such as Pro-Tools, Audios Culp, CoolEdit ,CSound, and so on.
Several of Paola’s compositions have been performed in different music
festivals, both nationally within Chile and also internationally. At the same time,
she has studied and played piano jazz with bass and drums accompaniment, and
also working presently as a piano teacher in different institutions.
In 2005, Paola composed a special 8-channel work called Osaxavala at the
Elektroacoustic Institute of Vienna Music University, as a project that then
moved on to LIPM (the Research Institute for Electroacoustic Music) in Buenos
Aires. The work was also presented, along with a talk, in 2006 at Visiones
Sonoras in Mexico. Paola has also presented both music and video in other
international creative conclaves and festivals, such as Sonoimágenes Buenos
Aires.
Amongst her various projects presently, Paola performs live on piano as a jazz
trio with Milton Jara on drums and Andres Gastello on bass. She has been a
recipient of a Chilean Government Scholarship to create an experimental work
with sensors and processed Tibetan bowls, and is currently investigating liveelectronics
and music from India.
Paola’s many public presentations and performances include appearances at the
International Contemporary Music Chilean University Festival; the International
Contemporary Music Festival of the Chilean Catholic University; SCD
Auditorium; the Second Cycle of Electronic Music Concert; the Argentine Music
Festival, ‘ Sonoimágenes’; the 3rd Chilean Electronic Music Concert, presented
by CECH (Chilean Electronic Music Community); the Chilean International
Electronic Music Festival; Visiones Sonoras (Mexico); and so on.
Parag Gandhi (India)
Advertising has always excited Parag Gandhi, as a result of which he has now
been professionally into online adverting since the last 8 years. He started off as
a graphic designer with various online advertising agencies in India, where he
developed a passion for design and online interactivity, with particular interest in
developing ideas and design strategies for brands and product development,
public art and usability,
Possibilities in interactive design and exposure to various forms of art eventually
made him start his own design house, under the name 'Flying Cursor
Interactive'.
Today, as Parag says, his company is a digital creative agency that really
loves the internet, working in the field of Online Advertising and
Communication Design. His driving belief lies in creating partnerships with
clients, employees and end users to explore different forms of visual and design
experience, so as to create unique user experiences and brand connects
Preeti Monga (India)
Preeti Monga is a Corporate Trainer, a Public Speaker, a Counsellor, a Fitness
Consultant, a Public Relations Professional, and an Author, specialized in
motivating people.
She started out as an Aerobic instructor (the first blind person to have taken this
on as a career), whilst simultaneously working as a Computer and English
Teacher. She has also been a Sales and Marketing Manager, a Freelance
Journalist, a Public Speaker, a Fund-Raiser and a Disability Rights Activist.
In CeC 2010, Preeti will deliver a very special presentation on, ‘How technology
has taken away the handicap from the life of a visually impaired person’, which
will include how she uses various gadgets to achieve this.
Rahul Dhinakaran (India)
Rahul Dhinakarn is Managing Director of Kalki Mechanical Prototypes Pvt. Ltd., a
start-up machine design and fabrication company based in Madurai. He has been
designing and building machines/products/automotive systems for companies in India,
US and Europe for the past few years, some examples of which include; air
suspension systems for trucks/buses; pneumatic presses & pneumatic cutting
machines; textile fabric rolling machines; noise test machines for the V-belt
industry, and; internal gear boxes for wheelchairs. He is also engaged in massive
digitisation of legacy hand-drafted designs for clients in the USA.
Rune Sochting (Denmark)
The Danish sound artist and composer Rune Sochting works in the intersection
of electronic sound, installations and music composition. In his musical works he
has developed a sonic language that mixes electronic sounds, field recordings
and noise in a unique and personal blend. The music unfolds like an enigmatic
ever-changing landscape, rich in detail and with a vibrant spatial quality.
In CeC 2010, Rune will do a laptop-based performance. With the focus upon
sonic qualities he will create an intense listening experience that ranges from the
most fragile moments to dynamic noisy turbulence.
Rune will also collaborate with Zeenath Hasan (see below) to locally run an
experimental media workshop before CeC 2010, in league with women in the
neighbourhood, which will culminate in a performance in the actual incident.
Shankar Barua (India)
Shankar Barua has been many things in life before coming around to his present
preoccupations as Managing Trustee of The AeA, in which role he is also
Director of CeC 2010. These include adventure-travel writer & photographer,
asst. editor and designer of magazines, illustrator, publisher, pack-shot
photographer, well-digger, drought-relief worker, book-author, columnist, artist,
musician, tea-taster, corporate consultant, advertising copywriter, public speaker,
photography workshop leader, public relations professional, TV anchorperson,
product prototyper, film-maker, and so on and on and on.
Whereas he continues to be some of these things still, his primary goals presently
have to do with promoting and empowering creative experimentation &
innovation in countries such as India, on the back of the burgeoning evolution
and spread of technology.
Shazeb Shaikh (India)
Shazeb Shaikh is one of the founders and managers of 3rd Thought Entertainment, an
integrated-arthouse with a global artist collective of 32 artists from 14 countries. The 3rd
Community was the name given to the closed collective (artists only invited by a common panel
of the founders and existing artists) and the larger idea was to fuse together different art
forms and media to expand the target groups for each of 3rd Thought's releases while allowing
multiple artists to ride on common releases. Though the 3rd Community is now temporarily
defunct, a new financially-backed artist collective and arthouse is on its way in 2010 with
a clear motive of creating a new channel to market art internationally with a sound
business-end created by some of India's top business strategy and management consultants.
Shazeb is leading this new regrouping of artists and hopes to bring on 300 unique artists
(by end of 2010) in different media into the new organization while maintaining the purity
of creativity and promoting arts such as digital art, classical poetry, opera, world cinema
etc., and finding required value for every artist of the collective. Shazeb is a
multidisciplinary artist with a body of work in art (traditional and digital), music (IDM),
and writings (classical poetry, epic poetry, prose) and films.
also at http://www.myspace.com/3rdthought
Sohail Arora (India)
Sohail Arora runs India's only alternative booking agency 'Krunk' specializing in
national & international musicians & DJ's. Krunk also offers tailored consultancy
services in music programming. Having previously worked with Blue Frog as
event programmer for 2 years and most recently as music programmer for The
Ladakh Confluence, he believes that A&R and Scouting as a whole has a lot of
potential and needs to be taken more seriously in this country. He loves Drum N
Bass, Metal, Jazz & All sorts of Electronic music and is part of a Drum N Bass
collective called 'Bay Beat Collective' who with their signature blend of DnB &
Dubstep are breathing freshness into the dance floors of India regularly.
also at http://tinyurl.com/baybeatcollective
Vidya Shah (India)
Vidya Shah is a well-known musician who sings, composes and writes on Indian
music. After her initial training in Carnatic music Vidya Shah moved to the
North Indian Khayal Gayaki and trained with Smt. Shubha Mudgal. She is
presently training with Smt. Shanti Hiranand in Thumri, Dadra and Ghazal.
Under the guidance of her Gurus, she has gained a rich repertoire of Sufi and
Bhakti Music.
A versatile composer, Vidya has a rich repertoire, made richer by the resonances
of her voice. She has performed at various National and International forums
such as the Humboldt Forum (Germany), The India Festival of Arts (Singapore),
Asia Society (New York), The India Festival (Trinidad and Tobago), Women's
Initiative for Peace in South Asia (WIPSA) and A Tribute to Africa.
She has lent her voice to several collaborative projects including Textures
(Composed and sung for Aditi Mangaldas), Holi Water (a Multi-media
production from New Zealand on the Ganga), and in published work with
MiDival Punditz, Karsh Kale and Bill Laswell.
Vidya conducts workshops and writes regularly on Indian music. She is presently
writing on North Indian Art Music for an Anthology of Indian tradition. She is
on the advisory board of the South Asia Foundation and contributes to its cultural
committee.
As Director-Programs for the Centre for Media and Alternative Communication
(www.cmaconline.org), she is currently working on a project entitled, “Women
On Record”, in a tribute to women performers in the 78 -RPM era from early
20th Century India. The project includes a series of ongoing concerts, radio
programs, exhibitions and seminars among other events.
Zeenath Hasan (India/Sweden)
Zeenath Hasan involves herself in the people-centred practice of design research
to exercise the potential of media technologies for socially appropriate
intervention. The studio from where she conducts her doctoral research on the
role of media in a democracy is located in the School of Arts and
Communication, Malmö University. She was born in Kolkata and currently
resides in Malmö.
In the framework of CeC 2010, Zeenath will essay an anthropological sound
workshop, along with Rune Sochting, called “Listen/Sunoh”. In this, they will
adopt a playful look at the material that surrounds us and explore how objects
and qualities can be taken out of their context and used collectively in artistic
practice. Besides the investigations and appreciation of what is normally
overlooked as immediate functional surroundings, the workshop aims to raise a
critical reflection on one's surrounding. The project is a collaborative effort
amongst the participants. They will be asked to individually make sound
recordings of events and conditions of their everyday life. This material will then
be used in a joint performance. The workshop culminates in a sound/visual
collage production that will be shown publicly during the festival. Here
electronic media will be used.
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CeC 2010 was part-funded by Pro Helvetia Arts Council of Switzerland
