last week the Sonar festival 2009 took place in barcelona. the most obvious trend to observe was that there are much more live performances going on rather than simply djing, so lets summarize. Day 1 featured Tim Exile with a show entitled "we are the robots", where the musician was accompanied by an essemble of 4 robotic instruments.(video) later that day we watched french experimental hiphop producer Debruit who is also worth mentioning for his fine cut-up sound.

the second day got interesting when viennas Dorian Concept rocked the stage and got wobbly with Bombsquad (listern here) who in my opinion played the best dubstep-set at sonar... and it got really interesting when Ryoichi Kurokawa (video) performed an eclectic audio/visual show using four laptops.

the third and last day was one of the electronic performers. The Raster Noton showcase, featuring SND, Byetone, Atom™ and especially Alva Noto, who performed using a gigantic audiovisual live patch(max msp or homebrew i guess), was nothing less than cutting edge (video1-interface / video2). Furthermore you should check the sound of Lukid, who kept the dub-heads knodding in the dome.

At night the Animal Collective turned the stage into a big playground and brought psychedelic overkill. Followed by Beardyman (video), whose very unique way of performing is worth watching. Props also to Sinden form the UK for bringing some oldskool jungle to the sonar night.

listen:
dorian concept - sonar set
debruit - sonar set
lukid - sonar set

peaceout

"thru you" is an very interesting project by french sound artist kutiman. sampling from various youtube videos he created a quite unique recording somewhere inbetween electronical how-to´s, livingroom drum practices, dub box tutorials and the mother of all funk chords.

http://thru-you.com/

Oh what a great week this was for us tech aficionados!

First off, the Nintendo DSi is out since yesterday in Europe, with 2 cams integrated (waitin for homebrew! yay!), bigger screens and slimmer design... check it out.

Secondly, Ableton Live 8 (Kompact's most trusted choice for sequencing and live performance) is finally out with tons of new features like thight Max/MSP integration, Live Set sharing, new warping methods and lots of other stuff... more info here.

Joaquin Baldwin is an Annie Award nominee director and animator from Paraguay. Sebastians Voodoo is his latest 3D animation short, about a voodoo doll. for more info and a hd version check:

http://www.pixelnitrate.com

What happens if you combine some shepherds from Wales, tech geeks, sheep, LEDs and a camera? Find out in this video below:

Graduate film student Reza Dolatabad created the khoda short movie from 6,000 individual paintings shown at a rate of 20 per second. Production took over two years to complete and the result is trippy and from mindblowing quality.

Directors Site
Project Site

After previous 162 releases in the last 7 years the Processing team now finally releases Processing 1.0.

If you have never heard of Processing here is a short quote from their website:

Processing is a programming language, development environment, and online community that since 2001 has promoted software literacy within the visual arts. Initially created to serve as a software sketchbook and to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context, Processing quickly developed into a tool for creating finished professional work as well.

More Info on Caesy Reas Blog

Processing.org

Art created with Processing