Random String Coventry: Mechanical techno demo, workshop & performance

Random String: Ludic Rooms’ biennial festival of arts, play and technology returns to venues across Coventry. Performances, exhibitions and workshops in unexpected places with music, dance, visual arts and making for all the family to enjoy and explore together.

I’ll present a demonstration at the symposium, a workshop and a live set over the weekend. Details on each below, or more from the festival website here.

Friday 16th, daytime: Mechanical Techno demo at symposium
Warwick Arts Centre

What does ‘live’ mean in the age of real-time technologies?

A playdate for artists and cultural organisations interested in playing and making work with technology. Space for inspiration, discussion and sharing. The Random String Symposium is a one-day event for artists and arts professionals, exploring the use of interactive & networked technologies in the creative process.

Hear from practitioners from across the UK and overseas, join frank conversations about the practicalities of using technology in your work and explore a showcase of interdisciplinary work.

Full details: website / facebook

Saturday 17th, daytime: Mechanical Techno workshop
The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum,Coventry

Following a demonstration of the workings of the mechanical techno setup, participants will make three different types of modified record, each making rhythmical sounds in a different way. Live samples from second-hand vinyl; patterned disks that optically trigger a bass-synth; and pegged-out records for sequenced drum beats.

Finally, each set of three disks will be combined in the tower to create a playable machine-composition.

Participants take away a digital recording of their track and keep any records they’ve made (or ruined).

Full details: tickets / facebook

Saturday 17th, evening: Mechanical Techno live / Swoomptheeng
The Tin Music & Arts, Coventry

In Mechanical Techno, several looping records spin on the same axle, layering up locked groove records, audio triggers to analogue synths, mechanically played percussion and mechanically triggered drum machines.

If the trend in recent dance music has been to artfully engineer a certain wonkiness into an otherwise strict digital framework, Dunning has found the appeal of the precise reverse: struggling to maintain grid-like rigidity in a system inherently antagonistic to it. – Wire Magazine, August 2015

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Swoomptheeng are a Birmingham-based art collective providing “Rave Craft, Zombie Bass and Ritualised Punk Technology”.
Performing in brightly-coloured masks, this band of culture-mashing, mischievous, woodcrafting oddballs return to Random String and will perform their music live using homemade electrical controllers.

If you ever wondered what would happen if youth culture was reinterpreted by people that lived in a swamp with only YouTube for reference, it might look like this.

Full details: tickets / facebook