36. Federmeister - Tribe of Dionysus

I'm really satisfied with this latest piece of music directly from my workshop. I didn't planning to include any lyrics, but they just fell on a piece of paper while I was listening the recording before the sleep. In Slovene this time. And the chorus goes: "We're coming from the tribe of Dionysus..."

33. Federmeister - Last Chance for a Dance

Winter was not so hard so I managed to build my new working place which could be used as a workshop for constructing my instruments either as rehearsal studio for my musical projects. I set up my musical rig and spent a week rehearsing my solo repertoire, composing and recording some new materials. Here's 'Last Chance for a Dance' from 'Renegade' performance.
Stay tuned for some new stuff in following weeks...

27. Operation DEWESoft

It was s month ago when Janez, a colleague and collaborator of mine, invited me to join him for a meeting at DEWESoft company from Trbovlje, Slovenia. Even if you're not from around here, you might have heard about Trbovlje in regards to Laibach, internationally renown alternative band which originally gathered in this industrial town almost four decades ago.

 Well, if we state that Laibach once put Trbovlje on the artistic map of the world, it is the DEWESoft who does that for Trbovlje on the global technological map. In short, company produces high-end measuring devices and develops special software which visualizes output data. Let me just mention that their systems were used on Space Shuttle launch pad, on International Space Station and for launching of Ariane rockets - you’d probably get the right impression on how very serious and passionate about their jobs these guys are.

So. It was quite an experience to sit at the table in their conference room and hear about how could we helped them. They were in midst of preparations for an annual conference for their partners and someone got an idea about a special musical performance, with music prepared especially for the occasion. And, for things not to be too simple, song has to feature one of their measuring modules as an instrument. Good. Things already felt interesting although we haven’t put down a single note yet. In fact, we never really use notes when composing, what we really needed at the moment was a place to experiment and rehearse with our retro futuristic gear.
In short: no problem. They calmly gave us an office in the basement and even door cards so we could come and work anytime as we wanted. As a long time freelancer I got scared for a moment that I got stuck with a regular job.

We had two weeks to accomplish the mission, so we brought basic equipment to the office and started right away. For the first few days there was not much to hear or show, since we spent it mostly on discussions about the composition and its performance with some loud beats thrashing through the building from time to time. And, the more the composition grew in our heads, the more gear appeared in the office. Which eventually become smaller and smaller. Cables, instruments, sound effects and metal rigs lying everywhere around, as always when we dive in the creative process. After few days, when we finally completed our project in the office was completely filled with kick, two toms, two snares, two drum pads, theremin, typewritter, efektor, dozens of cymbals, bells and coils, few effects, metal sheet, computer and, of course, our good ’ol friend, an angle grinder. Lots of toys for two pairs of hands.

The following days we finally took the sticks and tools in our hands and the basement area become loudly unsuitable for any serious work or even talk. Things couldn't get unnoticed and people started popping up, curiously checking what's going on. I appeared that Janez and I became quite an intriguing amusement during their work time. All of the guys seemed to be engineers, with some of them turned up to be musicians, so they quickly got an idea how to attach some sensors to our gear and visualize sound vibrations on their machines.

Finally, we had to incorporate one of those measuring devices into our composition. So, our team was briefly joined by new member Sašo who reprogramed their module into some kind of a rhythm machine which took a lead in a part of the composition.

Days flew by quickly as more and more fun escalated in our rehearsal room. One day we had an opportunity to meet Jure Knez and Andrej Orožen, the founders of the company. Duo, always sparkling with bright ideas, became quite enthusiastic about our work. It didn’t take long as they proposed a wish to perform with group of coworkers at the end of the conference. At first, quite surprised by their suggestion, we quickly picked ourselves up, got additional 20 barrels and held a special three-day workshop for them, to prepare their gig. Believe me, smashing a  metal barrel with XL wrench is not a piece of cake but Jure and Andrej didn't hesitate to get their hands dirty and easily learned the trick.

If you are interested in latest DEWESoft achievements, you will find the whole conference at a link bellow. Our performance starts on 27:00 and DEWESoft tribe rocks the place at the very end. Twice!

16. Retrophonics

It's another low/no budget project I've made together with my long time collaborator Boštjan Drinovec.For some 15 years we collaborate on our sonic sculptures, experimenting, looking for materials and mechanisms, assembling, finding things out...or not. It's a creative play of sculptor and metamechanic, an attempt to create a public sonic sculpture which attracts people with it's shape and form, fire their imagination and invite them to transform it into an instrument.

Opening performance was held on the exhibition garden of ZDSLU, Ljubljana in September 2015. I used some pickups, effects and a looper to make Retrophonics play in it's very own manner. And that's how it sounds...

15. Children Of Adam and Eve

After succesfull collaboration on a short movie One Hundred Dogs, Jan Cvitkovič invited me again to make compositions for his project Children Of Adam And Eve, staged in National Theatre Nova Gorica. Shortly after begining of rehersals he asked me to join them with efektor. It was intense, focused, strict, upredictable and exciting.    I have to react very precisely, follow the rhythm of silences, words and gestures. So different experience from following musicians or playing on click. The play started to grow from Jan's text, dedicated actors become alive and words were slowly transforming into voices. My compositions were following them and becoming together with them. You never go so far as when you don't know where you're going. That's the principle of creativity and principle of human history. We all are children of Adam and Eve, walking through time, following ideas, falling into history.

14. The Stroj's special appearance on TV Slovenia

We were invited to perform live on TV Slovenia for a production called Arrhythmic Concert, so we took a chance and do our best in their studios. TV crew was very supportive, they even invited some audience to the studio which gave us good push during performance. There are two videos, so check it out!

13. Federmeister –' To Mechanics!' on MFRU 2014

 

Past autumn I was invited again to make a performance for International Festival Of Electronic Arts in Maribor, Slovenia. I was glad that organizers make some space for more analogue/mechanical/electro approaches in their programme so I took a chance to introduce less known but very meaningful manifesto of great slovenian avantgarde poet Srečko Kosovel, titled 'To Mechanics!'

Manifesto, which Kosovel wrote in July 1925, a year before his death at 22, begins: »Mechanics cannot die because it has no soul. Paradox is incomprehensible to mechanics because it transcends mechanical laws. Paradox is a leap from mechanics into life. Paradox is alive as an  electricity. But electricity is not mechanical. Electricity is an element. SO DON'T BE MECHANICAL, BE ELECTRICAL!«

As a metamechanic I am deeply intrigued by this visionary text and it's meaning in digital age. But more about that after July this year, when Federmeister's special performance will took place on his Bukovje Base farm to dignify 90th anniversary of creation of the manifesto.

One of the compositions I include into the performance was also 'Fail Better' which I dedicated to another visionary deeply connected to electricity – Nikola Tesla. It was performed for the first time and I used qoutes from his interviews as a text. This time in Slovene. English version will follow as a studio track... Stay tuned...

12. Concert for efektor and two 3D printers

  

I was invited to prepare a solo performance with two 3D printers for MFRU – KIBLIX 2013 (International Festival of Computer Art) organized in Maribor by Kibla. Initiator of the project was curator Jože Slaček and Jan Sterniša joined as 3D printer operator.

The project capitalizes on the acoustics typical of plastic wire 3D printing processes. Two printers will be printing two different objects, causing different sound effects, but due to the typical repetitive movements there is a chance of occasional synchronicity. The rhythmic background is enhanced by my performance on efektor. The entire performance is topped off by a video projection consisting of 3D animations and a live captured recording.

The story of 3D printing began in 1986 with the invention of stereolitography, which uses thermal lasers to manufacture individual forms from raw materials. This gave rise to the development of 3D printer models that represent modern-day desktop printers or “personal factories”. Today, 3D printers are the technology that anticipates some of future’s greatest changes. The expectations are immense: manufacturing of clothes, medicine, food and even human organs. The scheduled program will shed some light on the possibilities of 3D technologies and their creative use.

Videos and more information about authors are available on:

http://mfru-kiblix.si/koncert-3d-tiskanja-joze-slacek-ortotip-2013/?lang=en 

11. RENEGADE – The poet of the trash

»My name is Franz. Professor Franz Spielmann.

I'm a philosopher by education, drummer by my heart and renegade by my profession.

I come to
 tell you a story.

Story about events which had to happen, that we meet each other here tonight...«

These are the opening lines from Renegade, musical stereodrama for a man and a machine. But as prof. Spielmann said, many important events had to happen before he could take over the stage and told us his story.

Past two years I've felt a strong urge to express some of my metamechanical ideas. As we know from McLuhan on »The medium is the message«, so I had to find my own way how to do it. I've already wrote some texts about metamechanics, had some lectures and made a short documentary for TV Slovenia, but I was still looking for a new form to present my ideas to the public.

Past June I've moved to Bukovje area near Laško in a small family house we had for more than 30 years. It is a place where the road ends, but also a place where the only frontier of becoming of your spirit is your imagination. I had to be alone to made an inner space in myself where my becoming could resonate strong enough to become real.

I've arranged an improvised recording studio and rehersal room in a garage. For next three months during summer I've composed the rest of the music and prepared myself for live performance, merging elements of drama, concert and ritual with techical help of my mostly selfmade gear.

Professor Franz Spiellman, a renegade who left modern society and found his new home, life and it's meaning on a junkyard, researching a trash and making strange machines out of it.  He call them 'meaning generators', machines which aim is not a highly efficient production of material things but production of pure meaning.

Renegade is a visionary who recognized  an infinite potential of the trash:

»Trash is dark side of modern world. Banned and forgotten world beyond Narcissus  mirror. Trash is omnipotence – universal material  of the future. The only limitation of  potency of  trash, final frontier of  its recombining possibilities is only our knowledge and imagination.«

And last but not least: Renegade is the pioneer and teacher for the future generations which will have to cope with problems they got from us as the only gift.