Open call for participants, volunteers, and sponsors: info@auxfestival.com
Thanks to everyone who came out to the AUX 5 Experimental Arts Festival! If you missed the event, it was a great day of music, dance, installation, video, and performance. AUX was featured in a Pitchfork news story (with video) about the surprise guest performance at the end of the festival.
AUX 5
Experimental Arts Festival
On May 7, 2011 AUX hosted its fifth annual festival featuring performances, installations, video screenings, and special guest performances by Robert Schneider and Andrew Raffo Dewar. The daylong event took place in two venues in downtown Athens and attracted hundreds of spectators. Sponsored by Little Kings, Ciné, Vision Video, Nuçi's Space, Portapro Portable Productions, Transmetropolitan, Flagpole, and Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE).
Artwork by Hannah Jones
Robert Schneider
Apples in stereo leader, Elephant 6 co-founder and mathematician Robert Schneider demonstrates his Teletron, a circuit-bent Mattel MindFlex toy that enables the user to control a synthesizer with his or her mind, joined by guest synthesist Ben Phelan (Big Fresh/Apples in stereo). The conductor of this performance, neuroscientist Marc Sommer, reads Schneider's experimental score "Composition for Two Hemispheres" while connected with EEG sensors to two Moog synthesizers, each filtered to represent the left or right side of the conductor's brain. Stereophonic sound and 3D projections are incorporated to simulate the conductor's mental activity in the brains of the audience.
Andrew Raffo Dewar
Andrew Raffo Dewar is Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts in New College and the School of Music at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He holds an interdisciplinary BA in Anthropology, Music and Asian Studies from the University of Minnesota and an MA and Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University. Dewar’s research interests include experimentalism in the arts, intercultural music, jazz and improvisation, music and technology, and 1960s intermedia arts. In addition to his work as an ethnomusicologist, he is a soprano saxophonist and composer who regularly performs his work internationally. He studied with avant-garde jazz legends Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Bill Dixon, and experimental composer Alvin Lucier. He has also had a long involvement with Indonesian traditional and experimental music. Dewar’s compositions have been performed by the Flux Quartet (NYC), Sekar Anu (Indonesia), the Koto Phase ensemble (USA/Japan) and the XYZ composer’s collective (NYC).
AUX Vol. 2
"Very nice" - Signal to Noise magazine
AUX Vol. 2 is a collection of experimental sound curated by Heather McIntosh in a limited edition of 250 hand-printed packages designed by Joshua Ray Stephens and printed by David Savino. It features 17 previously unreleased tracks by artists from Athens and beyond and an original poem by Jeff Fallis.
Featured Artists
Derek Almstead
Visitations
Hannah Jones
Orthopedics
The Olivia Tremor Control
Jessica Pavone and Mary Halvorson
Killick
Jay Nackashi
feltbattery
Dave McDonnell
Our New Silence
mohtzégorf
Spider Veins
Jeremiah Cymerman
Nate Wooley
Christopher Hoffman
Aaron Siegel
Melted Men
horaflora
Dark Meat
Click here for more images of AUX Vol. 2
Click here for more images of AUX Vol. 1
AUX Vol. 1
limited copies still available for purchase online
AUX Vol. 1 is a collection of experimental sound from Athens, Georgia, presented in a limited-edition CD package.
The project features 18 audio tracks by various artists associated with the famed Athens independent music scene. Designed by graduate students in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the packaging is entirely hand printed and assembled using archival materials. Curators JoE Silva, Heather McIntosh, and Steven Trimmer selected a range of artists for the project, representing diverse means of production and approaches to sound.
The AUX Vol. 1 website was developed by John Crowe with the support of a Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO) Summer Fellowship.
Featured Artists
Paul Thomas
Chronicle Ape and the New Sound
Javier
Sarah Black
Korena Pang
W. Cullen Hart
Noisettes
Heather McIntosh
Make Out Music for Insects
Blake Helton and Colin Bragg
Desk Pussy
Mark Fisher
Hannah Jones
Matt Williams
The QRM
The Leapyear
Pelican City
Manipulated Sound Source
Design Team
Danielle Benson
Amanda Burk
Stephanie Dotson
Audrey Molinare
FAUST in Athens
Over 500 people came out to see Faust perform at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia on October 10, 2009. The Faust workshop quickly filled the next day. Many thanks to our co-sponsors Orange Twin Records, Nuci's Space, and Cine for helping to make this an extraordinary event.
Photographer Mike White posted amazing images of the performance and workshop on his site, deadlydesigns.com.
There are still some Faust posters available for purchase online for only $10. This is a limited edition, two-color handmade screenprint on archival paper designed and printed by Tate Foley and based on drawings by Will Hart. If you are in Athens contact info@auxfestival.com to purchase a poster directly and save on shipping.
AUX 4
Experimental Arts Festival
On April 10, 2010 AUX hosted its fourth annual festival featuring performances, visual art and sound installations, video screenings, artists' market, and special guest performances by Michael Columbia (Chicago/Cincinnati) and Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone (NYC). Sponsored by Little Kings, Ciné, Nuçi's Space, Flagpole, and Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE).
Poster Design by Joshua Ray Stephens
Artwork: Kiran Fernandes
Artwork: Tate Foley
Artwork: Javier Morales
Artwork: Audrey Molinare
AUX is an event and publication series devoted to experimental art in all forms. Based in Athens, Georgia, AUX is supported by Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE), an interdisciplinary initiative for advanced research in the arts at the University of Georgia.
Support future AUX Festivals by making a tax-deductible donation (include "AUX" in comment box) or by purchasing limited-edition copies of AUX Vol. 1 and 2.
Curator: Heather McIntosh
Executive Producer: Mark Callahan
Contact: info@auxfestival.com