Big month for sonic arts in Auckland this July

Auckland can expect unprecedented levels of sonic activity this July with imminent visits from internationally renowned sound artists for this year's Alt.music festival. Scheduled to perform are Pauline Oliveros (USA), Ione (USA), Metamkine (France), Runzelstirn and Gurglestock (Switzerland/Japan), Dave Phillips (Switzerland) Justice Yeldham and the Dynamic Ribbon Device (Australia). Joining them from around New Zealand are Phil Dadson, Plains with Michael Morley, and Crude.

Born in 1932, US composer Pauline Oliveros is a living legend having pioneered new ways of thinking about sound. In the late 1950s she was amongst the first US composers to work with electronic music alongside the likes of Steve Reich and Terry Riley. For this visit she will be reworking her seminal 1966 composition A Little Noise in the Sytem, the first to use her Expanded Instrument System and an important precursor to contemporary ideas of noise. She will also perform two recent pieces with regular collaborator, vocal artist Ione. Also playing is one of New Zealand's most respected senior sound artists, Phil Dadson.

Performing as part of the Telecom 39th Auckland International Film Festival, La Cellule d'Intervention Metamkine is an open-ended group including musicians and filmmakers. Researching relationships between image and sound through the magic of mirrors, multiple projectors and ingenious live-on-stage editing, Metamkine produces and directs a new film with each performance. Working around a core narrative, they spill eddies of impromptu vignettes accompanied by a live soundtrack of tape fragments and ancient synthesiser sounds. The three collaborators, who have worked together for ten years, have succeeded in pushing the boundaries of film and soundtrack into the realm of live performance. In the same spirit, Auckland electronic supergroup Plains will be performing in collaboration with a moving image work by Michael Morley.

Influenced by martial arts attack patterns and the notorious actions of the Viennese performance artists of the 1960s and 70s, Schimpfluch is a loose collective of bruitists and performers dealing with "psycho-physical tests and trainings". At the core of the group are Rudolf Eb.er, Dave Phillips and Joke Lanz(absent). Using sound, their often brutal performances challenge their audience's responses using anything from voice and handguns to a theremin and dead fish. Sharing the Shchimpfluch sensibility and joining them for their NZ tour is Australian glass performer Lucas Abela aka Justice Yeldham and the Dynamic Ribbon Device. Also joining them in Auckland is one of NZ's most prolific recording artists, Matt Middleton aka Crude.

Alt.music is an ongoing series of events, regularly bringing a vital injection of contemporary sound art from around the world to New Zealand. Organised by the Audio Foundation, Alt.music began as an international festival of experimental music and sound art in 2001, followed by successive festivals in 2002 and 2004. Previous Alt.Music artists include Keith Fullerton Whitman, Peter Rehberg, David Toop, Pan Sonic, Tetuzi Akiyama, Jon Rose, Voice Crack, Sachiko M, Francisco Lopez, Pierre Bastien, Oren Ambarchi, Alan Licht, Richard Nunns and the Dead C.

Alt.music is supported by Creative New Zealand, Fulbright Foundation, Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, AUT, The University of Auckland's National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, Liquid Architecture, Room40, Telecom 39th Auckland International Film Festival and The Edge in association with Stamp.

Pauline Oliveros, Ione and Phil Dadson
$20, Friday July 6, 2007, doors 7pm, starts 8pm
Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland

Free Deep Listening™ workshop with Pauline Oliveros and Ione at St Paul St Gallery,
AUT, 6pm BYO pillow

Metamkine and Plains with moving image work by Michael Morley
$20, Saturday July 14, 2007, doors 7pm, starts 8pm
Kenneth Myers Centre, University of Auckland, 74 Shortland Street, Auckland

Free artist talk by Metamkine's Jerome Noetinger date and time TBC
Schimpfluch-gruppe including Runzelstirn and Gurglestock, Dave Philips, Justice
Yeldham and the Dynamic Ribbon Device, and Crude
$15, Saturday July 28, 2007, doors 8pm, starts 9pm
Rising Sun, 373 Karangahape Rd, Auckland

Free workshop TBC

www.audiofoundation.org.nz