fbpx

#MTFLabs: Performance

With bionic artist Viktoria Modesta, MIT Media Lab, Ars Electronica Future Lab, #MusicBricks. Facilitated by Peter Kirn and Jasmine Idun Isdrake. 23-27 May. Audiences 28 May.

#MTFLabs: Blockchain

With Imogen Heap, Benji Rogers, Soundcloud, 7Digital, Jaak, Resonate, Ujo, Ascribe. Facilitated by Peter Harris and Petter Ericson. 23-27 May. On stage 28 May.

#MTFLabs: Vocal Tech

Facilitated by experimental vocalist Reeps One, with beatboxing champions, visual artists, and leading developers. 26-27 May. On stage 28 May.

#MTFLabs: Hack the Audience

Facilitated by IRCAM - Centre Pompidou.
With composers, performers, artists and leading developers.
26 May. On stage 29 May.

#MTFStage Friday 27 May

With Martin Molin (Wintergatan), Viktoria Modesta, Emika exclusive, Felix Faire, Robot Lego Band, GUNK-Geek Punk, Kicking The Mic, Playtronica, Somaphony.

#MTFStage Saturday 28 May

With Scanner, Graham Dunning, Eska, Reeps One, Ecce Cello, Matt Black, BLAM for Minecraft, MiMu Gloves, Blockchain, Vocal Tech Lab, #B.O.M.B., Performance Lab Exclusive Previews.

#MTFStage Sunday 29 May

With Sarah Farina, Ben Heck, Grace Savage, Jan Bang, Hack Berlin, element14 Hack Camp, Music and the Brain, Polyjam, #MTFKids, #MTFPrize and #MTFAllstars.

#MTFResearch Monday 30 May

With IRCAM, MIT, CERN, Berklee, Fraunhofer, Max Planck Institute, TU Wien, Umeå University, London College of Music, Integra Lab, UPF, MuArts, Native Instruments.

#MTFAmplifier

A gathering of industry insiders, investors, music tech startups and Berlin’s tech business community. Features startup pitches and a sneak preview of #MusicBricks project prototypes.

#MTFSoundpit

Startup showcase featuring fair trade music streaming, gesture-driven headphones, virtual instrument, brainwave performance platform, accessible interface for musicians with a disability.

#MTFHacks element14 Hack Camp

24-hour sprint towards a complete reinvention of the way we live and work with music and tech with components by the world’s biggest supplier and exclusive technology unavailable elsewhere.

#MTFTracks Trackathon

Ivor Novello nominated British record producer Ian Wallman coaches a select group of 12 emerging Berlin electronic producers to each create a killer dance track in just 24 hours.

#MTFJam

A space where anyone can sit down, hang out, pick up a musical instrument - perhaps a guitar, a keyboard, or something that was invented just that morning - and simply play.

#MTFSparks & #MTFKids

Educational experts lead two unique hack events where children and teens invent and learn physical computing and music skills, then showcase their creations on the main festival stage.

#MTFSpace

All the music tech projects too big to fit on the festival stage. The legendary Funkhaus becomes a labyrinth of rooms and corridors filled with curious experiments and sonic installations.

#MTFLates

An after-hours private gathering featuring performances by Sarah Farina, Matt Black (Coldcut), Emika, Graham Massey (808 State), Schockglatze, Peter Kirn and Soulmind with drinks by Jägermeister.
 

 

#MTFLabs

Two months in advance of #MTFBerlin, a group of artists, designers, hackers and makers gathered on a quest to create a new icon for the music industry. The result was a series of concepts, including ‘Smokification’ by Anouk Wipprecht for Viktoria Modesta and ‘Sonified carbon fibre body suit’ by Selina Bond and Adam John Williams.

This series is a collaboration between several artists and makers under the creative direction of Viktoria Modesta and Joanna Hir. Carbon fibre body by Selina Bond with shoes by Iris van Herpen X United Nude and creative concept for electronics by Anouk Wipprecht, sonification of the carbon fibre body by Adam John Williams. Prosthetic by the Alternative Limb Project. Photography by Nhu Xuan Hua. Styled by Joanna Hir, assisted by David Asmutis. MUA by Lan Nguyen-Grealis, hair Kim Roy, and set design Helen Sirp & Lisa Jahovic. Produced by Michela Magas and Viktoria Modesta.

Between the 23rd and the 27th of May 2016, some of these amazing minds joined specially invited artists, makers, designers and inventors to explore interactive performance and ‘Music as Extension of the Human Body’ in a secret chamber of the legendary Funkhaus. Results of this collaboration were accessible by hackers on Friday 27th and audiences on Saturday 28th of May, during #MTFBerlin.

FUNKHAUS 27-30 MAY 2016
 

 

In the last week of May 2016, the legendary Funkhaus turned into a giant creative laboratory - a labyrinth of rooms and corridors filled with curious experiments that fuse musical performance and cutting edge technologies. Artists you know well team up with the scientists, makers, hackers, designers, creative developers and genius inventors to create strange machines, amazing mixtures, incredible experiences and transhuman wonders. With experiments in mindreading controllers, interactive performances, microbiology synthesisers, bionic extensions and junkyard robotics - the laboratory of #MTFBerlin was a place to explore, discover, and get involved.
 

 

To get a sense for the performance stage, watch the above highlights from #MTFParis at the Centre Pompidou, #MTFLondon at the Barbican LSO St Lukes, #MTFScandi at Sliperiet in Umeå, #MTFCentral at Cankarjev Dom in Ljubljana, and the 2014 edition of #MTFBerlin at Factory.
 

 

Transhumanism “epitomises the most daring, courageous, imaginative and idealistic aspirations of humanity”. Bionic artists created new musical fashion wearables; creative technologists spliced the inherently experimental Gunk (geek punk) ethos with notions of gender and accessibility to create new forms, new powers, and new ways of being anything other than merely ‘normal’. The element14 Hack Camp at #MTFBerlin provided 90 selected artists, hackers, makers and developers with the tools they need to build new ways of interacting with music.
#MTFBerlin
 

 

Music is a social glue that brings together innovators and creatives. Blockchain tech offers the chance to make the economics of music genuinely fair and provides an industry-wide test case for disruptive innovation across verticals. Innovation that applies the latest technologies to age old problems provides not just new revenue streams, but whole new industry paradigms.

The results of the week-long blockchain laboratory were showcased at the festival. Industry insiders had an exclusive preview of new #MusicBricks products and startup ideas at the #MTFAmplifier networking event that brought together the entire music tech business ecosystem.

 

 

“Sound is such an organisational force. It has so much power.”
Reeps One on his work with Cymatics, #MTFScandi, May 2015

“Lemon is basically like being punched in the face with an A (major)”
LJ Rich on synaesthesia induced by Emil Åreng, #MTFScandi, May 2015

The MTF ecosystem includes music innovation, sonic arts, music hacking and making, music as a tool of social inclusion and social change, and projects that use music technology in media, medicine, public space, everyday life and transversally across industries beyond the normal reach of music. The #MTFResearch Network explores these ideas in the symposium on Monday 30th, following the festival. The 4-day ticket provides entry to the symposium and membership of the international research network as well as the full weekend festival programme.

FUNKHAUS 27-30 MAY 2016
 

 

#MTFBerlin is at Funkhaus - a fantastic venue for music technology enthusiasts. It boasts what is to this day the largest recording studio on earth, phenomenal acoustics throughout, and contains many of its original technical features. Its period decor and grand scale made the building itself into one of the stars of Spielberg’s Oscar-winning film Bridge of Spies. With half-price concessions for students, regular free shuttles to and from Ostkreuz station, and access to spaces that would ordinarily be completely inaccessible to the public, Music Tech Fest is an incredible opportunity to perform, collaborate and experiment in this uniquely historic venue.