Conversations in the JAZZIZ Lounge
Welcome to a series of fascinating, in-depth magazine-style interviews, book releases, previews and discussions with inventors, pioneers and influencers in the JAZZIZ Lounge at MTF Stockholm.
The talks stage features an incredible lineup of inspiring people from around the world in conversation - representing all areas of industry, academia, the arts, sciences and public life. Rather than a series of keynotes, speeches, panel sessions or powerpoint presentations, the magazine-style interviews and intimate performances at MTF Stockholm provide a personal insight into the world and the stories of each of these amazing individuals.
Imogen Heap
#Mycelia #blockchain
Imogen Heap blurs the boundaries between pure art form and creative entrepreneurship. She is an internationally-successful recording artist and creator of the Mycelia Creative Passport - a blockchain platform that aims to become a digital identity standard for music makers. For the week leading up to the festival weekend, Imogen has led the MTF Blockchain Labs. Here she reveals the results - and talks about her incredible career.
Veronica Augustsson
#Cinnober #fintech
Veronica is former CEO of Cinnober - Sweden’s leading financial technology company. For Veronica, diversity and gender equality are needed not only in business, but throughout the technology sector - and putting creativity at the centre of innovation is critical.
Nancy Baym
#Microsoft #research
Nancy is an internet research pioneer, senior researcher at Microsoft NERD Labs in Cambridge, MA and the author of ‘Personal Connections in the Digital Age’. At MTF Stockholm, she is launching her new book ‘Playing to the Crowd’ - exploring the relationships between musicians and their fans on social media.
Peter Jenner
#PinkFloyd #rights
Peter’s career includes managing Pink Floyd, T. Rex, Ian Dury, Billy Bragg, The Clash, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Baaba Maal, Sarah Jane Morris and many more. He is an expert and regular commentator on digital music rights and leads an annual invitation-only industry round table event in Kristiansand. He joins us to reflect on a life in popular music, and to discuss next steps for the future of the industry, artists and audiences.
Nenad Bach
#worldpeaceinonehour
Nenad is a composer, recording artist, producer and peace activist. He has collaborated with Bruce Springsteen, Pavarotti, Leonard Cohen, U2’s Bono & The Edge, Brian Eno and many more. He joins us at MTF to present his ambitious project: World Peace in One Hour.
Lina Nyberg
#vocalist #postterrestrial
Lina is one of Sweden’s most creative and innovative jazz singers. Her music mixes influences from Brazilian tropicalia, European free form, contemporary classical, the Great American Songbook, and traditional jazz. She recently released the 17th record of her award-winning career: Terrestrial. It’s the third in a trilogy of double albums that explore humanity, the world, and the nature of music itself. Where to from here?
Danica Kragic
#Robotics #AI
Danica is a Professor at the School of Computer Science and Communication at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. She is currently the lead investigator on a groundbreaking 10-year, 1-billion kroner AI research project funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. She is both a robotics scientist and a seamstress - and emphasises the art and science duality of life, not just in respect of what makes us human, but also what we can teach the machines.
Michael Fagien
#JAZZIZ #pioneer
Michael is a pioneer in the music media space and creator of the world’s first hybrid analog/digital media company. He launched JAZZIZ Magazine in 1983 while in Medical School at the University of Florida, and was first to bundle a digital compact disc inside a print magazine. Today, JAZZIZ is taking the music experience to version 3.0…
Sven Maričić
#3Dprinting #humanparts
Sven is a pioneer in 3D modelling for medical applications. He creates 3D printed designs for facial reconstruction and other surgical procedures - even working remotely on live operations taking place in other countries. Today, he’s a professor at two universities, runs 3D printing workshops for both children and adults, and is an award-winning populariser of science.
Graham Massey
#808 #state
Graham is a founding member of 808 State, pioneers of the acid house sound in the late 1980s. He composed the soundtrack to the film ‘It’s All Gone Pete Tong’, co-wrote and co-produced “Army of Me” and “The Modern Things” for Björk’s album Post, and is a member of the Part Time Heliocentric Cosmo Drama After School Club - a Sun Ra tribute band. He joins us to share his love for the machines that make the noises.
Harry Yeff
#cymatics #neuralnetworks
Harry (aka Reeps One) is an award-winning composer, champion beatboxer, Nokia Bell Labs artist-in-residence, Harvard artist-in-residence, specialising in merging performance, technology and vocal experimentation. He has performed live with an AI beatboxing twin, and is at Music Tech Fest to further explore neural networks and expand the limits of the human voice.
Anne Dvinge
#bionic #entrepreneur
Anne is the founder of Low-Fi - an online community for user-generated, intimate musical performances. An amputee since birth, Anne is “fully embracing her cyborgness” with a 3D printed fairing for the lower leg of her prosthesis - which she intends to modify to create musical applications in the MTF 24-hour Hack Camp.
Åsa Unander-Scharin
#drone #opera
Åsa is a dancer, researcher and professor of musical design. She began working with robots during the 1990s after creating animated dances on screen. When she first encountered an industrial robot, she realised that inside it lives a dancer, who could make breathtaking backward bends and express emotion.
Jan Bang
#sculpting #fractions
Jan Bang is a Norwegian musician, ECM recording artist, record producer and founder of Punkt festival. He’s known for collaborations with Morten Harket, Sidsel Endresen, David Sylvian, Nils Petter Molvær, Arild Andersen, Bugge Wesseltoft, Arve Henriksen and Erik Honoré. Jan’s instrument of choice is a sampler - taking tiny fractions of sounds from the musicians around him live as they play and shaping those infinitesimal moments into lush sonic landscapes.
Emil Åreng
#synaesthesia #mixology
Emil Åreng is one of the best drinks mixers on the planet and is also author of the 2017 World Cocktail Book of the Year. Together with BBC presenter, synaesthete and MTF Hack Queen LJ Rich he will create a unique synaesthetic experience, live on stage, that turns taste into music - one ingredient at a time.
LJ Rich
#BBC #synaesthsia
LJ is well known for presenting on the BBC’s flagship technology show ‘Click’, though she’s gathering notoriety talking about her synaesthesia - a mixing of the senses that gives her both super-powers and fatal flaws! She has always been incredibly astute musically, perhaps due to her senses being mixed together. Imagine sound and music triggering colour, taste or touch - and the other way around.
Stephen Ying
#DMC #Spinbox
Stephen is a DMC world champion turntablist, plays the flute and is the founder of Spinbox: affordable build-it-yourself record players. He is a proponent of ‘portabilism’ - a growing cultural phenomenon that brings music-making outside with DJs cutting and scratching on portable turntables in impromptu gatherings in parks and public spaces.
Martin James
#Prodigy #biography
Professor Martin James is a music journalist, author and biographer. His books include ‘State of Bass: Jungle – The Story So Far’, ‘French Connections: From Discotheque to Discovery’ and ‘Understanding the Music Industries’ - as well as biographies of Fat Boy Slim, Dave Grohl, Moby and more. He joins us at MTF Stockholm to launch ‘We Eat Rhythm’ - part 1 of a 3-volume intimate and comprehensive biography of The Prodigy.
Argavan Agida
#art #empowerment
Arghavan’s Artdom project creates spaces where female artists can interact and empower each other by giving the public tools to be inspired by their work. Artdom creates understanding and awareness about women’s rights as well as women’s freedom of expression through artistic cooperation. By crossing cultural boundaries and building bridges between two countries, Iran and Sweden, the women involved in this project have managed to achieve strong ties and create an amazing level of empowerment. The project creates an opportunity for female Iranian artists to connect with western female artists and collaborate on a unified piece.
Pia Erkinheimo
#open #innovation
Pia is a “Jacqueline of all trades” in innovation, chairs the board of SOLVED – The Sustainability Company, advises to the European Commission on Innovation, and is a board member of the largest angel network in Europe. As an investor, she looks at businesses where impact investing, blockchain and big data meet with crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and paid crowd-working business models. She joins us at MTF Stockholm to share her philosophy and her journey.
