Circuit Bending Videos

A documentary film by Jack Oatmon. A look into the hardware hacking community in Montreal, including the Foulab collective. Why are more and more hobbyists experimenting with hacks and circuit bends? What relationship does this imply about consumer society and technological advancement? Is this a real-world analog of 'user generated content'? Check out more music by XC3N: http://www.last.fm/music/XC3N

Handmade Music Night, brought to you by Create Digital Music, Etsy.com, Make Magazine, and 3rd Ward. This episode featuring: E-Squared: http://www.myspace.com/operationplaymate Peter Edwards http://casperelectronics.com Special thanks to: Pabst Blue Ribbon & XLR8R Magazine

Slovenian Synthpop | To know how music was created brings forth a certain surplus- or disappointment, respectively. This is especially true for electronic music. Circuit bending punks, bearded men over analogue synthesizers and console-tuning kids always appeard more interesting to me than fancy Macbook nerds. Thus, Sloveanian Electropop duo New Wave Syria got my attention right away. Girl (Urša) and boy (Rok) perform on a battery of cheap little synths and drum machines, curly head Urša sings and shouts over the instrumentals. Dreamy and noisy, the band settles their niche between hipster Pop a la The Ting Tings on the one and 80's influenced psychedelia on the other hand. New Wave Syrias' debut EP "Hello, Yes" on Cheap Tunes Records is best when the shoegazing elements dominate. "Vitamins" and "Random Logic" are noisy little Pop tracks with good melodies and a lot of teenage flippancy, while "Let It Out" and "Audiorape" sound rather London or NYC than Slovenia. You are free to judge this as a compliment, but I like the introspect tunes better. Refreshing album! MP3 Pop Music Download Download: "Hello, Yes" (ZIP) Release: New Wave Syria - "Hello, Yes" Artist-Website: myspace.com/newwavesyria Netlabel: cheaptunesrecords.com

'Classics' is a video installation derived from using a process called 'circuitbending' to distort and control the graphics on a Nintendo Entertainment System. The concept was inspired by a post on an internet message board which brought into question the ultimate fate of old hardware such as the Nintendo. Will the hardware be kept alive by those who value it, despite its obsolete nature? Or will the passage of time truly bring about the death of the original experience? 'Classics' is comprised of circuitbent graphics from 25 classic games, shown in a 25-second looping video. When installed in a gallery, the footage loops on a TV while connected to a Nintendo system in order to appear as if the system itself is producing its own ominous death rattle. My goal was to open a conversation on the preservation of original experience, as well as explore the the aesthetic of 'glitching' hardware. Audio was produced by Spamtron and Phlogiston by sampling various audio glitches and distortions.