Plug-In the City of the Future

Music creation workshop: Participants will work on the construction of sound objects (plug-ins) of different sizes and formats as an analogy for the future soundscapes of the networked city. At the end of the workshop, these individual passages will be combined into a musical composition. Each participant will receive a CDR with the created material and additional information. 

Working on a previous Workshop Archigram Plug-In City project sparked Robert Lippok’s interest in architecture and the ability to transform it into sound. A constant source of inspiration for him is the work of the British architectural collective Archigram. The group was founded in the 1960s, and their visionary designs of “inflating” or “wandering” cities were revolutionary and still seem fresh and current. Archigram’s Plug-In City project consists of elements that can be combined to create an urban “megastructure.” Important city functions are housed in movable buildings and can be transported between different city areas as needed. Everything is freely combinable and can thus be adapted to the needs of constantly changing living conditions. Taking from adolescence, as period of constant transformation, the workshop wants to establish bridges between the shift into adulthood; the acceleration and the need for adaption to constant changes in contemporary global society, and the Archigram concepts of combinability and adaptability.

Plug-In the City of the Future workshop reflects on the city of the future sonic landscape based on the views of the future “decision making inhabitants” of our cities, this is the teenagers of the present.

As analogy of the future city soundscape, in this workshop, based on Archigram’s Plug-In City, Lippok will develop a musical megastructure. Individual short compositions, sounds and melody lines will be connected to form a structure that can be recombined again and again. At the end of the workshop, these individual passages will be combined into a musical composition. Each of the participants will get a CDR with the created material and additional information.

Plug-In the City of the Future is presented as part of the 9th edition of A*LIVE: Teen R-evolution, a multi-layered event by A*DESK, that will take place September 21 in the Auditorio of La Virreina Centre de la Imatge.

FACILITATED BY

Musician, stage designer and visual artist Robert Lippok.

METHODOLOGY

Participants will work on the construction of sound objects (plug-ins) of different sizes and formats as analogy of the future city soundscape. The sound blocks created by each participant will be recorder and each one willget a CDR with the created material and additional information.

TARGET AUDIENCE

People with musical knowledge from amateur to professional. Bring your instrument: synthesizer, flute, percussion, laptop, etc. and be amaze with the result!

MAXIMUM NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS

15 people.

WHEN

Monday 19 September, 16 to 20h.
Tuesday 20 September, 11 to 14h.

WHERE

La Virreina, Centre de la Imatge
Palau de la Virreina, La Rambla, 99, 08002 Barcelona

LANGUAGE

English.

PRICE

Free workshop.

INFORMATION AND INSCRIPTIONS

contact@a-desk.org

OBJECTIVES

Plug-In the City of the Future intends to facilitate an encounter to share ideas, explore sound and exchange inspiration. Sound, no matter what kind, is always present in our lives lives, the workshop wants to provide the knowledge and the dynamics of modular music creation, with plug-in techniques and tools that enable fluid and collaborative work amongst participants. Thus participants will work on the construction of sound objects (plug-ins) of different sizes and formats as analogy of the future city soundscapes.

Focusing on ideas by the controverted and pioneer architectural collective Archigram like: seeking the living city, integrate technology in the city; the concept of the Plug-In City, a city that could adapt to the required needs by removing and replacing components; or their retrofuturistic/science-fiction aesthetics, it is easy to see their influence in emerging technologies and the way we interact with them.

The sound blocks of each participant will be assembled in a sonic structure that will give way to improvisation generating a unique piece that is recorded and will be delivered to the participants.

PRIOR TO THE WORKSHOP

Investigations on how  teenagers see or how they will image the city of their future. What soundscapes do they listen in their daily life: while going to school, being with friends, etc. And last but not least, it is always good to have some initial ideas, questions, and topics that you want to experiment with during your time together.

ABOUT ROBERT LIPPOK

Robert Lippok is as a musician, stage designer and visual artist based in Berlin. He studied stage design at Kunsthochschule Weißensee Berlin. In 1984, he and his brother founded the experimental music project “Ornament und Verbrechen”. Lippok’s works are dedicated to the combination of spatial sound and architecture and have been exhibited at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Hamburger Bahnhof, and the Haus der Kunst in Munich, among others. As a composer, he has collaborated with the artists Doug Aitken, Olaf Nicolai, and Julian Charrière, with architect Arno Brandlhuber, and with choreographer Constanza Macras for various dance theater productions. Most recently, he released the solo album “Applied Autonomy” on the raster-media label. Lippok teaches at NYU Berlin and is a member of the Institut für Raumexperimente e.V., founded by Olafur Eliasson, as well as a curator at the Spatial Sound Institute in Budapest. With his audiovisual shows and live music, he has performed at the festival MUTEK, the Unsound Festival, L.E.V. Festival, Gamma Festival, Berghain and Funkhaus Berlin, among others.

More about Robert Lippok.

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[Front picture: Input #1 / Lunchmeat festival, Prague, 2017]