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The RAFLOST festival will be taking place from the 25th until 27th of May in various locations in Reykjavík.  The schedule will be announced soon.

Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir is a multidisciplinary artist based in Reykjavík, Iceland. Her work often explores the fringes of poetry, performance art and experimental music.

Artist Halldór Úlfarsson and composer Hlynur A. Vilmarsson join forces to create a hi-fi/elemental experiment.

Halldór Úlfarsson (1977) studied fine art and design in Helsinki, Finland. His practice has gradually become inseperable from his project the halldorophone, an electro-acoustic string instrument he´s been developing for the past years. The halldorophone features in many new compositions by contemporary composers premiered at new music festivals in recent years. When Halldór works with the halldorophone himself it´s most often in the form of arranging collaborations, instrumentations and locations that strategically positions the instrument within the western musical tradition.

Hlynur A. Vilmarsson studied composition at Reykjavík College of Music and electronic music at Kópavogur School of Music. His music has been played in Europe, USA and Asia by groups like Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Brodsky String Quartet, Uusinta Chamber Ensemble and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Hlynur was chairman of UNM (Ung Nordisk Musik) from 2000-2007 and is now member in composers collective s.l.á.t.u.r. and Lornalab (Reykjavik media lab). Hlynur has also composed music for theater and film and played in various pop and rock bands.

Þórður Kári Steinþórsson is an electronic musician from the southeastern districts of Reykjavík and sometimes goes under the name Kosmodod. This Berlin based artist is one of the co-founders of Sweaty Records, the brand new Berlin/Reykjavik electro label, as well as being the producer of the infamous band Samaris.

This Raflost he will be performing an electronic improvisation jam.

Sigrún Jónsdóttir is an Icelandic musician and composer. She studied at the Icelandic Academy of the arts from 2011-2015 alongside touring with various bands around the world.

In her most recent work she has been exploring the components of everyday noise and sounds. Taking them a part, frequency by frequency, and manipulating until it turns into something completely new, sometimes musical sometimes not. Inspired by the meetingpoint of musical imagery and the mainstream song.

https://soundcloud.com/beinteins89

Video artist Haraldur Karlsson og Composer Daniel Schorno are former classmates of Sonology where they among other things studied the making of alternative electronic instruments. They have been active for almost two decades in giving exhibitions, workshops and performances.

Daniel Schorno

under the alias ‘zitegeist’ daniel schorno travels the globe performing on new eponymous analoge and digital instruments & crackle scorpion sound sculptures. zitegeist’s musical noosphere is informed by razor edge cut & cued sounds and laser fast resynthesis. recent duos have included luminaries like haraldur karlsson, joel ryan, dj sniff and installation work with ana rewakowicz, adéla součková and mouse-on-mars’ jan st werner on the ‘noiseroom’.

http://zitegeist.net/

Haraldur Karlsson

Haraldur Karlsson (1967, Reykjavik, Iceland) holds a diploma in Mixed-Media from the Icelandic art school in Reykjavik and BA diploma in Media-Art from AKI Enchede, Holland. Further to this he studied Sonology over 3 years in the Royal Conservatorium Den Haag under the guidance of professor Clarence Barlow. For many years Karlsson worked at the Icelandic Academy of Arts as the head of Media-Lab, which he had designed. Karlsson has had exhibitions, performances and lectures in Iceland, Holland, Belgium, England, Czech Republic, Finland and Norway. He is currently based in Oslo and works on several video-art commissions.

http://haraldur.net/

Mengi, Saturday the 28th at 21:00

RAFLOST invites applications for people to take part in Iceland´s 1st Hebocon ( a robot sumo-wrestling competition for those who are not technically gifted ).

Open to all ages, all abilities.  Please email samtrees@gmail.com to enrol in the competition – applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

For examples of Hebocon, see – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ivFpsmEVQ

Organised by Sam Rees and Arnar Ómarsson.

Presenter: Steinunn Eldflaug

Nicolas Kunysz is a Reykjavik based Belgian mixed media artist formerly trained as MA in product/industrial designer at La Cambre, Brussels.

Since then Nicolas has been working with various artists, designers and companies (Jerzsy Seymour, Wim Delvoye, Sruli Recht, Mundi to name a few).

In 2012 he founded The Makery, a design workshop and Lady Boy Records, a music label.
Nicolas’s focus is widely cross disciplinary and include a fair amount of absurdity and/or so called chance operations in his work. From voluntary errors to serious programming work, he likes set up processes where randomness and obsessive control participate together generating a never ending dynamic.

Sam Rees is a British artist based in the Northeast of Iceland where he manages a small arts centre and residency. He teaches basic coding and electronics in the design faculty at LHI and has a passion for lo-fi work by outsiders and those marginalised by the mainstream.

http://www.ififoundafrozentimewarpidputitinthemicrowaveatyourhouse.co.uk/

T-EMP (Trondheim Electroacoustic Music Performance) is an ensemble performing improvised electroacoustic music, closely linked to performance explorations in music technology at Department of Music, NTNU (see more information about T-EMP below).

T-EMP workshop, Iceland Academy of the Arts, May, 23. and 24.:

We invite musicians from different musical genres to bring their instruments (acoustic, electronic or laptop) and headphones to a practical workshop where the members of T- EMP will use real-time audio processing as a musical instrument in interplay with the participants.

The workshop will focus on the following topics:

• Music technology in interplay with music performance
• Real-time processing of musical sounds
• Musical communication
• Exercises for improvisation with musical sounds and sound events.

Time schedule:

Monday, May, 23., 10.00 – 14.30:
10.00 – 11.00: Introduction and demonstration
11.00 – 12.30: Duo performances including participants and members of T-EMP
12.30 – 13.00 Break
13.00 – 14.00: Performance with all participants
14.00 – 14.30: Summary/discussion

Tuesday, May, 24., 10.00 – 14.30:
10.00 – 11.00: Performance with all participants
11.00 – 12.30: Introduction to rehearsal strategies, followed by performances
12.30 – 13.00: Break
13.00 – 14.00: Performance with all participants
14.00 – 14.30: Summary/discussion

T-EMP (Trondheim Electroacoustic Music Performance)
was started as part of the performance explorations around music technology at Department of Music, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), investigating how technology makes us play differently, how it enables new modes of communication within the ensemble, and new creative improvisation methods inspired by the sonic sculpting enabled by custom made audio processing software and instruments. The band started in 2011 and has during the past 5 years collaborated with many different musicians and performed several concerts in Norway, Sweden and Ireland. T-EMP has also received economical support from Norwegian Artistic Research Programme, and recorded an album which was released in 2015: “Evil Stone Circle”, see: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/temptrondheimelectroacou
See also: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/48123/48124

The RAFLOST festival 2016 will happen on the 25th – 28th of May.

Stay tuned!

MANKAN is a live electronics duo exploring the inner qualities of sounds and visuals using real time sampling and processing. They have developed a highly interactive setup providing a very open and intuitive playground. Both Tom and Vignir are experienced musicians and work simultaneously in very different styles of music, brass bands, instrumental indie music, classical choir singing, big band afro funk and of course electronic music. Vignir is also a visual artist, working with real time generative graphics through diverse installations and performances.

In their fruitful collaboration as Mankan they set out to investigate and put to the test their spontaneous musical nerve shootings. With the use of a very reactive rig, their performance offers a lively dialog between two artists with different backgrounds but sharing a very similar approach to Music.