GEIGEN is a techno violin performance duo formed in San Francisco, in the fall of 2018, by artist Gígja Jónsdóttir and composer Pétur Eggertsson. They discovered that both of them had quit playing the violin in their adolescence after many years of training. The stagnated music education system had scared them off but the violin had a big impact on their lives and they shared the interest to bring the instrument back into their work.

GEIGEN rebels against the classical image of the violin, it is the need to break out of traditional systems, it embraces the violin and attempts to bring it into the future. GEIGEN is an exploration of how to stretch the sonic world of the violin, both keeping the acoustic quality of the instrument as well as using different effects and filters and mixing it with techno creating something other-worldly.

GEIGEN creates transformative concert experiences, called the Geigen Galaxies, where the audience are not only audience but participants and fellow travellers in a spaceship nightclub.

GEIGEN has performed multiple Geigen Galaxies in various venues and festivals around Iceland. Each Geigen Galaxy is a unique experience, constantly developing – both sonically and performatively.

A digital art exhibition in 3D featuring a new visual and sonic artwork in a three dimensional world created by Steinunn Eldflaug.

New to live-coding King Karda$hian explores the magic of words, symbols, and numbers as they are translated through algorithms into sounds.

Sigríður Birna Matthíasdóttir completed an MA in design exploration and translation at the Iceland University of the Arts last spring. Prior to that, she studied fashion design at Studio Berçot in Paris. Currently, her work involves avatars, virtual fashion, and face filters for Instagram. Using digital technology to examine and develop new aesthetics and standards of beauty.

The RAFLOST festival will be taking place on the 21st-24th of May 2020 at various venues in Reykjavik.  As a platform for ideas and experiments with new media/electronics/technology/sound/art/performance/feelings/cyber/organism/etcetera the festival will bring together local and international artists.

If you are interested to perform or participate in the festival, please send a message to: raflost@raflost.is (please note that RAFLOST is an ultra-low-budget festival with limited production possibilities).

https://www.facebook.com/raflost

Media artist.

Jóhann Eiríksson and Hallvarður Ásgeirsson meet at the crossing of industrial and electro acoustic music. They will perform a piece combining the feedback instrument Varðiphone with modular synthesizers.

Jóhann Eiriksson has been active in the Icelandic music scene for decades. He is a founding member of electronic / post industrial groups Gjöll with writer / vocalist Sigurður Harðarsson , and Reptilicus with Guðmundur Ingi Markússon. And has also released solo projects under his own name (or variants thereof). As well as being an influential musician, he has worked with a diverse group of artists as a producer. http://johanneiriksson.com/

Hallvarður Ásgeirsson is a composer and guitarist working with the metamorphosis of live instruments. He uses a custom built Varðiphone, working with feedback and using a modular pickup enabling isolated processing of each string. He has written music for the films The Disadvantages of Time Travel and the Moment by Richard Ramchurm and the dance pieces Scape of Grace, Blýkufl and Predator by Saga Sigurðardóttir. He has released several albums on his own label Andrými and on Paradigms Recordings. http://hallvardurasgeirsson.com

Kaðlín Sara Ólafsdóttir is a sound artist currently studying at the Institute of Sonology
in The Hague. Mostly she works with tape and cassettes, exploring the possibilities of
low-quality sound and obsolete materials. Kaðlín makes sound installations and live
performances using modified cassette players and old cassettes, exposing the fragile
materiality of the cassette and the recorded stories that it holds.

Kaðlín will perform a piece called læti, for a hacked cassette player, live electronics and voice.

The piece is based on the display of a three dimensional tomographic image of a four dimensional box (hypercube) onto a two dimensional screen.  Visitors can view this three dimensional shape from all angles using an interactive control panel.  An accompanying sound world is created by the 3D shape’s viewing angle.

In his work, Hákon Bragason deals with our experience of the surroundings and how it is controlled by various sensations, equipment etc.  He normally uses media such as electronic appliances, digital technology and sounds that are presented together in interactive installations.

Kurt Uenala is a swiss electronic musician now based in Reykjavik after many years in New York City. He has composed and worked on numerous acclaimed music recordings such as Depeche Mode, Moby and The Kills during his time abroad.
He first made his name in 2003, debuting on the essential compilation The Sound Of Young New York. His song “Die Sleeping” was an early classic of dreamy, club-ready synth wave, and it caught the attention of fans and artists around the world. It eventually landed him a gig recording with Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan, not to mention a long list of major acts such as Moby and The Kills.
The collaboration with Dave from Depeche Mode was especially fruitful—it wasn’t long before Kurt began writing original songs for the band. His love for vintage synthesizers, dark electronic music, and exploring unusual chord structures was a natural fit. The more Kurt worked with Dave and Depeche Mode, the more time he spent at the Manhattan recording studio. He soon started writing his own shadowy, melancholic songs, filling them with angular beats and moody atmospheres that would become his debut album “Cryosleep”.

Inspired by retro sci-fi films, electronic innovators and new wave, Kurt released his debut album under the artist name Null + Void. The album puts his extensive production experience into a wide variety of songs. Vocal performances by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Big Pink, Light Asylum and Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan bring their resonant humanity into the music’s austere beauty and cold dynamism. There are mighty rhythmic tracks too: the single “Asphalt Kiss” is built on Detroit electro’s mechanical bounce and has a sinister glint in its eyes.

Currently, his research interests are creating music for the non-hearing population and laser installations. At the concert for Raflost, Kurt will play new compositions and test out ideas.

Website: www.kurtuenala.com

(photo by Sigga Ella)

Halldór Eldjárn is an Icelandic electronic musician. His music is a collision of the technological and the organic electronic worlds. Synthscapes, fast rhythms and unusal sounds, together forming a vibrant atmosphere of what the future might sound like. Halldór started writing his own music with the electro-pop band Sykur which has been active since 2008, releasing two albums and traveled the world. When Halldór began studying computer science he had the idea for his solo project. Experimenting with building robotic instruments including a self-playing harp and a few drum robots that can be controlled by a computer, and to make autonomous compositions using algorithms. Halldór has collaborated with Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds and worked on his latest release, creating a generative program for two self playing pianos that Ólafur uses on the album, and onstage when touring. Halldór’s first debut album, Poco Apollo, will be released in 2019 on Mengi Records, and is based on a series of short musical pieces composed from image data from NASA’s moon landing missions (link: https://pocoapollo.hdor.is)

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/h-dor
Facebook: https://facebook.com/hdoreldjarn
Instagram: https://instagram.com/halldorel
Twitter: https://twitter.com/halldorel
Website: https://hdor.is

Halldór’s appearance at Raflost in Mengi will feature a snapshot of what he’s currently working at, but at the moment he is making music with obsolete home computers from the 80’s and seeking inspiration in recycling old technology.

(photo by John Rogers)

Excerpted from a rawlings’ collection of performance scores entitled Sound of Mull, “Intime” documents in-situ performances conducted on North Atlantic foreshores from 2016 to 2019 as sites of especial geochronological interest given climate change and naming the Anthropocene. “Intime” includes performance on the shoreline facing Herøya Industripark, Norway with a view towards an INEOS shale gas ship emblazoned with “Shale Gas for Chemicals.” “Intime” also includes performance of Laureen Burlat knitting plastic bags harvested from the shoreline of Loch Long. The video features UK nuclear submarine movement, counter-clockwise wind currents over the North Atlantic, footage from the Accelerator Mass Spectrometre and Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, and birds circulating near Ólafsvík during a winter storm.

angela rawlings is a Canadian-Icelandic interdisciplinary artist whose books include Wide slumber for lepidopterists (Coach House Books, 2006), Gibber (online, 2012), o w n (CUE BOOKS, 2015), si tu (MaMa Multimedijalni Institut, 2017), and Sound of Mull (Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology, 2019). Her book Wide slumber was adapted to music theatre by Valgeir Sigurðsson and VaVaVoom (2014). Her libretti include Bodiless (for composer Gabrielle Herbst, 2014) and Longitude (for Davíð Brynjar Franzson, 2014). rawlings’ Áfall / Trauma was shortlisted for the Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Playwrights (2013). She is one-half of the performance duo Völva with Maja Jantar and one-half of the new music duo Moss Moss Not Moss with Rebecca Bruton. rawlings is the recipient of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship (2009-10) and held the position of Queensland Poet-in-Residence (2012). rawlings loves in Iceland. More: www.arawlings.is

Thursday 23rd of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2

17:00 RAFLOST Festival Opening *

• Students from the Iceland University of the Arts present works from the Raflosti workshop

21:00 Concert – Electronic Music **

• Kurt Uenala
• Halldór Eldjárn

Friday 24th of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2

21:00-22:00  Radical Digital Painting ** 

• Jeffrey Alan Scudder

Saturday 25th of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2

13:00-16:00 Open Workshop with Jeffrey Alan Scudder *

21:00 RAFLOST Grand Finale **

• angela rawlings
• Curver Thoroddsen
• Hallvarður Ásgeirsson & Jóhann Eiríksson
• Hákon Bragason
• Kaðlín Sara Ólafsdóttir
• and more …

23:00-01:00 Afterparty * (t.b.a.)

* free admission

** 2000 ISK admission for individual events in Mengi

*** festival pass = 3500 ISK

Wednesday 23rd of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2
20:00 Screening (1000 ISK entrance)

• The Goodiepal Equation. Documentary film by Sami Sänpäkkilä
• Animated notation performance warm-up by S.L.Á.T.U.R. members

Thursday 24th of May

SÖLVHÓLL- Sölvhólsgata 13 (behind the building, from Skúlagata)
20:00 Opening (free entrance)

• Tumi Magnússon
• Resterne af Rigsfællesskabet
• KverK
• Harald Jordal
• Pétur Eggertsson

Friday 25th of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2
17:00 Workshop Performance (free entrance)

• Raflosti

21:00 Performance Evening (2000 ISK entrance)

• Sól Ey & Jesus Canuto Iglesias
• Páll Ivan frá Eiðum
• Rúnar Örn Jóhönnu Marínósson & Árni Jónsson
• Andri Björgvinsson
• Kristín Helga Ríkharðsdóttir
• Una Sigtryggsdóttir
• Margrét Iversen

Saturday 26th of May

MENGI – Óðinsgata 2
13:00 Exhibition (free entrance)

• Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir
• and more

15:00 Lectures (free entrance)

• Steinunn Arnardóttir
• Sam Rees

21:00 Concert – Algorave (2000 ISK entrance)

• Alex McLean
• Hlolli
• Lars From Mars

Sunday 27th of May

REYKJAVIK SAILING CLUB – Ingólfsgarður (behind Harpa)
13:00-16:00 Installation (free entrance)

• Sam Rees

Margrét Iversen /// Magga is an visual artist, graduated from the Jutland Art Academy in 2013. She mostly works with sculptures with an element of sound or movement.