SERIES 2014 #03
CHRIS MAPP & BEN RAMSAY / FORMULS / SOUNDKITCHEN
SATURDAY 13 SEPTEMBER / VIVID PROJECTS, DIGBETH / 7.30PM
Tickets £5
For the third event in our series SOUNDkitchen bring together an exciting cohort of Midlands based duos including the third duo in our New Collaborations project.
CHRIS MAPP & BEN RAMSAY
For the third in our New Collaborations project we bring together two Midlands based musicians, Chris Mapp and Ben Ramsay.
Mapp is a bass player, improvisor and composer using electronics to manipulate the sound of his instrument creating soundscapes and un-bass like sound worlds. As a composer Chris uses found sounds and field recordings as inspiration and staring points, connecting them together with improvisation through graphic scores and traditional notation.
Ramsay is an electronic musician preoccupied with the relationships between acoustic music and electronica and recently completed a PhD on the topic. He is one half of electronica duo Soundhacker and works on various other solo projects. He currently leads the Creative Music Technology degree programme at Staffordshire University in the West Midlands, UK.
FORMULS
Formuls is the algorithmic performance environment built with Pure Data by James Dooley. James performs slowly emerging feedback patterns that gradually build into a rich, oscillating backdrop of finely tuned noise. He performs alongside collaborator, Matt Parker who works with real-time fractal visualisations that are responsive to both the feedback systems generated by Formuls as well as the external environment.
James Dooley is a digital artist and creative coder based in Birmingham. James’ performance and installation works focus on creating a sense of place — a meta-environment. Influenced by complexity science, his works rely on the interactions between many simple elements acting autonomously that coalesce to produce emergent forms. 
Matt Parker is an audio/visual artist creating immersive experiences that reveal and amplify hidden connections between every-day technology and the environment.
SOUNDKITCHEN
SOUNDkitchen members Iain Armstrong and Annie Mahtani will be performing a set recently performed at the inaugural festival of Klang! Electroacoustique in Montpelier, France. Working with their respective sound libraries, they will perform a structured improvisation mixing and manipulating their material in real time. The music is representative of their shared interest in field recording and the integration of found sounds into an abstract musical discourse that is both immersive and evolving.
Iain Armstrong is a composer and sound artist based in Birmingham, UK. Working almost exclusively with recordings of the sound environment, he aims to expose the inherent musicality of this material through reduced listening, digital manipulation and the act of composition and performance. He creates works for fixed media that receive regular presentations in the UK and internationally. His work spans acousmatic concert music, sound design for theatre and visual media, multi-channel sound installation and live electroacoustic performance.
Annie Mahtani is a Birmingham based composer and sound artist. Her music is created from recorded sound objects and field recordings which are then transformed, manipulated and restructured, exploring the juxtaposition of real, abstract and surreal sound worlds. Annie composes concert and installation works, collaborates with dance and theatre companies and performs live electroacousic sets. Her work has been performed extensively internationally.