The Festival for Electronic Arts in Reykjavík will be taking place in Reykjavik on the 21th – 28th of May 2022. This year’s edition is in collaboration with Tómas Manoury and the Intelligent Instrument Lab.

Saturday 21st of May

Wednesday 25th of May

This event is supported by Miðbæjarsjóður

Thursday 26th of May

Friday 27th of May

Dimitri Lurie (born 1970 in St. Petersburg, lives and works in Oslo since 1999) is a film and video artist.

Lurie holds diploma in cybernetics from the State Polytechnic University in St-Petersburg. He has also studied at the Institute of theology and philosophy in his hometown and after moving to Norway was a guest artist at the State Academy of arts in Oslo.
In 1994 Lurie founded in St. Petersburg an independent studio DodoFilm Company. Since then he has produced a number of short, documentary & experimental films along with various video art projects. In 1999, Dimitri was invited to teach film in Norway and relocated his studio to Oslo. Lurie’s film & video work were shown at various TV channels, film festivals and art exhibitions worldwide and have collected numerous awards. His credo is to experement with the visual aspect and atmosphere of film rather than storytelling.

From the artist’ statement: 
My creative profile consists of diverse genres and visual techniques: imaginative photography, cinematographic poetry, documentaries, short fiction films, experimental non-narrative video and spatial video installations.
I’m not a conventional film director, but rather a playful experimenter and innovator in film language, who is in search for new expressive forms to reflect phenomena of being and to question deeper meanings in the different aspects of human existence.
I profess filmmaking principles of the spontaneous cinema that captures and conceptualizes daily life and as the starting point for constructing a movie.
This tradition traces its roots to the direct cinema of the revolutionary artist Dziga Vertov with his observational methods. From the “Kino-Eye” group I have particularly inherited its lyrical use of a documentary footage. I’m interested in subjects that are imagined rather than directly observable. Thus, when some of my works reflect the historical or contemporary social processes passed through the prisms of my artistic perception; others seek to represent the intersections between daily life practices and the imagined connections, and to draw out their metaphysical ramifications.

Home Page: https://www.dodofilm.org

Supported by:

Sól Ey (Sóley Sigurjónsdóttir, 1996) is a multidisciplinary artist from Iceland. In her work, she creates multisensory experiences that connect sound, space, movement, light and the body. With a background in composition, her work consists of performances, installations and instruments that emphasise performative interaction, immersion, and participation. Using sensors, DIY electronics, scenography, video projections, and spatial sound, she strives to create a dynamic interplay between objects and perceivers.

In 2021, Sól Ey graduated in composition from the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. She is currently a research fellow at the Academy for Theatre and Digitality, where she is continuing her research on wearable and gestural electronic instruments.

Description

At Raflost 2022, I will present an instrument-in-progress Hreyfð – a wearable speaker instrument that produces sound using microphones, a gyroscope, and a teensy microcontroller. The instrument is a part of ongoing research linking the physical body and its gestures with electronic music, thus integrating sound and movement. With this new instrument, the body also acts as a physically moving sound object that modulates feedback with gestures.

https://sol-ey.com

STORMKRÓKUR is an electronic duo from Iceland founded in 2020 by composers Jesper Pedersen and Páll Ivan frá Eiðum as a reaction to the restrictions of musical live performances during pandemic. 

The music of STORMKRÓKUR is seeking new inspiration in techniques used by noise musicians of yesteryear using non-linear feedback through analog sound equipment like mixing desks, stomp boxes and modular synthesizers. The sound world is raw and abstract sounding but with clear dialogues emerging between the sounds walking the fine line between chaos and order.

www.pallivan.is

www.slatur.is/jesper

Monikaze

Monikaze (real name Monika Zenkeviciute):

– born in 1995 Klaipėda, Lithuania. In 2018 finished composition studies at Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Since then, pursued career as a composer, electronic music producer and artist, signed with a well-known UK record label Moshi Moshi Records, supported such bands as Algiers, First Hate and Dopplereffekt.
Monikaze music could be described as Avant-pop, combining her raw and manipulated vocals with different electronic and acoustic textures, which are often inspired by a wide range of genres such as IDM, electronica, jazz or instrumental works by post- minimalist composers.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monikaze__/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/monikazemusic
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0xHjchro2NMSvOmrEveFfE?si=mW-jFZSCSk2IfoJGri8u2w

MAP
MULTIVERSE

Improvised audio-visual performance M.A.P. – Raftlost 2022

M.A.P. is the collaboration between artists Haraldur Karlsson and Litten Nystrøm and a shared platform where the artists embrace the fusion and unfold possibilities between artforms; tactile material and electronic Art, in works which engage with contemporary society and circumstance. Their installations aim to challenge our idea of space and reality to reveal a world beyond our sensory limitations.
Iceland based artist Haraldur Karlsson works with experiments in video art.
Haraldur studied art for 9 years in Iceland and Holland and taught video art for 9 years at the Icelandic Art Academy. In the last 99 years his focus is on commissions, artist co-operation like M.A.P., own research and production of tomorrow’s art-forms.
Danish born artist Litten Nystrøm, studied art and design in Copenhagen and has been living in Iceland since 2011. She was the manager for the Residencies & Projects program at Skaftfell Center for Visual Art; she co- founded the Iceland based artist group RoShamBo; the design label RÓ and FOSS – an artist-run publishing house for artist books of limited editions. Since 2019 she has been teaching at the Fine Arts and Design Department and starting and running a BIO-Lab in LHI Reykjavík.

www.Haraldur.net

www.Littennystrom.com

Frutería las Granadas

José Luis Anderson, Freya Dinesen, Snorri Beck Magnússon

Interactive performance using fruit as sound controllers, with background video projection and backing track

Hlutskipti – Decompartmentalization

Kári Guðmundsson, Guðlaugur Hörðal Einarsson, Daniel Örn Heimisson, Ana Luisa Diaz de Cossio

Decompartmentalization | Hlutskipti is a work that incorporates visual and audio elements that highlight the workshops from the different departments at LHI. This work explores the compartmentalization, separation and lack of collaboration that we have experienced between the departments. By combining audio and video from all the buildings, we create a reality where everybody exists together.

Life and Death of Pawns and Friends

Jónína Alfreðsdóttir, Óskar ใor Arngrimsson, Khetsin Chuchan og Jóhannes Patreksson

We recorded a chess game and had assigned notes to each checker and rules to each chess piece for certain effects which would trigger by the choices made in the game. The video was recorded and edited by Khetsin- it’s a video and audio art piece.

Zoom Call from Hell

Robin Morabito, Starri Holm, Stefania Palsdottir, Torfi Tomasson

An experience where you feel anxiety during the worst zoom call of your life.

CLICK HERE FOR LOGIN INFORMATION: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WS-gmjAEvntQ4TQnqc-eJoqMhz1kYAXT8n20Pb4Hs3o/edit?usp=sharing

Glupsk is a band that makes music, sometimes with instruments, almost always with a computer. Sometimes there are three performers, sometimes more, and sometimes they are not present in the space they are playing in.

Glupsk er hljómsveit sem gerir tónlist stundum með hljóðfæri, eiginlega alltaf með tölvu. Stundum eru þrír hljóðfæraleikarar en líka stundum fleiri og stundum eru flytjendurnir ekki í rýminu sem þeir eru að spila í.

Web Page: https://glupsk.bandcamp.com/

Ólöf Rún Benediktsdóttir is a multidiciplinary artist. In Raflost she will be creating soundscapes using the coding environment Sonic Pi.

Home Page: olofbenedikts.com

NRA is a carpet revolution currently taking place in Brisbane, Australia spearheaded by multi-visionary artist Joseph Burgess/Unregistered Master Building. Footsoilders of the movement include fellow artist Joshua Wilkinson and members of the KEPK art space on the south side of Brisbane.

NRA’s recent work utilises a carpet tufting gun to reflect scenes of unrest in Joseph’s hometown of Portland, Oregon. Portland is has been a pivotal city in the BLM movement since the murder of George Floyd. Each night as police and protestors have clashed on its streets downtown has become reminiscent of a warzone. With monuments set on fire, molotov cocktails, and fireworks illuminating the streets of the city. Boarded-up buildings frame the current tension between armoured federal agents and masked citizens. These events are personal to me as I experienced police brutality there in 2009. My work around this topic aims to re-stage my angst about that experience and the city’s current circumstances by re-interpreting these images in a new way using the mechanical process of the tufting gun.

I hate fireworks 

Ásta Fanney is multidisciplinary artist and poet based in Reykjavik.

Ásta will present: A video including future hand gestures and navigation in a digital spelling through the landscape of electronic foley.

Lee Lynch’s YouTube Folk Anthology is a selection of songs by artists whose music is exhibited and proliferated on YouTube. The project is inspired by The Anthology of American Folk Music, a six volume set produced by Harry’s Smith (1923-1991) a New York based experimental filmmaker who had been collecting folk music and field recordings since he was a teenager. For Raflost’s 2021 edition Lee has created a limited edition set of vinyls for his Volume One edition “Songs of Affirmation and Unrequited Love”, a collection of favorite tracks that he and his fellow artist Christian Cummings have discovered on YouTube over the last decade. The vinyls are in an addition of 5 with covers that feature handmade artwork of a still from Harry Smith’s unfinished 35mm collage animation The Tin Woodman’s Dream. On Sunday at 15:00 at 12 Tónar Lee will be giving a talk on the project as well as screening the videos from the songs featured on the album.

Raised in Redding, California, Lee Lorenzo Lynch (1980) has been making films and art since the age of 13. He holds a BFA in Film from California Institute of the Arts and an MFA in Fine Art from the University of Southern California. His films have been exhibited at FIDMarseille, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Full Frame, The Viennale, Tribeca, and Sundance.

Ella Fleck (www.ella.zone) is an artist and writer living and working from Derbyshire U.K. Working often with people, performance and sometimes digital tools, she thinks about different ways to nurture social practice and play in a digitally dominant world. Ella co-founded and is facilitating DARP (Derbyshire Artist Resident Program – www.darp.media). In 2018 she co-founded 650mAh in Hove, U.K (www.650mah.com). She has written for Frieze, Art Et Al and Dazed. Ella is also 50% of @ellaandJaana on OnlyFans, a digital self portrait playground that she updates semi-regularly with Jaana Kristiina Alakoski. She currently spends her time drawing, roleplaying, writing and making small browser projects.

After running Dating Sim as a one-on-one performance game on zoom, Ella has adapted Dating Sim to be performed as a role-play love poem between her, her computer and an audience.

Titel :

Litten Nystrøms work often crosses media and genres, to define a space where object, space and actions overlap. The result can be characterized as subtle manifestations addressing ongoing interventions between time, circumstance, matter and consciousness, positioning matter and image as restless forms with fleeting properties. Concepts and dialogues often developed on site, materialize in works and assemblies that are both happenings and tangible compositions in one.

“Cross-section” / Aleksi Jaakkola / 2021
https://www.aleksijaakkola.com/

Synopsis:
The cross-section is a visual journey that dives into a Pear by cutting edge observations. Layer by layer this investigation seeks out an understanding of the fruit.

 about  Aleksi Jaakkola  // video, sound, performance, feedback video, installation //

Egill Sæbjörnsson’s video installations consist of real objects, projected video images, often self generative and combined with arduino technology, and sound. He has also a large bulk of work in both performance and music writing. His work can be perceived as a technological continuation of painting and sculpture. Recently curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist described them as an augmented reality work without using the glasses. Egill’s Sæbjörnsson’s work often make us confused and surprised and leads us to pose ontological questions, doing so in a way that both he and we enjoy. His works are known for their lightness and humour and are of an experiential nature, often requiring neither instructions nor education in order to be understood, yet with an underlying seriousness and thought. In his book Stones according to Egill Sæbjörnsson he proposes the idea that art is a species that coexists with humans in symbiotic way. The relationship between what is called mind and physical reality is of great importance in his work. And how emotions, fantasy and reality connect. In 2017 Egill Sæbjörnsson represented Iceland at the Biennale Arte 2017 in Venice, where he let two imaginary friends, the 36 meter tall, people eating trolls, Ugh & Boogar, take over the exhibition concept. His public art piece for the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin is the first permanent, self generative video installation in an outdoor space in Germany. Last year he was nominated for the Ars Fennica Art Price in Finland. Egill Sæbjörnsson studied new media at the Icelandic College of Arts & Crafts in Iceland 1993 – 1997 and in Paris VIII StDenis from 1995 – 1996.

With a background in game design, film directing and archaeology, Isdrake has covered the span of human and technological development, learning from the past to diversify the future through creative actions. Isdrake is also the founder of the game innovation lab Collaboratory and the game art gallery Epic Unidragon.

Researching the bias in technology and solutions for equity, empowerment and freedom of diverse identities is at the core of their work, currently focused on cyborg art, metaverses and body modifications as voice.

Isdrake will give an insight to their work and open up for dialogue and collaboration with the participants.

www.isdrake.com

„Eins og raftækjaruslahaugar heimsins bera vitni um þá hlaðast vonir gærdagsins upp allt í kringum okkur. Það væri fávísi að afskrifa allt sem þar liggur í nafni herskárrar hugmyndafræði sem krefst eilífs vaxtar. Þess vegna heillar skapandi notkun úreltrar tækni mig. Það er ekki sökum nostalgíu heldur því úrsérgengin er tæknin loks frjáls undan upprunalegu hlutverki sínu. Hún er öðru fremur vettvangur leikgleði, tilrauna og fegurðar, með afskaplega takmarkaða möguleika til að þjónusta efnahaginn. Þar búa róttækir möguleikar hennar: hún hafnar gildismati fjármagnsins og reynir að skapa merkingu eða hughrif úr því sem er verðlaust.“

Atli Bollason er listamaður og nautnaseggur sem býr í Reykjavík.

Hákon Bragason graduated from Iceland University of the Arts with a degree in visual art in 2019 and has since held private exhibitions, participated in various projects and regularly participated in group exhibitions. He mostly works with interactive installations, virtual reality and mixing of craftsmanship, machinery and digital parts. The fundamental factors in his works are mostly based on the position of the individual versus the surroundings, experience and perception.

Hákon Bragason útskrifaðist úr myndlist frá Listaháskóla Íslands vorið 2019 og hefur síðan þá haldið einkasýningar, tekið þátt í ýmislegum verkefnum auk þess að taka reglulega þátt í samsýningum. Hann vinnur aðalega með gagnvirkar innsetningar, sýndaveruleika og samblöndun handverks, véla og stafrænna þátta. Grunnþættir verka hans byggjast aðalega á stöðu einstaklings gagnvart umhverfi sínu, upplifun og skynjun.

SÚL_VAD is an ongoing collaborative project between visual artist Ásdís Birna Gylfadóttir (1993) and composer Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir (1993).

Growing up together in a small town in Iceland, their friendship, passions, interests and ideas were shaped by the freedom of their natural surroundings as much as they were influenced by the limitations of their environment. The duo’s unique way of collaborating and creating work together, while living in different countries for the past 6 years, has led to multiple different projects. Their artistic collaboration began when they created the audiovisual performance Ymur, premiering at the European audio and art festival Tut Töt Tuð in the Netherlands in 2017. Since then, their work has been presented at various exhibitions and events in Sweden, Austria, Iceland and The Netherlands.
Their work is experimental and observational, using video and audio as a means to collect information and material as well as communicating ideas to each other – resulting in interesting installation works and performances where the two mediums blend together. It explores the relations and opposites between the visual and the auditory, the natural and the superficial. It focuses on the seen, the heard, the felt elements of the world around us and gives new perspectives and roles to borrowed natural elements. Taking inspiration from the visible and hidden world of Icelandic nature, the contrast between human nature and nature, the weather and stories from their grandparents, amongst other things, each work is an autonomous result of their collaborative research of various perspectives and topics important to the artists, including social issues, human behaviour, and the spiritual mind to name a few.

HELIO

Awakening is grasping,
is rising is becoming.

A single word has multiple meanings. Round and around, a constant circular movement. A circle has no beginning, no end. The Earth keeps moving around the Sun.

Resisting is noticing,
is trying is digesting.

Silence is the loudest with no one around. Our surroundings shape us and restrain us. The mind reacts and the body acts.

Imitating is observing,
is attracting is connecting.

A single emotion is far and near. Thoughts connect us and thoughts separate us. We learn from doing, from seeing, from hearing, our senses are tools leading us through.

Repelling is pushing,
is forcing is exploding.

No reaction is right, no reaction is wrong. Nobody has full control. We are nature and nature is us.

Raging is punching,
is struggling is objecting.

A single feeling has multiple explanations. Eye contact is human contact, connecting and disconnecting. Frustration is a force.

Accepting is surrendering,
is complying is resting.

A single word has multiple meanings. Round and around, a constant circular movement. A circle has no beginning, no end. The Moon keeps moving around the Earth, round and around.

Credit:

Dancers: Gabriel Marling Rideout, Marikki Nyfors, Sóley Ólafsdóttir.
3D scans by Arna Beth.

About the work:

Helio is an audiovisual installation piece. The visual part of the work is a result of graphic notation research by visual artist Ásdís Birna Gylfadóttir. Through a collaboration with dancers Gabriel Marling Rideout, Marikki Nyfors and Sóley Ólafsdóttir, she has developed a unique dance notation system inspired by topographic maps.

The performance embodies the eternal cyclic movement of existence, inspired by the Earth’s orbit with the dancers moving in a constant circular movement. Containing six chapters, each can be described as a layer, where a layer is represented by a word from the text accompanying the work. Each word describes the movement of the layer they are paired with and every layer gradually adds to the story. The audio is controlled by the same words, creating a mystical and elusive soundscape by composer Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir.