Following the Rituals of October 31st that marked the Pre-release of vast inter-artist American Cannibalism, embryoroom is taking over the cybersphere again with a roster of international artists to finally dispel the gloom and salute the coming of a new Dawn.
After being on the brink of losing itself in a maelstrom of chaos, barbarism and malady, America now sees a glimmer of hope: rising again from the pit of despair and grievous divisions, the Country prepares to heal its wounds.
In this new political framework, embryoroom's American Cannibalism with its dystopian actuality – while reaffirming the inherently political nature of art, one that offers new ways of seeing, new perspectives, to help us make sense of the complexity of the present – stands as a powerful and timely reminder of the fragility and precariousness of our democracies.
Bypassing the restriction in place with a network of remote collaborations and virtual performances, embryogallery defies the somberness of the “new normal” of social distancing and shutdowns with a live stream Festival that promises to bring some much-needed relief from our lockdown fatigue.
The Festival will open its virtual doors on November 29th, 2020, 10AM PST – 1PM EST – 7PM CET.
Featured artists include:
BJ Nilsen
Born in Sweden and currently based in Amsterdam, BJ Nilsen is a sound and recording artist whose work primarily focuses on the sounds of nature and its effects on humans. In his most recent work, he has explored the urban acoustic realm and industrial geography in the Arctic region of Norway and Russia. His original scores and soundtracks have featured in theatre, dance performances and film.
Brother Tiger
Influenced by the likes of Brian Eno and M83, Animal Collective, Caribou, and Yeasayer, Brother Tiger draws upon cassette-esque drum tracks and dream-like synths to combine the ethereal style of the 80s New Wave with a decidedly contemporary electro-dance sound.
The flesh, full of black sand
a dark-ambient/noise project that taps into themes of dreaming, death and space.
QVORG
Launched in 2015, QVorg is the genre-warping, electronic infused music and visual project of Embryoroom and Derek Gruen aka Del Marquis. Together they have released Endless Steps (from Triode Kuvaputki, 2019), Dark Island (from Pandemic Response Charity Album, 2020) and have collaborated (along with Paul Stein) on the Enter the Whore exhibition (Empirical Nonsense, 2019).
Embryoroom
Edward Quist aka Embryoroom is an internationally exhibited multimedia artist, composer and director with a career spanning over twenty-five years.
Set at the junction of reality, fiction and the subconscious, Quist's work combines digitally manipulated images with haunting soundtracks to provide a commentary on our present society while drawing from narratives of an impending dystopian future. Among his collaborations, Quist has worked with seminal electronic Finnish duo Pan Sonic on Kuvaputki – an experimental, multi-angle documentary shot during the band's 1999 Around the World Tour – Derek Gruen aka Del Marquis, and Die Angel (Ilpo Väisänen and Dirk Dresselhaus).
51717
Lili Schulder aka 51717, is a sound designer creating textural industrial compositions oscillating between noise and silence, language and sound, the material and the transcendental.
​
Karpinski
Born in Poland and currently based in New York, Karpinski is a self-taught artist with a distinctive mind-bending, hypnotic and future-seeking sound. He is a member of SYITS, Brooklyn-based artist collective providing people with a safe space to escape reality and get lost in the music.
Mira Calix
Born in Durban, South Africa, and currently based in the UK, Chantal Passamonte aka Mira Calix is a globally-renowned composer and multidisciplinary artist. Mixing electronic texture, jittering beats and intimate vocals with natural sounds and classical orchestration, Mira Calix has made experimentation the hallmark of her work. She has extensively collaborated with scientists, dancers, architects, as well as musicians and visual artists, and has had work commissioned by and exhibited in several cultural institutions including, among others: The Royal Shakespeare Company, the Barbican, Hayward Gallery, Serpentine, Lincoln Centre, the Globe. Her albums include: Ilanga EP (1996), One on One (2000), Skimskitta (2003), Eyes Set Against the Sun (2007), If then while for (2014), Utopia EP (2019).
Pan Sonic
Working at the crossroads of experimental techno, industrial, noise and drone, Pan Sonic are widely regarded as one of the most influential electronic ensembles of the last 30 years.
Formed in Turku, Finland, in 1993 by Mika Vainio (who died in 2017), Ilpo Väisänen, and Sami Salo (who left the group in 1996), they soon made a name for themselves at home and abroad for their recordings and live performances incorporating minimalistic production techniques and power-tool electronics.Among their most ground-breaking albums are: Vakio (1995); Kulma (1997); Aaltopiiri (2001); Kesto (2004); Katodivaie (2007); Gravitoni (2010). Oksastus, a recording of one of Pan Sonic's final live dates, was released by Kvitnu in 2014. In 2015, previously unissued latter-day Pan Sonic recordings made up the soundtrack to Return of the Atom (directed by Mika Taanila and Jussi Eerola), a documentary about the first nuclear power plant built since the 1986 meltdown in Chernobyl.The Finnish duo is the subject of an experimental documentary film by Embryoroom (Kuvaputki, 1999), shot during the band's Around the World Tour.
Bob Data
Born in Belgium and currently based in Riga, Latvia, Aleksandrs Olgerts Berzins aka Bob Data is a post-industrial electronic artist whose influences range from electro and minimal techno to ambient and noise, and the co-founder of German-Latvian band IRKLIS (formerly known as Audioscope).
Double Slit
His work focusing on sound synthesis and computer programming, João Menezes aka Double Slit is a Portuguese electronic musician, sound designer, a member of the Digitópia Collective at the Casa da Música Foundation, Porto, and an Instructor of Music Technology in the Music Program at New York University, Abu Dhabi. He has performed internationally, including: Code Control Festival; Semibreve Festival; London College of Communication – University of the Arts London; School of Engineering and the School of Fine Arts of the University of Porto; Leicester College; Artech, NYUAD.
Kagutaba
Presenting itself as a guide through the perpetual haze amongst a sanctuary of static and ghosts, Kagutaba is a newly founded noise project born from the suburban gutters of Southern California whose aim is to grant its viewers a place of solitude.
VENUSHOUSE
A first generation American born Mexican female visual artist, story teller, and photographer, Stephanie Mendoza aka V E N U S H O U S E navigates the cultural intricacies of growing up in Southern California to unravel the intimacies of human experiences while taking the listener on a otherworldly sensory journey into the depth of the subconscious.
​
Lig.Ot
Ettore Brancè aka Lig.Ot is an experimental musician and composer from Italy, and the founder of the open source label “DDD - Daily Delivered Drones”. Working with “unplayable instruments” and samples form everyday life, Lig.Ot explores the spectrum of human emotions, our most basic instincts and spontaneous reactions. In 2018 he released the EP Gensaardal (with Narèsh Ran), and the album ORGALESS.
​
Dark Morph
Formed in 2018 aboard a research ship called Dardanella during a TBA21–Academy's expedition program to the newly established Tabu Site at Vanua Vatu Reef in Fiji, Dark Morph is the music project of Sigur Rós’ Jónsi and Swedish composer and artist Carl Michael von Hausswolff. They have released two albums, the eponymous Dark Morph (2019) and Dark Morph II (2020), combining hydrophone and field recordings with drone music to draw attention on the heavy exploitation of oceans, and promote a more sustainable and balanced use of natural resources.
Die ANGEL
Pushing the boundaries of electronic music since 1999, die ANGEL is the collaborative project of Ilpo Väisänen (Pan Sonic) and Dirk Dresselhaus (Schneider TM).
Combining modular synths and rhythm devices, electric guitars and field recording, die ANGEL have gained international recognition for their production leaning towards the abstract minimalism of drone music and the refined intricacy of instant composition while defying easy categorisation. Their albums include: Entropien I (2017), Yön Magneetti Sine (2018), Utopien I (2020).
Xambuca
Sidestepping genres and eschewing any easy pigeonholing since 1995, Xambuca is an international multimedia collective with a rotating lineup established by avant-garde musician and former Psychic TV member Chandra Shukla.
Non Films
Founded by Brian Ratigan and specialising in handmade films, zines, and various ephemera, Non Films is an award-winning independent studio and collaborative institution operating in New York since 2011.
​
Franz Rosati
With work encompassing concerts, audio-visual live sets, installations, software art and printed artworks, Franz Rosati is a musician, visual artist and interactive technologies expert with an understanding of chaos mathematics and a predilection for custom-made softwares.
Article Collection
A sonic explorer melding hybrid hardware and software mediums, Christopher Latina aka Article Collection works at the crossroads of engineering, design and music composition to create immersive environments.
Jaime Genovart
Pairing electroacoustic music with ambient sounds, Jaime Genovart is an experimental musician and sound designer from Buenos Aires, Argentina, with an extensive career in film and TV.
​
Zergon
Mixing techno, deep house and IDM with noise and abstract drone music, Zergon is a DJ, producer and sound artist from Ljubljana, Slovenia, with an experimental approach to composition and a knack for improvisation.
​
Paul Kendall
Paul Kendall is a composer, producer, visual artist and a member of Recoil (with Alan Wilder) and of experimental electronic duo The Digital Intervention (with Olivia Louvel). A long-time collaborator of Mute Records, Kendall began using music softwares in the early 90s and subsequently set up The Parallel Series, a sub-label of Mute. The series includes: Void In by Andrei Samsonov, Orr by Gilbert Hampson Kendall (with Bruce Gilbert and Robert Hampson), The Faulty Caress by Piquet, and Displaced Links by Kendall Turner Overdrive (with Simon Fisher Turner). As a producer, Kendall has also collaborated with artists such as Nitzer Ebb, Nine Inch Nails, Wire, and Depeche Mode among many others. His albums include: Orr (1996), Angleterror (2011), Family Value Pack (2014), From The Penman Press (2016).
​
Seah
Seah’s sound and video practice is influenced by a movement language has evolved from decades long research in Butoh, Body Weather Laboratory, Noguchi Taiso, and Somatic Movement, as well as extended periods of time spent in remote wilderness areas. These movement practices embody Deleuze and Guattari’s nomadology, the shifting terrain of the psyche - a beingness that is fluid, always in transition, “becoming”. As opposed to the static subject of Humanism. This nomadic subjectivity is necessary for becoming-imperceptible, a state which seah describes as a de-centering of recognizable “humanness” that allows for somatic, phenomenological experiences of what it means to be posthuman. Over the last 5 years, seah has spent a great deal of time tracing waterways. “Fluvial Traces” follows rivers using feet, bike, or paddle boat and has included the Mae Nam Ping in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the Detroit River, and a river in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, San Francisco/Oakland, Venice, Italy, and the Finnish Archipelago.
​
Mykel Boyd
Mykel Boyd makes sound recordings, conceptual artworks, photos, installations, and films. By experimenting with aleatoric processes, Boyd creates work in which a fascination with the clarity of content and an uncompromising attitude towards conceptual and minimal art can be found. The work is aloof and systematic and cool and neutral imagery is used.
His practice provides a useful set of allegorical tools for manoeuvring with a pseudo-minimalist approach in the world of conceptual art: these meticulously planned works resound and resonate with images culled from the fantastical realm of imagination. With a subtle minimalistic approach, he formalizes the coincidental and emphasizes the conscious process of composition that is behind the seemingly random works. The supposedly private thought processes highly subjective and unfiltered in their references to dream worlds are frequently revealed as assemblages.