An interlinked exhibition, workshop, music event & symposium focusing on technological obsolescence. That computer lying in the back of your closet, the printer in your attic, the ZX Spectrum on the bottom shelf at Oxfam: you may think they're useless, but to Low Grade they're the raw materials of innovative and thought-provoking contemporary art and music. In an era when 2 million PCs are thrown away every year in the UK alone, Low Grade demonstrates that the life-cycle of obsolete hardware is far from over.
Curated by Michael Connor (formerly at FACT, Liverpool, now Head of Exhibitions, BFI South Bank) and film and video artist, Jackie Passmore (US).
Read It's OK to be a Luddite by Michael Connor.
Read Fuzzy Logic by Jackie Passmore.
All Low Grade events are free with a Futuresonic Wrist Band
A showcase of
musicians who use
obsolete technology
to make music
& blow minds
Featuring...
Tree Wave (US), a pop band from Dallas, Texas that makes shoegazy pop music and video with 70's and 80's videogame gear and using a dot matrix printer as a synthesizer, fronted by lead singer Lauren Gray
Bodenstandig 2000 (DE), the champions of home computer folk music and Germany's masters of 8-bit rave cabaret
LoVid (US), based in New York, scramble ordinary TV output into mesmerizing psychedelic audiovisual output and sizzling, swirling stroboscopic patterns, using homemade and re-purposed electronic devices and low-res video loops
Alexei Shulgin (RU), artist, musician, curator, activist, creative force behind 386DX and father of cyberpunk, making the trip from Moscow to demonstrate his new VJ-ing software - that creates psychedelic full-screen animations from a normal Windows computer screen display - and supported by Paul B Davis (UK)
Constructo v Destructo (UK/US), VJ artists Jackie Passmore and the unstoppable 68-year-old Kath Healy, performing visual battles about oppositional forces.
Find The Roadhouse using this map of the Northern Quarter.
Nanotechnology, designer babies, cryogenics: who cares? Despite the rapid rate of technological change over the past two centuries, our existential crises still tend to be more Sartre than Ballard. This symposium brings together artists and thinkers to discuss the triumph of all that is obsolete and archaic over the incredible promises - and threats - of technological development.
Speakers include:
Sadie Plant (UK): world-renowned devotee of the philosophies and technologies of textiles, a champion of femme nerds and coders everywhere
Olia Lialina (DE) is a net artist, animated gif model, and wife of Rockstar who here presents A Vernacular Web, her seminal account of the REAL Language of New Media
Michael Connor (US): co-curator of Low Grade, discussing how an interest in obsolescence and psychedelia drove him to move from the Capital of Culture to the Capital, and re-examines a question first posed by Thomas Pynchon in 1988: Is it OK to be a Luddite?
Jackie Passmore (US): film/video artist and co-curator of Low Grade, who divides her work bags into wet (lip balm, banana) and dry (leads, adapter) sections
Alexei Shulgin (RU): presenting his fantastic new VJing tool, WIMP PRO (created in partnership with Victor Laskin) and discussing the theme of obsolescence in his art practice
Paul Slocum (US): demonstrating the Dot Matrix Synth, the world's first synthesizer made from a dot matrix printer
Cat Mazza (US): presenting her KnitPro software and discuss knitting as an artistic and political stance
AND MORE!
Low Grade argues that the roots of computing technology are linked to Britain's 19th Century cotton trade, with weaving looms providing inspiration for the design of the first computer. In a city famous for both its textile history - Manchester was once known as 'Cottonopolis' - and as the birthplace of the modern computer, Fuzzy Logic demonstrates how new media artists are turning back to the loom, combining technology with the knitting needle to create a new wave of fabric-based media arts, mathematical knitting and textile activism.
Artists and works include:
Claire Irving (UK): Mathematical Knitting
math-knit.html
Woolly Thoughts (UK): Mathematical Afghans
woollythoughts.com/afghans
Cat Mazza (US): KnitPro Software, the LogoKnit knitting machine and examples of knitted work
knitPro.htm
knitPro_gap.htm
Mandy McIntosh (UK): Knitting patterns for Atlanta and other cities, plus Radiant Circle
woolworld/newyorkcity.html
radiant-circle.org
LoVid (US): Soft sound sculpture, sculpting psychedelic soundsssssssssssz
LoVid web
Peter Coffin (US): Wall-based prints bridging ASCII art and knitting patterns
Cory Arcangel (US): Security blanket based on the "infinite fill" patterns used in place of colour on early drawing software Mac Paint
Cory Arcangel web
Rebecca Vaughan (US): Conceptual knitted cosies for uncosy environments
Tom Moody (US): Psychedelic and abject works riding the guardrails between the handmade and the digital
Tom Moody web
Microrevolt knit workshop with Cat Mazza
Your chance to get involved in subversive knitting. In the face of rampant consumerism and disposable pop culture, put your dukes up in this hands-on laboratory of experimentation with knitting, feminism, and anti-sweatshop labour. In this introductory-level workshop, New York-based artist Cat Mazza will demonstrate her LogoKnit project and show participants how to weave their own anti-corporate garments using corporate logos. Get knitting! Maximum 6 participants - booking essential (through The Bridgewater Hall’s box office, 0161 907 9000)
