Call: Bent 2008 : The Fifth Annual Circuit Bending Festival

The Tank is currently accepting proposals for:
Bent 2008 : The Fifth Annual Circuit Bending Festival

Festival Dates:
New York Bent Festival - April 17th-19th, 2008.
Los Angeles Bent Festival - April 24th-26th, 2008.
Minneapolis Bent Festival - May 1st-3rd, 2008.

Proposals:
Proposal Deadline: February 5th, 2008
Participant Notification: February 15, 2008

This call is for all three festivals.

Proposals to each festival must be submitted separately. In keeping with the expanding interests of the community, this year we are continuing to open the Bent Festival to performers and artists that create their own electronics as well as to those who hack, bend, modify and destroy them.

We are currently seeking performers and artists to participate at each of the above locations and are specifically looking for submissions in these categories: Performers, Installation Artists, Artwork Submissions and Workshop Instructors.

Please send all proposals and questions to the appropriate email address:
Minneapolis Bent Festival - bentmpls@thetanknyc.org
New York Bent Festival - bentnyc@thetanknyc.org
Los Angeles Bent Festival - bentla@thetanknyc.org
Proposals to each festival must be submitted separately.

PERFORMERS
Bent Festival seeks bands and/or solo artists who incorporate home built or circuit bent instruments or ideas in their performance.

To have your work considered: Please email a short description of your act, along with a link to mp3s and photos if you have them. (Please do not send attachments larger than 1MB).

INSTALLATION ARTISTS
Bent Festival is looking for installation artists who can commit at least 15 hours to creating site-specific pieces of art at each of the venues during the duration of the festival. Each of the three venues (New York, Minneapolis and LA) are quite different but our goal is
to have artists creating work for each of them. Installation artists will be provided with space, materials, electronic equipment and tools as we are able.

To have your work considered: Please submit via email a one-page proposal of your installation idea along with examples of your past work. Please be prepared to commit to spending time in the installation space during the festival and be prepared for a shared
and at times hectic work environment. No white walls here!

ARTWORK SUBMISSIONS
In addition to installation artists, we would like to have featured art work that fits with the spirit of the festival from people who might not be able to join us in person or who cannot commit to working in the space during the duration of the festival.

To have your work considered: Please submit via email digital images or links of your work and a brief description.

WORKSHOP INSTRUCTORS
Bent Festival is seeking workshop instructors to present on various topics. Topics in previous years have included: General circuit bending workshops for beginners and extremely technical, hands on workshops on a particular aspect or niche of the genre.

To have your work considered: Please describe the subject you would like to lead a workshop on and provide a one-page description of that workshop, in addition include links or examples of your current and past work in the field.

COMPENSATION
Stipends for all festival performers, artists, and workshop leaders will be provided. We have a limited number of travel grants available as well. Please contact for more information.

CONTACT INFO
Each festival has its own submission email address, so please apply accordingly.
To apply to multiple festivals, you must send your submission to each email address separately.
Minneapolis Bent Festival - bentmpls@thetanknyc.org
New York Bent Festival - bentnyc@thetanknyc.org
Los Angeles Bent Festival - bentla@thetanknyc.org

Thanks,

Mike Rosenthal
Managing Director
The Tank
http://www.thetanknyc.org
http://www.bentfestival.org

Call: The Extensible Electric Guitar Festival seeks participants

The Extensible Electric Guitar Festival, Clark University, Worcester MA USA
April 4-5, 2008

Call for Presentations
SYMPOSIUM: ‘Instruments of the Post-Prohibitive Age’
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 01/01/08
http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/mmalsky/xeg/xeg.html

Our symposium begins where Kyle Gann’s keynote to the Extensible Toy
Piano Festival (Nov. 2005) left us — with a consideration of the
‘post-prohibitive era’.** Listeners have access to music from every
historical era, social context and geographic location, and it’s all
accessible instantaneously. Musicians can synthesize all previous
musical thought. Every musical style, unusual sound, revolutionary
impulse or aesthetic ideal can be incorporated into new music. If
modernism’s relationship with mass-culture was marked by a fear of
contagion, our post-prohibitive era might be thought of in terms of
information-overload. And how do we go about making sense of it all?

Matt Malsky and David Claman, the directors of the Extensible Electric
Guitar Festival, invite paper proposals for a symposium as part of the
Festival on April 4-5, 2008. This symposium will provide a forum for an
open and far-ranging discussion on themes and issues complementary to
the Festival. Presentations will be 30 minutes long. Possible topics
might include (but are not limited to):

- instruments vs. instrumentality: guitars and other expressive objects
and formation of listening subjects
- pleasurable sounds: entertainment & music’s relationship to mass culture
- music and technoculture: musical means, creativity and technological
possibility
- gendering instruments
- racial perspectives on guitars and guitar music
- historical perspectives on musical performance and social practices
- multimedia and new music:the intersection of new musical instruments
in diverse media
- the political economy of contemporary composition: the composer and
our division of musical labor
- the (impossible) concert: music in everyday/public life
- the live and the canned: performance and listening in the age of the
studio
- post-literacy in music: aurality vs. orality

Proposals should be no more than 500 words and include audio-visual
requirements. Please submit your proposal by January 1, 2008 via email
to or by surface post to:

The Extensible Electric Guitar Festival
Clark University
Department of Visual and Performing Arts
950 Main St.
Worcester, MA 01610 USA