PAUL B. DAVIS [BEIGE]
30th MAY - 23rd JUNE 2007
PV WED 30th MAY 6PM

SEVENTEEN
17 Kingsland Rd, London, E2 8AA
www.seventeengallery.com

Paul B. Davis utilises outdated/obsolete computer technologies, including most notably Nintendo games systems, in order to perform specialist interventions into the territory of the digital art medium. While the materials utilised are ready-made, the use principle is entirely hand crafted; Davis altering the existing code while adding nothing new. This idea, the implemented projection of an alternative potential onto a ready-made object, exactly and succinctly captures the structured abridgement – between computers and art, between theory and praxis, ongoing in Davis' practice.

Davis is a founder member of the pioneering programming ensemble, BEIGE, which also comprises Cory Arcangel (Team Gallery, NY), Joe Beuckman and Joseph Bonn. BEIGE members have subsequently used Davis' hacked NES concept to create a distinct body of work that has been shown internationally. See www.post-data.org/beige

This exhibition comprises two large projections. One is a new NES hack that takes its form from the pirate video game cartridges that first alerted Davis to the possibility of intervening with games. These 'multicarts' often had for or five different games on one cartridge and echoing this, Davis is presenting five different works on one machine. Fittingly these pirated works are not all by Davis' hand, as he loots excerpts from other BEIGE collective hacks, questioning authorship in the already grey area of software as readymade. The second piece is a new video, a collaboration with the trans-media collective Paper Rad, which accentuates and aesthecises artefacts inherent in video compression formats, particularly MPEG-4. A third work, in collaboration with Cory Arcangel, titled Fat Bits, is a triptych of monitors which presents close up images of an NHL ice hockey match, converted into imagery housed in a NES. Reminiscent of the timeless NES Ice Hockey game, these abstracted motions of brawling figures present a bacon-esque scene, groaning and grunting in a slow motion and distorted struggle.

Aesthetically Davis' images are solid slabs of reordered, pure proto-modernist colour. With his alterations a new game, a new screen and a new surface emerges. The materiality of a hacked game cartridge, set into the instantly recognisable Nintendo console, guarantees that the recession into a purely two-dimension digital fold is never as total as it is in the work of other digital artists, the work remains an object. Further, the dizzying hyper-graphics of many related practitioners are surrendered in favour of the neat, blocky pixilation of the outdated NES operating system. This show also includes an installation featuring 8-bit Construction Set – an art/music/concept work rendered in vinyl which will be mounted on a record deck within the gallery, visitors being invited to play it out to their own satisfaction.

Quoting his influences as ranging from formalised British computing theory (Alan Turing) to the advent of widespread domestic console gaming (Mario), Davis has pioneered a truly unique strategy through a multiplicity of actions, networks and artistic creations. Davis' practise is at once rigorous, conceptual – even nerdy, while nonetheless fully intimate with the patois, style, attitude and aesthetic of retrogressively inspired, data-bit multi-media contemporary culture, that has recently forced its way into the public consciousness.

Paul B. Davis, as part of BEIGE, has exhibited internationally at venues including the The Whitney Biennial 2004 (NYC), Vilma Gold (UK) Team Gallery (NYC) and Foxy Productions (NYC).

Presented by Emma Davidson director of Lektrolab in partnership with leading woman UK VJ, VJ Bopa this VJing workshop equipped any enthusiastic beginner with the key skills to get them ready for their first public VJ appearance. Participants were then given the chance to do exactly that, as they were challenged them to put their new-found skills to the test at a party in the ICA bar later that evening.

Curated by Claire Davies and Sam Gathercole

"What happens if, rather than add-on, build-up, fill-in or replace, you get-rid-of something instead? Can getting-rid-of be constructive, progressive and forward looking, and not just destructive, nostalgic, or somehow redemptive? Can taking-away open things up, push things forward and create new lines of enquiry? Good Riddance looks to explore and expand on these thoughts and questions by inviting people to think, or think again, about the means and potential of taking-away. The exhibition brings together work by seven contemporary artists in response to the idea of taking-away and getting-rid-of as a means of making.

The artists in Good Riddance use a variety of media including sound, film and text. Most adopt a manual approach to modify, adapt and transform existing objects and forms through a process of taking-away. Through this process, things are gained rather than lost."

For the exhibition, Paul B. Davis has created a digital work from a ‘hacked’ Super Mario Brothers game cartridge. All of the game code has been removed, leaving behind an ever-changing stream of digital imagery generated by the primary data stored on the cartridge. Also exhibiting - Lawrence Weiner, Miles Thurlow, Leo Fitzmaurice, Jem Finer, John Clayman and Brown Sierra.

Reconfiguration was a series of events, organised by Blip in association with Lighthouse, that explores how artists are reconfiguring technology. Alongside an exhibition of Exhibition of Paul Granjon's Sexed Robots [awesome!] Lektrolab ran a circuit bending workshop teaching how to customise old tech-toys and turn them into electronic instruments.

Lektrolab were asked to lead a three day workshop at Watermans Gallery for participants between the ages of 13-19 as part of the Gallery's Summer Education Programme. Students in the Lektrolab Circuit Bending workshop were invited to learn soldering and electronics skills as well as the simple tricks to circuit bending using cheap electronic toys to make their own musical instruments.

Faster Than Sound was not just a festival but described by it's organisers as a "sound experiment at Bentwaters Airbase. Faster Than Sound will be the first large-scale music experiment of it's kind to feature and bring together some of the most interesting and ever-evolving artists in electronica and classical music."

Lektrolab we invited to create in installation in one of the offices at the disused air base. Our installation "Lektrolab Office" featured work from Kenji Ko, Paul B. Davis and a live performance from electronic gameboy musician Rabato.

Kenji Ko is a new media artist based in Hong Kong who has been studying in the UK. The piece he presented called DIGITI is "an experimental media project. DIGITI means digital graffiti, it combines digital technologies with graffiti. It use a laptop, webcam, projector and some customade electronic spraycans. Each spraycan has a colored LED on their nozzle. Such as reality, viewer can "tag" with different colors by using different cans. It provides a real time spray painting on a translucent screen... peace~"
Read more about Ko's DIGITI project on his blog here.

Paul B. Davis presented "Abstract Brothers" which is a hacked Nintendo cartridge piece.

Lomo images by Ramiro Elena.

Damyspacehustlerz was an identity, myspace profile and website created by Lektrolab for the My Friends Electric exhibition curated by Michael Connor for Sonar2006. It is an exhibition investigating onscreen identities in the MySpace Age. Other artists invited to exhibit were Jason Freeman, Marisa Olsen, Paperrad, Cory Arcangel and Olia Lialina.

As Damysapcehustlerz Paul B Davis and Emma Davidson make work that explores the creative potential of overlooked software and hardware tools. For this project, they have created a tutorial that explains how to 'pimp out' the design of a MySpace page, presented alongside an exhaustively researched gallery of the most pimped-out MySpace page designs on the web.

Check out damysapcehustlerz website here.
Check out the damyspacehustlerz myspace profile here.

Paul B. Davis was invited by curator Hanne Mugaas to submit work to the exhibition "Take It To The Net" at the Vilma Gold gallery in London. Other exhbiting artists were Paper Rad, Michael Bell-Smith, Seth Price and Takeshi Murata, Thomas Barbey and Jean Baptiste Bayle.

Take it to the Net is an investigation into a new generation of artists who use the techniques, skills, and aesthetics of the internet as well as digital information transfer in their work. What is or is not conceived of as art is of less importance in an era where the amateur as producer has become the professional. The Internet has opened the floodgates for producers, and the emphasis now lies in the hands of those who access the information.

Paul B. Davis' piece called "Fantasy Mix Tapes" was just that - six mix tapes each reflecting a different adopted DJ persona. Covers for each mix tape were created using old PC DOS software and large digital prints of the covers were also exhibited. Visitors to the exhibition were invited to listen to the different mix tapes while viewing the prints on headphones.

Lektrolab were invited by Olia Lialina, Professor of New Media at the Merz Akadamie, Stuttgart to lecture during Walwacksksk. Students participating were at various levels through their New Media Studies diploma and most students were first time circuit benders. Paul and Emma became their full time lecturers for the period and the goal of the week was that the students should have created a circuit bent intertactive object that could be used in a performance at the end of the week. Some students work in pairs using microcontrollers. All students succeeded.

Thank you to Helene, Lisa, Stephanie, Timo, David, Dennis, Leo, Rolo and Philip for such tremendous effort. You can see videos of the students final performance on youtube here.

Lektrolab were invited the second year running to the Spanish Basurama Festival, this time to participate with circuit bending workshops.

With casings [old telephone, tobacco dispensers and hairdryers] found by the Basurama team, a class of 18 participants made musical instruments by filling the casings with circuit bent toys changing the way people would interact with the different machines. The four day workshop covered simple electronics, practical circuit bending as well as presentations and lectures. Olaf Ladousse who was also leading the workshops presented his doorags and spoke about recycling materials. Lektrolab were able to speak about different approaches to circuit bending, hardware hacking and computer reprogramming. The participants were really able to develop their ideas with the time and materials available and the finished pieces will be exhibited in La Casa Encendida, Madrid in September 2006.

In May, we were invited by The Kipper Project to lead DJ and MC workshops for people aged between 17 and 25. The Kipper Project is the only specialist agency for young homeless people, aged 16 to 30 years in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Kipper manages eight supported housing schemes, runs an advice and resettlement service for 'hard to reach' young homeless people across east London, and supports young people to access a range of education, training and employment opportunities. Lektrolab had a great day with the Kipper staff and young people.

Paul B. Davis was invited by media arts group Burundi to give circuit bending and hardware hacking workshops funded by the Britsh Council Slovakia. Sarah Washington and Knut Aufermann were also leading these 4 day workshops.

Paul lectured and demonstrated different hardware hacking techniques and how to interface circuit bent instruments with computers and micro controllers. With this information, participants were able to have a computer control the sounds of their circuit bent instruments and be able to use their instruments with midi sequencers or MAX/MSP to make music. Even though the sounds are still unusual, artists/musicians have the possibility of more control and can use the new musical instruments they make to write songs, rather than improvise. This workshop is easy to understand, but does require the participants have some computer knowledge. Also explained was how the same skills could be used to generate or control video pieces.

The workshop culminated with all the participants performing together as an orchestra with their new instruments.

For the British Film Institute, Lektrolab produced two workshops as a of The Bits in Motion series. The series was created to mark the the culmination of CACHe, an extensive research project at Birkbeck into the story behind British computer arts, and also featured two screenings - one of exclusivly British Computer-Generated Art Film and the other Early American Computer Animations.

Our workshops were Nintendo Entertainment System Hacking and Grafixxx lead by Paul B. Davis and the second workshop was Amiga Animation and VJ-ing lead by Julian van Aalderen from the Dutch group The C-Men. The workshops were aimed at people who wanted to learn to create moving and still images using 'obsolete' 80s computers and game systems.

Images by Edwin Van Aalderen

Lektrolab were invited by ambientTV.net to contribute to the ambientTV.net lounge in the Satellite of Love exhibition at the Witte de Witt TENT in Rotterdam. The Satellite of Love exhibition was part of the 35th International Film festival Rotterdam.

We developed Microtel - a teletext TV station that was broadcast by NOS, the Dutch national TV station between 26 January - 05 February 2006. The content of the station came from an open call for works and by email and from workshops held in the gallery space. Microtel received over 400 pages from around the world.

The dedicated Microtel website: http://projects.lektrolab.com/microtel

WORKSHOP PROGRAM
28 January - Microtel and making teletext
29 January - Nintendo Cartridge Hacking
02 February - Microtel and making teletext
04 February - Nintendo Cartridge Hacking

EXHIBITION PIECE
Abstract Brothers - Hacked Nintendo cartridge by Lektrolab

PRESENTATIONS
01 February - Emma Davidson presents TV DINNER
Emma presented a selection of favourite movie and TV clips in a series curated by Mieke van der Linden. Other guests in this series were Sophie Fiennes, Phil Collins & Pieter Kramer.
01 February - The Late Night Talk Show
Emma Davidson appeared with Armin Droge on The Late Night Talk Show to talk about teletext and television.

MOVIE CLIPS
Hit and Run: Microtel - Emma Davidson talks about Microtel here
Hit and Run: Nintendo Hacking - Paul B Davis demonstrates Nintendo hacking here

Photographs by Tina Hage
Teletext images are a selection from Microtel

Lektrolab were invited by Stroud Valley Arts to work at the Painswick Inn Project in Stroud to host a circuit bending workshop with participants from the Painswick Inn Project and the Hub musicians collective. Stroud Valley Arts is an artist lead collective that is a non profit organisation. The Painswick Inn Project is one to assist young people. Thanks for having us guys! We hope to come back soon!

In September 2005 Paul B. Davis was invited to the Basurama Festival to give a performance using circuit bent cassette players. Paul created the World Cassette Jockey Championships in Chicago in 2002 as part of the Version festival organised by the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. The aim of the people organising the Basurama Festival is to study those phenomena inherent in the massive production of real and virtual trash in the consumer society, providing points of view on the subject that might generate new thoughts and attitudes.

Images by Julian Van Aalderen. VJ images by The C-men.

Super Sonic was a series of three specially designed workshops in Djing, Vjing, circuit bending, ROM hacking and Gameboy music composition for participants between the ages of 16 and 25. The goal for the workshops was for the participants to perform a show in response to the Rebecca Horn exhibition held at the Hayward gallery with only one practise session! Also as part of the performance we exhibited animation and video contributed by Paperrad and Cory Arcangel/BEIGE.

This project was a series of workshops co-ordinated with the Education department of London's Barbican centre held for 6th Form art students at City and Islington College in North London. The students worked on a tailor-made circuit bending project which involved the students dis and re-assembling walkman cassette players and creating a 3D object from cassette tape in response to the Christian Marclay exhibition held at the Barbican at the time.

Lektrolab participated in this digital arts festival by holding a beginners circuit bending workshop on invitation from festival organisers.

Lovebytes is an annual festival of digital art that takes place at a variety of venues in Sheffield. Lovebytes is both a platform for new work and an opportunity for people interested in digital culture to get together in an inspiring environment.

Lektrolab presented two rooms of live electronic music at King's Cross venue The Scala, with workshops earlier in the evening. The line up attracted a crowd close to 500 and the programming for this show focused on live electronic music - as at most Lektrolab events, laptop playback performance was overlooked in favour of acts who were indeed live.

Highlights from this evening were: P sing cho who are a band that perform exclusively with circuit bent instruments, a semi controlled sea of feedback and noise, OH have a live drummer as well as covering the stage with keyboards and electronic boxes. Bodenstandig 2000 [Rephlex / Feed the Machine] performed a killer set using obsolete computers to deliver a powerhouse of Eurorave sound and boyband vocals and DAT Politics [Ski-pp / COS Records] had the crowd singing, chanting and dancing to their messed up digi-pop, keyboards, sampling and stunning visuals. The other guests in the main room were DMX Krew, Ceephax Acid Crew and Outbreak Cru. The VJ's in this room were Copenhagen Brains and The C-men.

In the second room, ADAADAT presented a live show case featuring their entire artist roster. DJ Mollywood and Logic Bomb were in the bar area.

View video files from the show on our LINKS AND DOWNLOADS page.

Lektrolab was commissioned by Channel 4 to produce workshops and events as part of a large scale 6 month project which toured England. Manchester Urbis, Plymouth Arts Center, Newcastle Waygood Gallery and Liverpool FACT. Horse Hospital, The Spitz Gallery, Union Chapel. The project had a goal to bring a minimum of 400 people in contact with hands on electronic projects in that time. We organised and taught over 20 workshops and lectures in as part of the program and curated a series of monthly evening events presenting innovative LIVE electronic music.
Lektrolab invited other artists to lecture and perform as part of this project: Bitch Ass Darius [ghettotech DJ and producer] lead workshops on specialist turntable skills, Thomas Margolf [aka firestARTer] lectured on Gameboy music making and simple trackers, Sarah Washington [sound artist and performer] was indespensable leading the circuit bending workshops alongside Paul from Lektrolab, as was Lee Coventry [DJ Slippers] in the DJ workshops.

WORKSHOP PROGRAM
JULY 04
London - The Spitz beginners DJ workshop

AUGUST 04
London - The Spitz beginners and intermediate DJ workshop

SEPTEMBER 04
London - The Spitz intermediate and scratch DJ workshops
London - The Union Chapel circuit bending workshops

OCTOBER 04
London - The Spitz beginners DJ, VJ and Gameboy/tracker workshops
London - Royal Festival Hall circuit bending workshops
Manchester - URBIS beginners DJ and circuit bending workshops
Newcastle - The Waygood Gallery beginners DJ and circuit bending workshops

NOVEMBER 04
London - The Royal Festival Hall circuit bending workshops
London - The Spitz beginners and scratch DJ workshops
London - The Vinyl Factory Nintendo hacking and ROM hacking workshop
Plymouth - Plymouth Arts Centre beginners DJ and circuit bending workshops

DECEMBER 04
London - The Horse Hospital Nintendo hacking and ROM hacking workshop
Liverpool - FACT beginners DJ and circuit bending workshops

EVENT PROGRAM AT THE SPITZ
JULY - Tetine [Slum Dunk Radio], Outbreak Cru [Heavymedia]
AUGUST - The 8-Bit Construction Set [BEIGE], DMX Krew [Breakin' Records/Rephlex]
SEPTEMBER - Bitch Ass Darius [Databass], ROTFLOL [Paperrad]
OCTOBER - firestARTer [micromusic], Copenhagen Brains [Musicsystem] DJ Cabine
NOVEMBER - Appareil [Lobotom], Printed Circuit [Tigerbeat], DAT Politics [Ski-pp]

Organised by the Education department at London's Royal Festival Hall, Lektrolab held four beginners DJ workshops in four different schools in South London. The participants were aged between 14 and 18 depending on the school. There was a final show held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall where the students from each school gave a DJ demonstration of their new skills for each other and the public.

It is here that Lektrolab met the Outbreak Cru, a fledgling South London all female DJ/MC urban act. With support from Lektrolab, Outbreak Cru have since performed regularly in London and toured Germany and Denmark.

Lektrolab presented monthly live music club nights in the ICA bar featuring PUSS, Komatrohn, Rolemodel, Lo-Bat, Rauberhole, Egotronic, Copenhagen Brains, The C-Men, Princess Julia. The programming for the events used artist who were self taught or used easily equipment easy to obtain and play with the aim to encourage the specatators to be creative themselves. The workshops which ran at the time complimented this philosophy.