Organizers of Moogfest 2017 today released the full schedule for this year’s four-day event, which explores the future of technology, art, and music.
Moogfest 2017 – scheduled for Thursday, May 18 – Sunday, May 21 in Durham, North Carolina – will feature more than 300 musical performances, daytime workshops, conversations, masterclasses, film screenings, live scores, durational sound installations and interactive art experiences.
This year’s program will feature over 260 innovators in music, art, and technology — from Flying Lotus, Animal Collective, Suzanne Ciani, Gotye and Princess Nokia to Dr. Kate Shaw, an experimental particle physicist working on the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, and Joe Davis, a pioneer in creating art with genes and bacteria at MIT Media Lab.
Moogfest Workshops
From the practical to the esoteric, workshops offer direct engagement with artists, thinkers and creators performing at Moogfest and empower the individual to affect the future. Possibilities range from Laraaji’s workshop on laughter meditation, to building your own light theremin or square-wave oscillator, to a contact mic workshop with underground experimental music figurehead Pharmakon, to a workshop where NEW INC will try to build a simulated utopia, to a class on DJ fundamentals for kids with renowned Detroit techno producer DJ K-HAND, to using laser projectors for generating abstract visuals, to a hands-on workshop on the basics of building modular patches for female and non-binary individuals, presented by S1 Synth Library.
Masterclasses with Moogfest Artists & Makers
DJs Greg Belson and Peanut Butter Wolf will impart wisdom and musical storytelling learned through a life digging through record crates.
Artist Gotye will lead a masterclass in the round on recently deceased electronic music pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey’s life, musical genius, and signature electronic instrument the Ondioline.
Video synthesizer designer and founder of LZX Industries Lars Larsen takes a moment to step away from the workbench and discuss the potential of modular analog video synthesis tools and workflow for the modern day video artist.
Ableton Live founder and electronic musician Gerhard Behles discusses the democratization of access to tools to create music and illuminate new ideas.
Hacking Systems
In these workshops you’ll learn to breadboard a square wave oscillator from a single integrated circuit while revealing the electric DNA of the modular synth genome with Elliot Inman; spontaneously compose a radio piece with non-profit online radio station Dublab, Container and Elon Katz; learn to use affordable, off-the-shelf hardware and free open-source software to design real-time musical devices to dynamically generate music to foster mindfulness with Ico Bukvic, founder and director of Virginia Tech’s Digital Interactive Sound and Intermedia Studio.
Black Quantum Futurism
Moor Mother and Afrofuturist Affair guide workshops in this intersectional theory and practice that combines quantum physics, futurist traditions, and Black and African diasporic cultural traditions of consciousness, time, and space.
Workshop participants will build future maps and quantum time capsules, shift cause and effect, and better understand the interaction between timescapes and soundscapes; use a DIY sci-fi lens to explore and reclaim mindspaces; create a sound space to combat oppression; and develop their own unique superhero identities.
Spatial Sound
In these workshops experience spatial audio in a 3D audio Space Jam under the guidance of Virginia Tech’s ICAT faculty; learn ways to control spatial audio in a high-density loudspeaker array; learn how to code spatial effects using the free, open-source program SuperCollider; and hear how the power of immersive audio can become a compositional and audio-engineering tool to create new musical experiences.
Instrument Design
In a very special happening, synth design titan Dave Smith will lead a masterclass on one of his most iconic synths, The Prophet. Instrument tech pioneer Dave Rossum will host an intimate conversation that illuminates his unique path and designs. Moog engineer Michael Ashton will show his workshop participants how to build their own synthesizers, from concept to circuit board to chassis.
The Engineer VIP Workshop consists of two three-hour sessions (held over two days) led by Moog engineers, where participants learn the foundations of analog synthesis and are guided through the process of building their own unreleased Moog synthesizer/sequencers.
The synthesizers built in the workshop will be part of a limited run of 100 units.
Techno-Shamanism
Where meditation meets mechanization, Techno-Shamanism merges technology with something more cosmic, ancient traditions with cutting-edge innovations, to tap into etheric energy and bring next-wave ideas into physical existence. Related workshops include a sleep concert/laughter meditation session with famous yogi, musician, and mystic Laraaji; a family-friendly exercise in yoga and waveform mandala art; and a conversation from Moog engineer Amos Gaynes about the connection between music, dance, and shamanic ritual.
Protest
Educator, humanitarian, and UNC Music and Technology Professor Dr. Mark Katz conducts a conversation with acclaimed musicians and scholars on using music to advance social and political causes; Dr. Will Boone leads a presentation on the efficacy of blues and gospel music as a counter-resistance force; EDM/social justice nonprofit Give a Beat opens up a discussion on how dance music and tech can be utilized for addressing and recovering from the effects of mass incarceration. Artist and educator Taeyoon Choi leads a workshop on how to make compelling signage that effectively starts a dialogue, and Protest Stage performer Mykki Blanco leads a masterclass.
The Joyful Noise of STEAM
Techno producer DJ K-HAND will guide kids (and anyone else who’s interested) through the basics of DJing; Lile Stephens will lead students ages 10-18 in building a working light theremin; Philadelphia-based collective Metropolarity will help workshop participants identify their unique superhero identities then come together to create narrative art that tackles an issue of their collective choosing.
The Future of Creativity
Armida Ascano of Trend Hunter delves into the possibilities and influence of the post-Internet generation; MIT’s artist-scientist Joe Davis will lead an exploration of interstellar communication; [descriptor] Dr. Steven Goldfarb, Duke professor Mark Kruse, and CERN scientist Dr. Kate Shaw will participate in a broadly-accessible discussion on the Large Hadron Collider and physics and math in developing countries.
See the Moogfest 2017 site for full details.
Got to beat the rush and sign up for “Protest Sign Making” and “Quantum Time Capsule & DIY Time Travel”
This festival has become a disaster. After attending year after year I no longer have any interest.
A lot of people bash Moogfest, but I’m as excited to go this year as I was to go last year (very). I do wish they would schedule things a little differently though – this year is heavily front-loaded on Thursday and Friday with weaker Saturday and Sunday schedules. Many of us can’t make it out for Thursday, and will miss-out on a lot of the acts and workshops we were looking forward to.
This year seems a bit more cerebral than last year, but that is a good thing in some ways. I don’t know if we met last year or not, but I would love to see you and make some music with you at my workshop, “No Permission Needed: Create!” We are at the Institute of Art this year, not the 21c Hotel like last year.
TBH, a lot of this stuff sounds pretty far out, in both senses of the term (cool and wild). I approve of this strange new direction for boutique hardware companies. Also quite appropriate in this case as Bob was a great friend to many real individuals expanding the limits of what was thought possible or reasonable.
will there be a safe zone with tissues so they can cry about behringer?????
In a walled snowflake garden. Free MAGA hats for Everyone!
dear moog music was always used by the people to sing about oppressive governments,,
but governments deemed this a threat ,hence no more sex pistols or two-pac just state sanctioned rubbish ..no more bob dylan type songs….
moog are you for the people or government??