LEV or Laboratory of Visual Electronics offers a panoramic and eclectic vision of the wide spectrum of branches present in the creation linked to electronic music and the visual arts
LEVo Laboratory of Visual Electronics is the International Festival of Audiovisual Creation of Gijón. This project tries to offer a panoramic and eclectic vision of the wide spectrum of branches present in the creation linked to electronic music and the visual arts since 2007.
It is a physical and ephemeral space, concerned with the natural synergy between image and sound, with live action, experimentation and with the continuous mutations and hybridizations between genres and styles that highlight the importance of music and the arts. visuals as artistic manifestations in constant evolution and transformation.
LEV, a co-production of the Government of the Principality of Asturias, Gijón City Council, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial and the Datatrón collective, pays tribute through its acronym to Lev Thermen (Russian scientist, father of current synthesizers).
The eighth edition of the Visual Electronics Laboratory will be held on May 1, 2 and 3 in different spaces of the Center for Art and Industrial Creation and Labor City of Culture, such as the Church and the Theater, as well as in the Garden Atlantic Botanical and the Jovellanos Theater in Gijón.
Audiovisual shows
Like every year, LEV will have as one of its objectives to take the pulse of the state of international audiovisual creation. Along these lines, the festival will present a series of shows that are without a doubt among the most outstanding of the moment.- Robert Henke, Lumière, sound-reactive laser show.- Martin Messier, Projectors, show developed with 8 mm projectors .- Herman Kolgen, Different Trains, live audiovisual where Steve Reich’s piece of the same name is reinterpreted together with a string quartet. And with the international premiere of Herman Kolgen’s show Seismik, the latest audiovisual work of the renowned multimedia artist Canadian who has chosen Gijón and LEV to present his latest creation. These four shows will take place at the Teatro de la Laboral, which will also host the HD audiovisual live performance by the artist Atom™. Canadian artists Martin Messier and Herman Kolgen, both winners of important awards such as the Qwartz Awards or mentions in Ars Electrónica, will be included within a cycle called Focus Quebec, through which the Festival is twinned with the Quebec region, promoting an exchange of projects in both directions.
LEV 2014. Robert Henke presents Lumière. Image: Andreas Gockel
Established artists and promising young artists
Another of the Festival’s objectives is to offer an eclectic program that includes both established artists and young talents. This year the Festival has one of the most outstanding national projects in the history of electronic music: Esplendor Geometrico, who have not passed through northern Spain for more than 25 years. As well as with international projects such as Vatican Shadow or names that we mentioned before such as Robert Henke (creator of the software most used today to perform live electronic music), Atom™ or Mark Fell. These established names contrast with the selection of young artists that the Festival makes in each edition with the aim of presenting to the public proposals that represent the future of sound creation and where this year names such as Douglas Dare stand out, a very young piano composer who will perform on Saturday at the Theatre, Koreless and Vessel, who will perform at the Church on Saturday, or Throwing Snow, at the Botanical Garden.
LEV 2014. Geometric Splendor. Image: Gandy
local scene
One more year LEV establishes itself as a platform for our creators. Artists and projects such as Fasenuova, one of the most prominent local projects at the national level, LCC, Huías or Ramón Prada will be present with their works at the festival, having visibility in spaces such as the Jovellanos Theater, the Atlantic Botanical Garden or the Laboral Church. .
LEV 2014. Image: Huías
LABoral Art Center: axis of daytime activities
LABoral Center for Art and Industrial Creationonce again becomes the main focus of daytime activities, hosting a good number of activities and adding in this edition a new space to the previous configuration of the festival: the Sound LABoratory, the new space within LABoral dedicated to experimentation Sonido.An artistic residency by the British artist Mark Fell, whose work at LABoral during the days prior to the festival will conclude in a multi-channel installation conceived especially for the occasion, is the proposal that the LABoratorio de Sonido together with LEV have devised to give life to this new space.
During his residency, the British artist intends to explore the series of spatial possibilities of the future installation, not only answering technical questions but also visual or perceptual questions. This work has a specific character at a spatial level, that is, it is conceived for the architectural design of the LABoratory and will act as a sound installation based on algorithmic music and mathematics. Both the selection of the artist in residence and the work produced is a proposal made jointly by LEV 2014 and LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial.
In addition, LABoral also presents the Datascape exhibition. New Landscapes in the Technological Age, which explores how contemporary artists address the complexity of the world; and will host the new Red Bull Music Academy Radio program: Bamboleo, as well as the live Sewing Machine Orchestra by Martin Messier, or the light and sound show by the duo Lumisokea, who will bring us a live show conceived together with Yannick Jacket from the renowned AntiVJ collective .
LEV 2014. Martin Messier. Image: Maxime_Bouchard
Incorporation of the Jovellanos Theater
One of the main novelties of this edition is the incorporation of the Jovellanos Theater, the new festival space, hosting the first of the Festival’s programming activities on May 1: Trinity.
Trinityis an audiovisual interactive dance piece that narrates the journey of a body that goes through different states of space perception. Through movement, the body is immersed in an environment of textures and audiovisual landscapes, which not only accompany it but push it towards a process of transformation. An audiovisual interactive dance project produced by Oscar Sol, under the name Electronic Performers, co-created with the performer and choreographer Iris Heitzinger (Austria) and the Asturian composer Ramón Prada aka Vittus, which proposes a functional and aesthetic dialogue between three elements that make up the work; movement, sound and visuals. It is a show with reduced capacity, since both the piece and the audience are located in the stage box, and free entry until capacity is reached.
LEV 2014. Trinity. Image: Mind The Film
The reinterpretation of the Laboral Church based on light architecture
Another novelty in this new edition of the LEV is the reinterpretation of an architectural space such as the Church of La Laboral using lighting architecture techniques. For this purpose, there is the national collective PlayMid, an interactive design and technology studio specialized in engineering, interaction design and new media, which is working to present a lighting scenography conceived especially for the Church space and that during the two days of the festival will accompany some of the musical proposals.
LEV 2014. Image: Playmid
Botanical Garden
As has been customary for three editions, LEV will program during the daytime at the Gijón Botanical Garden, this time presenting live performances by the Asturian Huías, and the English Luke Abbott and Throwing Snow, during midday on Saturday, May 3.
LEV 2013. Botanical Garden. Image: Piru de la Puente
More information:www.levfestival.com
Program and schedules:http://www.levfestival.com/14/horarios/
Project co-produced by:
