Iklectic in London - Vicki Bennett and Daniel Menche

Since 2014 there is a creative space in London close to Waterloo which I had to pleasure to visit for the first time in June 2019. About Iklectic, I think that the best description is given by the people who run the space and from the website they describe it as:

IKLECTIK [pron. eclectic] is a creative platform founded in 2014 that showcases contemporary art, experimental music and artistic critical practice.

We are an engine for bringing the creative elements in a focused environment, that fosters the arts and social development.

Our aim is to focus on experimentation in arts, sound art, installation and cross disciplinary projects. We want to expand our space as a research arts laboratory where inter-disciplinary lines can overlap to create projects that explore processes and techniques, address social, political, cultural and critical issues.

We have a dynamic program that presents workshops, art residencies, lectures, panel discussions, screenings, sound & music events, performances and readings to catalyze education, growth and transformation for the local community and the greater public.

I have to admit that I should have been to the Iklectic much earlier, but this time what really drove me there was an event organised by Touch Music. The first part of the event was a performance from Daniel Menche, using a long metal stick as a microphone along with some video visuals used on the background. The performance of Menche was similar to his music style of experimental music, with long drones and creating an ambient environment with a black white abstract visual accompanying his music.

The second part of the event was People Like Us, aka Vicki Bennett, of 'The Mirror', which was funded by the Arts Council Fund. The Mirror was presented for the first time in Athens in the Onassis Cultural Museum in Spring 2018, and since then it has been shown in various places. The Mirror is mostly a collage of scenes lasting around 30 minutes from movies along with music that creates a beautiful video around memories, experiences, and various thematics mainly from old movies. 

Re-listening I- Ryoji Ikeda

...and what an amazing listening experience. And what a great idea has been to re-listen after years some of these albums. Excited of listening to Ryoji Ikeda and very impressed about how my understanding of great works and artists has changed and developed. The album cover is white, hence, what you see is actually the front page of the cd booklet.

While listening to this album I think I have tried at least 5 different sound volumes for each track to get the most out of it and get a better understanding. About the album, it was released in 1996 for Touch Records and recorded in Tokyo, Japan. For fans of Touch music or Raster Noton the sound and aesthetics resemble much closer to Raster Noton with the beat patterns and the different frequencies as in many Raster-Noton albums.

The artwork is as expected very minimalistic with white pages having the simple plus (+) and minus (-) signs. The album is as many similar minimalistic albums that you can just listen to the album without caring if there is a different track or not. However, there are sound pitches and escalations around the end of each track. The recording experience enables the listener to make difficult distinctions between sounds that can be heard in an urban setting or an album recording itself. It feels that if a sound system was hidden somewhere in a space a bunch of people would be looking to find out where this sound comes from.

The name of the album made me use the +/- of the remote control of my cd player. Try to listen to the different frequencies and tones and feeling a bit lost how to follow the speed of the sound. And while I'm writing these lines I opened the booklet of the cd and what Ryoji Ikeda is saying and is a much better presentation of this album is: "+/- has a particular sonority whose quality is determined by one's listening point in relation to the loudspeakers. Furthermore, the listener can experience a particular difference between speaker playback and headphone listening. The sound signals can be thought of in the same way as light is made spotlight. Lastly, a high frequency sound is used that the listener becomes aware only upon its disappearance". I think I'd need at least 2-3 paragraphs to describe what Ikeda said in a few lines.


Ryoji ikeda : data.gram [nº1], 15 SEP - 2 DEC 2018, Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, NL from ryoji ikeda studio on Vimeo.

Reblogging - Relistening

I started this blog so many years ago, and I think it was around 2010, when I had an article published about the underground music scene in my home town, Thessaloniki. One of the factors that put me off from blogging was the sometimes unfair comments I received, especially from people who hardly knew me. However, there was also a very big number of people that enjoyed my writing.

Of course, that is not the only reason. Even now while I am writing these lines, I still wonder what is the point of blogging as I've never been a music or art journalist, and lack the theoretical and technical knowledge. Especially, now that most of the people post something with few words and more hashtags to get exposure about things that are not so important or showing personal moments and their most intimate relationships.

The best answer I could give is that there is a possibility that someone will read some of my posts and maybe like them. This is what community is all about at the end. Also, a personal reminder where my real interests lie. Another factor is that after reading interviews, articles, and books of all these artists, their lives, their influences, and why to choose something like that is not popular to the majority of the people, but they choose to keep on doing it. It is for these artists and their exciting lives and their amazing art.

If I will stop writing soon? Maybe. But I'll restart again. At this moment I'll start by writing about some of the albums I am currently re-listening.