Edition 2016

A beacon signalling the beginning of the summer festival season, MUTEK returns to the heart of the Quartier des spectacles and the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) for 5 days and nights of carefully curated performances. Emphasizing live and original expressions of contemporary electronic music and audiovisual arts, the festivities run at a breakneck pace from Wednesday, June 1 through to Sunday, June 5 at various indoor and outdoor locations downtown.

In a city now renowned for its electronic music culture and digital creativity, MUTEK proves once again that the festival remains a vital and vibrant frame that provides a hyper-concentrated showcase of artists from all over the world working at the vanguard of new forms and ideas. Functioning as a hub and meeting place, the festival also plugs the local and international community into a social and artistic circuit that generates revelations, new experiences, and premonitions about what is coming next. After 17 years, MUTEK still thrives on immediacy and unpredictability, on curiosity and conviviality, gathering an array of different audiences, while always creating a sense of proximity to the art and artists. With Montréal as the backdrop, another layer of sensory stimulation is added to the experiential theatre of the whole festival.

This year’s program balances international names, masters and trendsetters with emergent talents, Québec and Canadian artists, and more women than ever.

Download the program

OBORO presents sounding_bodies

MODULAR RESIDENCY AND PERFORMANCES: sounding_bodies presented by Oboro

Instigators: Stéphane Claude and Philippe-Aubert Gauthier

Guest Artists: Stephen Beaupré, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Sarah Davachi, Emilie Roby, Steve Bates

Production period of invited artists
May 30 – June 3, 2016

“Circulatory” performance
June 4 and 5 at 5 pm

Motivated by the audio research conducted by OBORO in the installation and spatialization of hybrid broadcasting devices related to modular synthesis, sounding_bodies invites four sound artists to create work in a dedicated space, whose acoustic scenography was conceived based on the artists’ specific needs.

Over the course of one week, Stephen Beaupré, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Sarah Davachi, Steve Bates and Emilie Roby will focus on and transform their relation to space and sound in a context set up by Stéphane Claude and Philippe-Aubert Gauthier, in concert with each artist. The public will be able to hear the outcome of their explorations and see their respective creation spaces on June 4 and 5, 2016, at 5 pm, by going from one space to the next during a “circulatory” performance.

Sounding_bodies builds on the Audio Art / Modular Synthesis workshop held at the New Media Lab from November 7 to 21, 2015. The workshop’s aim was to initiate a migration—already begun by several sound artists and electronic musicians—from purely computer-based environments to physical, analog, tactile and haptic approaches to sound composition, installation, and performance.

The methods and practical applications of the Audio Art / Modular Synthesis workshop were documented in a text written by Philippe-Aubert Gauthier and Stéphane Claude and published in issue 17.4—which focused on analogue and modular synthesis—of eContact!, the online journal of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC).

More info here.

Red Bull Music Academy

Looking forward to the Red Bull Music Academy taking up residence in Montréal this fall, MUTEK is pleased to renew its long running collaboration with RBMA during the festival. Two expansive nights at Métropolis have again been designed:

Friday night's MÉTROPOLIS 1 features a lineup of epic, artful, big room techno with all live sets from: underground definer, Berghain resident and Sandwell District founder, FUNCTION; Irish duo LAKKER whose tense, driving, dub-flecked sound will make its North American premiere; Russian ex-pat and producer DASHA RUSH plays one of her moody but authoritative sets; and Canadian duo ORPHX return to MUTEK with a brand new propulsive set of their psych-tech leaning sound forefronting modulars.

Saturday night’s MÉTROPOLIS 2 stays up late with the first North American live set from MAAYAN NIDAM whose trippy productions and DJ sets have already established her reputation for moving bodies; charismatic performer and keyboardist FRANCESCO TRISTANO with his seamless mix of classical smarts and electronic interventions; local producers TAZZ ET GIOVANNI RANDISI open the room with their all-consuming techno; the trippy synths and heavy bass lines of Bucharest-based BARAC; and, occupying the carefully chosen DJ position at the end of the bill, SONJA MOONEAR, known for her discerning disc selections and joyful command of the floor.

SHAPE

MUTEK further taps into its global network to present exclusive North American performances in collaboration with the European SHAPE project, supported by the Creative Europe program of the European Union. Every year, the 16 members of SHAPE (an acronym for Sound, Heterogeneous Art and Performance in Europe) curate an amazing array of artists who represent the leading edge of audiovisual, sound and contemporary electronic music. This programming at MUTEK opens a window directly onto the current European experimental and avant garde electronic scenes, from London to Bucharest. For the very first and only time, no less than 9 must-see artists will come to Montréal via SHAPE’s curatorial platform, which includes high profile, boundary pushing European festivals like Krakow’s Unsound and Berlin’s CTM.

The platform was formed by members of ICAS (International Cities of Advanced Sound) – a global network of independent non-profit organizations dedicated to advancing sound cultures, music and related arts.

The SHAPE artists who will be playing at MUTEK 2016 are:
> Swedish electronic producer PEDER MANNERFELT, also known as The Subliminal Kid and one half of analog electronics duo Roll the Dice, introduces us to his range of groove conscious minimal techno, precise cinematic compositions and exploratory sound.
> Brussels-based Belgian producer Laurent Baudoux, also known as Sun OK Papi K.O. and in Electrosold Collectif (with Mouse on Mars’ Jan St. Werner) comes to MUTEK as LAWRENCE LE DOUX, playing his wobbly deep and tech house styles on Sunday night.
> Paris-based producer and Warp Records artist JACKSON shows us what his tailor made instruments can do in experimental sound and light performance, Light Metal Music.
> French-Japanese duo NONOTAK return to the festival with Shiro, a four screen audiovisual performance of experimental techno meshed with interplaying shadow and light.
> Prague-based Mexican producer, musician and multimedia artist LAURA LUNA experiments in emotive minimalist compositions where lo fi meets high tech electro.
> Italian producer, musician and composer LORENZO SENNI deconstructs trance into abstract compositional electro and experimental, fractured sound.
> Polish group T'IEN LAI mixes live percussion, electronics and a chaos of musical styles into a controlled rhythmic entity.
> British artist SPATIAL contributes his bass heavy, post-rave beat inclinations. While, Swiss-born.
> Nepalese-Indian artist AÏSHA DEVI takes pages from Bangladeshi poetry, physics and bass music to make provocative metaphysical intercultural dance music.

VR Salon #2

After a first successful edition last fall, MUTEK convenes a second edition of the VR Salon this spring, in order to continue to explore the multiple artistic, technologic and industry issues involved in the development of Virtual Reality.

Developed in collaboration with VR Valley Network Montréal and presented in collaboration with the Phi Centre, the VR Salon #2 will take place on Monday, May 30 and Tuesday, May 31, just before the MUTEK festival.

This new edition of the VR Salon will focus on Virtual Reality applications in creative contexts and will shed light on innovative projects in the arts, cinema, documentary, video games, marketing, journalism, and others sectors in culture, media and entertainment.

The program includes roundtables, presentations, panels and networking activities, and will also feature a creative workshop and a VR Exhibition open to the public.

Composite #5

MUTEK is proud to present the fifth edition of COMPOSITE, an event series initiated by the Conseil des arts de Montréal that invites digital artists and entrepreneurs to share their projects and concepts.

Taking place on Thursday, June 2, from 5:30-9PM, COMPOSITE #5 will be hosted at Autodesk’s stylish offices, in Montréal’s Cité du Multimédia.

Boiler room x MUTEK @ SAT

On Sunday afternoon, MUTEK welcomes Boiler Room in the dome at the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT).

Boiler Room presents Frontiers — a new series of A/V programs to take place across Canada dedicated to exploring today's most groundbreaking electronic music and visual artists. This inaugural event brings together two staples of ground breaking electronic music and art culture, in one of its most fertile grounds — Montréal. Partnering with pioneering digital arts festival MUTEK and the Satosphere, the multimedia immersive dome atop the SAT, Boiler Room is thrilled to be back in Québec for the first time in two years.

From its programming approach both musically and visually, to its creative direction, experiential design concepts, content, and community outreach, Frontiers will showcase some of the most compelling artists both in Canada and throughout the globe, taking them from coast to coast and delving into the most exciting scenes and cities the country has to offer.

17H00 Shigeto (US)
18H00 Sepalcure (US)
19H00 Iron Galaxy (CA)
20H20 Martyn (NL)