DANMite,colloquium /Khate
Deprogramming and Bugging Code: the Semi-Science of Circuit Bending
Circuit-bending is best described in the words of pioneering bender Reed Ghazala: "an electronic art which implements creative audio short-circuiting". While programmers and engineers labor to create stable, predictable sound devices, benders deliberately undo their work in search of the hidden, the random, and the unorthodox. In the process, they transform the cheap, ordinary, and disposable into the unique; the act of creating the bent instrument is often as important as the sounds and works ultimately produced. This presentation will give an overview of the how and why of bending, a demonstration of a few bent instruments, and (time permitting) a short performance.
Bio
Khate has been making electronic music since 1994, when she cobbled together two semi-functional home stereos with some poorly-spliced cables and took advantage of their mechanical quirks to make tape collages. Ten years later, she still has a fondness for toy, vintage, and otherwise unconventional electronic instruments. Khate combines this menagerie of hardware with loops and organic found sounds to create textured, rhythmic soundscapes that nod at industrial, ambient, and musique concrete influences.
Khate received an MA in Creative Arts Therapy from Hofstra University in 1995. In addition to performing regionally, she conducts workshops on circuit-bending, and participates in the 804Noise Festival annually.