For its second stand in Durham, Moogfest is rolling out its programming lineup in phases, the first of which just dropped. The overall programming themes include The Future of Creativity, Protest, Spatial Sound, Hacking Systems, The Future of Creativity, Instrument Design, The Joyful Noise of STEAM, and more.
Topping the bill this round is Nona Hendryx, most notably of Labelle, who will perform and present wearable tech instruments of her own invention. SURVIVE, the duo responsible for the synth soundtrack of last year’s runaway Netflix hit Stranger Things, and noise pioneers Wolf Eyes also take the stage. The Haxan Cloak‘s Bobby Krlic and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner are also teaming up for a special live collaboration.
This year’s festival will once again feature Durationals, non-stop four-hour presentations that test the physical limits of artists and attendees alike. One of those will feature Simian Mobile Disco producer Jas Shaw, and another focuses on the work of musician and activist Camae Ayewa, better known as Moor Mother. There will also be another sleep music concert, led by Laraaji overnight for eight hours.
The rest of the lineup will be announced gradually over the next few weeks, via the festival’s FutureThoughtFutureSound newsletter—you can sign up for that here.
Tickets to Moogfest are still on sale, with a weekend pass starting at $249. You can buy those here, and read the full release below.
Durham, NC January 10, 2017
Moogfest is committed to growing a global community of futurists who explore emerging sound technologies and design radical instruments for change. 2017 marks the eleventh iteration of a festival that brings together artists, futurist thinkers, inventors, entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, scientists, and musicians. Moogfest is proud to present its annual event in Durham, North Carolina, alongside a booming technology scene, at the center of the famed Research Triangle, in the beloved home state of the late visionary Dr. Robert Moog.
In 2016, Moogfest welcomed 40,000 attendees from 22 countries and 41 states (with 5.6 million livestream viewers), despite boycotts and corporate divestment after HB2, the controversial “bathroom bill”. “It’s fitting that Durham is the site of Moogfest once again,” said Shelly Green, President & CEO of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau. “Durham has a long history of embracing diversity as well as activism against discrimination, so we welcome Moogfest and this theme with open arms.” The recent state and national elections, and the ensuing chaos in the North Carolina legislature, affirms the need for safe spaces where creative communities can imagine new and inclusive futures. Moogfest is an independent festival dedicated to this vision. Last year’s keynote presenter, Dr. Martine Rothblatt, founder of Sirius Radio and now CEO of United Therapeutics, a North Carolina-based biotechnology company, offered “…huge praise to the organizers of Moogfest for turning this into a protest festival,” before reminding everyone that “…we are makers, and we have to make our way out of oppression.” This dynamic of resistance alongside creativity returns in 2017 with program themes that include Protest, Sci-Fi Wishes and Utopian Dreams, Transhumanism, and Hacking Systems, among others. noise music legends and 2017 participants, Nate from Wolf Eyes states “We have never been activists, but in this day and age it has become clear that we need to use our music as a carrier signal to fight against all forms of prejudice. Rather than boycotting North Carolina, we are excited to participate in building a network of artists and activists by collaborating with Moogfest.”
Moogfest Creative Director, Emmy Parker elaborated, “We think a little differently about what it means to be a festival. Rather than growing year after year, we’re more concerned with how we can make a bigger impact with everything we do.” As Moogfest prepares for the event in May, they are also seeding a conversation that will drive music and technology in the future.
From now until the festival, Moogfest will be unveiling an immense roster of talent on a weekly basis through the free “Future Thought Future Sound” email publication, a weekly digest of news, commentary and exclusive content from the Moogfest community of artists and thinkers. Parker explains that, “Our community of makers has the power to design a beautifully innovative and equitable future. It’s our responsibility to provide a platform that encourages them to create this change.” To receive updates, and join the global conversation, https://goo.gl/14MDMI to subscribe.
By day, the festival will explore Future Thought—-a daytime series of presentations, conversations, workshops and installations. By night, Moogfest celebrates ‘Future Sound’ with nighttime performances by early pioneers in electronic music, alongside pop and avant garde experimentalists. Today’s announcement kicks off its initial release of daytime Future Thought programming themes and participants, and as the weeks go on, Moogfest will reveal further details including keynotes and headliners plus Future Sound acts.
Lineup Announcement, Phase One:
• Special Presentations
• Following up with her Re-Wired series where she collaborates with electronic production and design students at Berklee College of Music, the legendary Nona Hendryx will present a performance and demonstration of her wearable tech instruments. Her career has spanned decades and put her at the forefront of funk, soul, R&B, pop, hard-rock, new-wave, and new-age music. From being a member of the iconic trio ‘Labelle’ famous for their hit ‘Lady Marmalade’ to an 8 studio-album solo career to translating her passion for tech into a full-on 2nd career as a Visual Artist — Hendryx is a constantly evolving creator and visionary.
• Grammy Award Nominated Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein of S U R V I V E, Austin’s retro-leaning synth act will present music from their original nostalgia-flickering score to Netflix’s ‘acclaimed series ‘Stranger Things’ ahead of the slated release of the popular show’s second season in 2017. Audiences will be fueled with nuances of forbidding eerie and sparse droning analog synths tinged with noirish ambient flourishes and menacing atonal extraterrestrial compositions.
* A veritable spearhead of the US noise scene for nearly two decades, known for their claustrophobic atmospheres, Wolf Eyes co-presented by Trip Metal Fest will host a workshop and conversation. Through their own use of technology with sonic protest, Detroit’s notorious noise band recently allowed fans to download their back catalogue from their bandcamp for a donation going towards various marginalised charities representing reproductive rights, LGBT causes and pro-immigrant foundations. “We are concerned with rejected people, total misfits, and freak scenes from every era”. “Although many hear Wolf Eyes as an ‘end of the world’ band, and surely it feels that way for many, our hope is that it too can be some light in the darkness,” wrote the noise act in a Facebook post.
• RVNG Intl., the Brooklyn-based record label known for numerous experimental dance and electronic artists, will host its own program at Moogfest this year co-presenting two workshops with Portland’s Visible Cloaks who explore “fourth-world undercurrents in modest Japanese ambient synth and pop music” and Canada’s 1970s synth pop pioneers Syrinx.
• Durationals – Moogfest continues its durational sound installation series. Pure sonic immersion will take place over three days of Moogfest. Each performance will unfold over a span of three to four hours, where anything can happen. This year’s highlights feature artists who will host the audience in intimate spaces while creating never-before-seen personalized sensory experiences.
Known for her documentarian approach, soundscape designer, poet, and activist Moor Mother aka Camae Ayewa will host a durational plus time travel sound workshop with Portland based Synth Library, who offer modular synthesizer workshops to female and non-binary music enthusiasts. Today, Moogfest is premiering a new remix of “Time Float” from the album Fetish Bones by Moor Mother that was released to critical acclaim by Don Giovanni Records this past year. “The remix represents Philadelphia at its best, King Britt has been an artist that I have had the honor to perform with and learn many things just by watching him. I am thankful that he has remixed one of my favorite songs from the album originally produced by artist Wizard Apprentice. “Time Float” speaks about the environmental warfare that continues to plague historical African Americans and low income communities.”
Listen to the track here.
o A collaboration between cavernous sound designer/producer The Haxan Cloak aka Bobby Krlic and Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner who makes his return to Moogfest for his second play
o Synth experimentalist, esteemed UK producer of celebrated electronic duo Simian Mobile Disco, Jas Shaw will perform a 4 hour durational
o Robert Rich made a stunning return with his first Sleep Concert in 13 years at Moogfest 2016. The ultimate durational at Moogfest will be this year’s all immersive all-night sleep concert, co-presented by Stones Throw/Leaving Records, a hand-curated cassette driven label whose international reach belies its boutique status and DIY style. New age musician, composer, and laughter meditation workshop leader Laraaji will debut his 8 hour sleep concert where participants will imagine their self in the present time of a sincere desire, dream vision being fulfilled. Gentle ambient celestial sounds and tones unfold over an eight hour period with zither, and various instruments supporting rest and trance, in an extended yoga SAVASANA. Participants awake with a 15 minute guided laughter meditation.
Program Highlights:
2017 themes:
The Future of Creativity
World-renowned futurists, philosophers and visionary artists tackle the big questions with daily keynote presentations: What will creative work look like, and sound like, in twenty, fifty, and one-hundred years from now? How will art be made and how will it be consumed? What will be the tools for creative expression in the future?
Hacking Systems
The resurgence of a technological Maker Culture is undeniable, and Moogfest is a gathering for all those enthused by new tools for creative expression. Conversations, workshops, and installations will not only explore hardware and physical computing, but also reflect on how the last decade has been transformed by a host of arts-engineering software toolkits like Processing, Arduino, and openFrameworks.
Instrument Design
Since the first humans stood upright, people have been compelled to make sounds and compose them into rhythm and song. Humanity progresses, societies evolve, and expressions, representations, and tastes shift wildly, but the drive to make tools that produce music will always permeate all cultures. Once instrument builders first began to harness electronic technologies into new possibilities for instrument design, the door opened to radical innovations in performance, creation, and control. These are boundless tools: from the first synthesizers to the ‘smart’ instruments of today that interpret and enhance the music played on them. Meet the instrument designers that create the aesthetics and customs of future music.
The Joyful Noise of STEAM
What we teach kids today inspires what they create tomorrow. Moogfest is dedicated to highlighting the joyful intersection of technology and the arts through experimentation, workshops, performance & conversation. We engage an all ages audience in hands-on programming designed to empower the next generation of inventors in the core disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math.
Protest
WE are the agents of change in this world. We are the artists, activists, and innovators who can raise consciousness and organize resistance to redesign our future. The forward movement of science and society doesn’t have to mean dystopia—it could mean more advanced problem-solving technology and increasingly innovative ways to use that technology for justice. So how can we use our resources to synthesize change? How do the musical and scientific instruments we dream of in our beds and tinker with in our homes light the way to future and better worlds?
Sci-Fi Wishes and Utopian Dreams
“Science Fiction” has long been a way for artists to explore unknown futures. Authors, musicians, philosophers and filmmakers use scientific discovery and technical insight as the springboard to create entertaining and provocative works, while the engineers and researchers of today are inspired by utopian visions and otherworldly inventions. This interplay between imagination and actual innovation, idealist dreams and dystopian visions, are increasingly tangled as space travel, cybernetics, super-computing, robotics, and automation become everyday realities.
Spatial Sound
The spatial location of sound is as important as pitch and rhythm. Experiments with “Spatial Music” have informed composition since the early nineteen-hundreds. But today, 21st century technologies for audio recording, production, and playback have revived an interest in surround sound and the three-dimensional potential of electronic music. Venues outfitted with surround sound environments prompt performances each night, with daily conversations about audio production and sound systems.
Transhumanism
Evolution has been a slow natural process that we are externalizing and accelerating through technology and creativity. Humans have long sought to transform nature with agriculture and medicine, employing biotechnologies to manipulate living systems, and even our own bodies. Today, biotechnology has expanded to include cloning and genetic engineering, organ transplants and prosthetics, computer science and biorobotics… even bio-art. An exciting creative territory is revealing itself, along with new ethical, social, and aesthetic challenges.
Techno-Shamanism
In regards to where he pulled his innovative ideas from, Bob Moog said, “Everything
has some consciousness, and we tap into that. It’s about energy at its most basic level.” But how do we tune into that noosphere and bring next wave ideas to the fore? Who are the seers today, and how are they integrating technology into new “shamanic” practices in art and science? How do we understand rituals of trance in the context of electronic music? How can ancient traditions and cutting-edge brain research inform our pursuit of ecstasy?
Ticket information
Engineer Festival Pass (limited quantity) – $1500
This two-day synth-building workshop, led by Moog engineers, invites a select group of enthusiasts to build their very own unreleased Moog analog synthesizer and sequencer. The hands-on workshop is conducted in two, three-hour sessions within the Pop-up Moog production facility. No experience necessary, but basic soldering knowledge is recommended. Participants in the Engineering workshop also have VIP access for the duration of the event. Priority access to all festival venues for performances and conference programming: conversations, workshops, and installations. Access to exclusive VIP viewing areas and events and gift bag. Complimentary food and drink in select locations. Workshops are available via RSVP. Engineer Festival Pass holders will receive first priority on a limited basis. Pre-Sale Engineer Festival Passes available for a limited time, while supplies last.
Festival Pass – $249
General Admission for the duration of the event. Access to all festival venues for performances and conference programming: conversations, workshops, and installations. Workshops are available via RSVP. VIP Festival Pass holders will receive first priority on a limited basis.
VIP Festival Pass – $499
VIP access for the duration of the event. Priority access to all festival venues for performances and conference programming: conversations, workshops, and installations. Access to exclusive VIP viewing areas and events and gift bag. Complimentary food and drink in select locations. Workshops are available via RSVP. VIP Festival Pass holders will receive first priority on a limited basis.
Payment plans are also available. Simply select ‘Monthly Payments with Affirm’ as your payment method during checkout. More details are available here.
About Moogfest
To celebrate the legacy of Bob Moog, an engineer who worked in partnership with artists to invent new creative tools, Moogfest reimagines the tech conference and music festival by taking the best of both formats to create a completely new type of experience. Hailed as “a sci-fi dance party with a Ph.D. in STEM” by The New York Times, Moogfest 2017 will gather more than 1—+ technologists, musicians, and artists to explore new technologies that are pushing the boundaries of creative expression. Moogfest returns to its new home, Durham, North Carolina, named one the hottest cities for tech by Business Insider, and just a few hours from the employee-owned Moog Music factory in Asheville.
Moogfest is the synthesis of music, art, and technology. Since 2004, Moogfest has brought together artists, futurist thinkers, inventors, entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, scientists, and musicians. By day, Moogfest is a platform for conversation and experimentation. By night, Moogfest presents cutting-edge music in venues throughout the city. This mind-expanding conference attracts creative and technology enthusiasts for three days of participatory programming in Durham, North Carolina. Performing artists include early pioneers in electronic music, alongside pop and avant-garde experimentalists of today.