MAKE: Blog: The BENT Festival

The BENT Festival - April 26-28 NYC

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NYC makers! Mark your calendars! The BENT Festival is coming, the festival of broken toys descends on your unsuspecting city - April 26-28 NYC. Check out the other dates for LA and Minneapolis too.

The Tank is pleased to announce BENT 2007: The Fourth Annual Circuit Bending Festival. The term circuit bending refers to the inspired short-circuiting of battery-powered children's toys to create new musical instruments, and over the last few decades a worldwide subculture has sprung up around this amazing art form. We are very excited that for the first time the Bent Festival will be crossing America in April, making stops in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and New York. We will bring together performers, educators, and visual artists from around the world who not only push the circuit bending genre forward but also are on the cutting edge of the contemporary music and art scenes. In addition to interactive art installations and nightly concerts, adults and children alike can participate in daily works hops led by some of the world's greatest circuit benders.
A direct result of experimentation and play, circuit bending requires very little technical know-how to get started, giving everyone the opportunity to experience making electronic music. "In a society that is increasingly focused on sophisticated technology, it is amazingly satisfying to get the general public ripping apart circuit boards and showing them how much fun they can have with just the smallest bit of know-how", explains festival co-curator Daniel Greenfeld. This year the festival will also focus attention on artists who create new circuits in addition to those who modify old ones. Mike Rosenthal explains, "Each year the level of skill and creativity these artists bring to the festival increases substantially. Folks who started out bending a few years ago have been honing their skills, taking their work to the next level, and increasingly creating their own instruments from scratch. That's something we're really l ooking to highlight this year."

The Festival will start off in Los Angeles this year with the opening night reception April 12 at Il Corral, an all ages art space that consistently supports and showcases avant garde electronic music. Then the festival moves to the beautiful Velaslavasay Panorama for concerts, installations, and workshops on April 13 & 14. The Velaslavasay Panorama is an exhibition hall, theatre, and garden dedicated to the production and presentation of unusual visual experiences and entertainments, especially those of the 360-degree variety.

Next the festival moves to Minneapolis for a three day residency at Intermedia Arts April 19-21. Intermedia Arts is a community based arts organization that serves as a catalyst to build understanding among people through art and is very excited to be co-presenting the Bent Festival this year.

Finally the festival comes home to New York City April 26-28 where it will be featured as part of Eyebeam's ten year anniversary celebrations. Eyebeam is an art and technology center that provides a fertile context and state-of-the-art tools for digital research and experimentation, and has been a longstanding supporter of the Bent Festival.

The 2007 Bent Festival is produced by The Tank, a non-profit space for performing and visual arts in New York City with a mission to provide a welcoming, creative, collaborative, and affordable environment for artists and activists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas. The Festival is made possible in part by Make Magazine, the first publication on the subject of DIY technology projects. And by Periscope Entertainment, a Los Angeles based film and television company that prides itself on supporting independent thought and innovative creation. Funding for the Bent Festival is also provided by the New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA), which is dedicated to preserving and expanding the rich and diverse cultural resources that are and will become the heritage of New York's citizens.

Get Excited! | The BENT Festival - Link.

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