Ramadan is both a time of inner cleansing and of opening yourself to the community – the inside meets the outside. “SEYAHAT – A Journey” follows this path in three parts.

The ensemble DESTAN fuses musical improvisation, performative drawing and urban dance. Communication from individual action, structure out of spontaneity.

Urban dance: Kadir Memis “Amigo”
Trumpet: Ritsche Koch
Drums: Christian Marien
Tagtool: Thomas Bratzke, Markus Dorninger

Concert version of the performance
Recorded at the jazzclub “Porgy & Bess” in Vienna on 15th of February 2011
Video made by Lukas Böck

After the presence at the premiere edition of the Biennial of the Americas, in Denver throughout July 2010, as well as the two month long ViceVerse tour across the USA, the third Belgrade edition took place on September 18th and 19th 2010 at the Cultural Center Rex – featuring a Tagtool workshop hosted by iink and myself.

We built up three Tagtool stations for the seven participating kids. On Saturday we showed them how to draw and animate with the Tagtool. We were superbly assisted by Kris, an illustrator and tatoo artist from Belgrade. The kids quickly figured out their instruments and settled on their favorite themes (pirates and Super-Grandparents).

We were especially pleased with their animation skills – they were definitely no strangers to gamepads. Finally, on Sunday, the kids presented their Tagtool expertise to a very appreciative public during the grand KidsPatch parade.

We are happy to have been part of this  superbly organized event – shout-outs to Nana, Relja, Tamara and the rest of the crew.

]]> http://www.tagtool.org/wp/2010/09/27/kidspatch-belgrade/feed/ 0 http://www.tagtool.org/wp/2010/08/21/wassergasse-kunstwerkstatt/ http://www.tagtool.org/wp/2010/08/21/wassergasse-kunstwerkstatt/#comments Sat, 21 Aug 2010 19:01:06 +0000 gnu http://www.tagtool.org/wp/?p=5890 For three weeks Kunstwerkstatt Tulln provides its space to the Wassergasse crew and their artist friends, so they can elaborate old and new concepts of live performances using the Tagtool.

Visitors can look over the shoulders of the artists at work, or have a talk with them on every Saturday and Sunday from 15pm to 18pm. The project will end with a finissage on 25th of September, when the participants present the turn-out of their work. Of course there will be also partying and an open session at the Tagtool.

Kid’s-patch is an innovative lab, a mini-festival for young people, which is realized by workshops and presentations within the fields of music, graphical art, performance art and modern/new media. By the direct and playful work with children artists get the opportunity to gain new perspectives on the process of creating and presenting creative content. The programs are designed so that it is an innovative and entertaining approach close to children and youth fields of contemporary art and culture.

“E-Werkstatt” focuses on the transfer of know-how, as well as on the production and the presentation of projects involving electronic media. Kunstwerkstatt Tulln is our location for meetings and events.

We started off with a small warm-up session on the 3rd of July. This was primarily to promote a bigger project in November with workshops and a big party. So if you are around of Tulln, stay tuned!!

Here’s a little video and some fotos of our warm-up session.

The purpose of the event, named Milan Digital Graffiti, was for local graffiti- and street artists to demonstrate their styles on a large scale. Alberto’s writes about his motivation:

… graffiti has long been considered a major national problem. In public there is rarely a consciousness about what can or should be a form of artistic expression and what is pure vandalism. But the artistic point of view and the immanent aspects of social communication, makes it certainly to an interesting and strong expression of modern urban culture.

For six nights we were tagtooling on a vacant office building at the Via Tortona in the center of Milan. The setup used two stacked 15K projectors on a big tower, two Tagtool stations under a canopy and small wodden tribunes for the audience, all within the courtyard of the building.

To ensure the quality of the sessions, Alberto’s crew had trained on the Tagtool in advance and invited friends out of the local graffiti scene to join. On location there was a small Tagtool station to warm up before going large. The sessions were opened by the experienced local Tagtool artists Luca Barcellona and Marco Klefisch. With fantastic styles they inspired newbies and demonstrated what is possible to get out of the instrument.

Tthe event was organised as part of the festival Salone del Mobile, also known as Milan Design Week. This annually happening in Milano is one of the largest decoration trade fair in the world. With installations, debates, temporary design shops and of course partying, it attracts thousand of people from Italy and abroad. The Via Tontona, as the center of the festival, was the perfect spot to feature the event to a broad audience.

So, with a big bang, Tagtool has arrived in Italy; props for the good work of the Laser Entertainment crew!