Jonathan Chaim Reus presents iMac Music (Live AV)
he/him
Sun June 1 | Sound Art Sunday - de Brakke Grond
This is something very dear to us: 12 years after artist Jonathan Reus performed iMac Music at the Rode Zaal of the Brakke Grond, we are honored to invite him back to the exact same spot for a new version of his iconic performance. It was originally performed at the second edition of Coded Matter(s) – FIBER's discontinued series on the influence and rise of creative coding practices and critical forms of engineering.
More than a decade later, the performance has only increased in relevance: less and less are we able to access and alter the seamless functioning digital machines and systems that fully mediate our lives (and eat our planet). iMac Music is a performative rewilding of both the soft- and hardware of an early 1999 iMac G3 computer – the first model of the groundbreaking all-in-one series which gave a global boost to cultural production.
The performance is an intimate and fragile spectacle between an end user and their obsolete machine, producing sound and rhythms in whatever ways possible. The circuitry becomes increasingly corrupted through manipulations, visual distortions are created on-screen and sound material is tapped from the running machine.
With a growing interest in the reuse possibilities of (so-called) obsolete technologies to counter e-waste impact, iMac Music is a powerful and present-day story about the possibility of breaking through the barriers that shield us from the raw and wild matter of our technological world.
About the artist
Jonathan Reus is a transdisciplinary musician whose work explores themes of human-technology entanglement. His work includes solo music performances, performance art, compositions and instrument-building for theater and film, installation works, AI radio broadcasts and web-based sound/software art. For the past ten years he has developed intimate artistic-technological-social methods for working with technologies of voice in live performance and music.
