Concluding their “Zero Player Game / OK Computer Music” double CD release tour from sea to shining sea, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Jeff Carey, both of whom work with electronic sound but eschew the impassive, near-motionless performance ethos typical of the field in favor of an intense physicality. Sigmarsson’s performances are equal parts concert and inscrutable theater, in which his body discharges wild, cryptic gesticulations and extreme vocalizations. Carey realizes his hyperkinetic audiovisual spectacles by means of a custom interface incorporating video game controllers, which he jerks and pushes around as if trying to defuse a bomb that to all appearances is already in the midst of a prolonged detonation.
Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson is an visual, sound and performance artist born in Akureyri, Iceland in 1977. He studied Sonology at the Royal Conservatory Den Haag, Holland in 1997 to 1998, and received MFA at Fachochshcule fur bilende kunst Hannover, Germany in 2004. Sigmarsson exhibits his paintings & drawings internationally but is probably most known for his energetic performances at a wide array of venues. His approach is that of the trembling artist, struggling to make sense and direction out of a creative impulse. Regardless of the medium, there is a continuous search for order and chaos throughout his body of work. With his series of drawings Sigmarsson distorts the normal, daily life by drawing very common objects in an abstract way. For some time he has been releasing solo recordings with albums on Trente Oiseaux, ERS, Helen Scarsdale, Fire Inc., Hanson Records, Bawag Contemporary Vienna, Korm Plastics, Bottrop Boy, Ultra Eczema and De Player.
https://icelandicartcenter.is/people/artists/sigtryggur-berg-sigmarsson/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_kYFdvEUWk
https://www.discogs.com/artist/66157-Sigtryggur-Berg-Sigmarsson
https://www.discogs.com/artist/10136-Stilluppsteypa
https://www.discogs.com/artist/1682194-BJ-Nilsen-Stilluppsteypa
Jeff Carey
Jeff Carey creates radical computer music integrating code, lighting design and gestural control systems.
“He’s acting on raw instinct here – he refuses the clinical approach to programming software or composing music, and strives to throw himself bodily at his machines, replacing all mechanical moving parts with human flesh, blood, and bone. In pursuit of this all-organic goal, virtually everything else is jettisoned, starting with recognizable notes or melody.” – Sound Projector on ‘Impulse’ (2010)
“Carey’s sounds are deep, alive, and present, and despite their customized instrument/presentation being grounded in the digital realm, sounds so life-like and present one can feel a slithery long arm reaching out of the speaker and gently stroking your spine with a poisoned feather tip is the overall vibe of the sound. VISCERAL and R E A L, containing all what so many lack, ‘Zero Player Game” pulls no punches that operate outside of it’s own chaotic, but idiosyncratic structure and form and is in solid control of its own sonic destiny.” – Decaycast Webzine on ‘Zero Player Game’ (2018)
https://youtu.be/0cy5fbfGPNA
https://youtu.be/WJ9Umu0cF7ghttp://jeffcarey.foundation-one.org
http://jeffcarey.bandcamp.com
https://facebook.com/jeffcareynoise
