Hackoustic Presents

We're excited to announce our first Hackoustic Presents of 2018 with an incredible lineup of performances, installations and presentations. We have the wonderful Gouda Dirzyte performing with hand-made electro-acoustic instruments, and the versatile and fascinating Ana Berkenhoff presenting instruments she's made with Yuri Landmann, along with her own work. We also have a presentation by our Director Tim Yates on work he's been doing at Drake Music, a charity working in music, disability and technology, in helping  to develop open-source accessible instruments for non-techie workshop leaders and teachers to be able to use cheaply and easily.

There'll also be two exciting installations, this time from Gawain Hewitt who'll be bringing a selection of his recent pieces for you to try out including a singing plant, a sonic suitcase and a recording stethoscope. Our Creative Director Tom Fox will also show for the first time ever the Proximity Mixer Jacket, a wearable version of his Vulpestruments installation, made in collaboration with Nick Murray. The jacket will have hidden audio signals running through the fabric that the wearer will explore and mix their own audio compositions through the magic of physics!

No Hackoustic event would be complete without our resident and most wonderful DJ #BarrysLounge spinning discs for us. There'll also be a small instrument building workshop so you have something to take home with you!

Check out more info on our artists below and book your tickets quick!

Guoda Diržytė

Gouda is an experimental music instruments designer, composer and sound artist living between the UK and Lithuania. Diržytė creates generative sound installations and performances centred around self-built instrumentation, augmented with electronics and kinetic elements. Her work critically examines the Eurocentric approach towards musical culture traditions, exploring the phenomena of orientalism and exoticism, taking influence from African and Asian sonic cultures.

Check out video of her performing here: https://vimeo.com/233489258

Ana Berkenhoff

Ana is an incredibly versatile artist working in music, theatre, film, poetry, instrument building and installations. She performs regularly in both the UK and Germany and has made recent appearances on Radio 3's Late Junction, BBC introducing, Radiophrenia Glasgow and received a special mention from WISWOS.

With homemade instruments like some Yuri Landmann versions (12-string table top & steel-on-foam), electrix repeater, samples & field recordings and voice Ana Berkenhoff creates sonic song-landscapes. Witnessing the planets destruction and self empowerment is the main source of her music adventures. Last year these made her recording ice&snow, screwing together passion fruits, studying the relation of tomatoes to theories of Einstein, examining cooking recipes of E.Presley...

Check out the breadth of her work on her website and her audio output on Soundcloud!

Gawain Hewitt

Gawain is one of our most regular artists showing work with Hackoustic. He's shown his stunning audio tapestry work in collaboration with Stewart Easton at many of our biggest events, Wonderbox, a collaborative musical instrument as well as sharing his work as head of R&D at Drake Music, the country's leading charity working in music, disability and technology. In February 2018 Wigmore Hall learning held a series of participatory early years music making sessions called Family Sounds. As part of this Gawain Hewitt was commissioned to make a singing plant, a speaker out of a suitcase that contained the sound of a beating heart and a stethoscope that could record sound. He's bringing these pieces for you to experiment with!

Tom Fox - Aka Vulpestruments

Tom is Creative Director of Hackoustic and, as Vulpestruments, inventor of all manner of wonderful and inventive up-cycled experimental musical instruments.  He's shown his work both in the UK and abroad including at the Tate Modern, The Royal  College of Music, Music Tech Fest Sweden. This time he's bringing his first wearable instrument, a re-imagining of the wonderful Proximity Mixer that's been shown at a host of different events. There may also be another trick or two up his sleeve for this one, so keep your ear to the ground as we announce further info!

Tim Yates

Tim is the Founder and Director of Hackoustic, and a musician and sound-artist. He's shown his work in the UK at the Tate Modern, the V&A, London Design Week and internationally including as guest of honour at the International Maker Faire, Xi'an, China in 2017. He's been working with Gawain Hewitt on the Drake Music R&D program over the last few months in an effort to develop their program to make accessible musical instruments for people with disabilities. He'll be talking about the early progress that's been made, demonstrating some of the prototype instruments that are being developed and talk about exciting ideas for the future.