Alzek Misheff
Sidney Fels
Sachiyo Takahashi
Alzek Misheff
In 1971 he escaped from Bulgaria where he graduated
from painting at Fine Art Accademy in 1969.
He re-established in Italy and left his abstract painting
and his parallel interest to dodecafonic music. He became
involved with processual art , and soon eventually was definitively
oriented to performance art. By 1976 he was refered to as one of
the 30 most important European artists in Achille Bonito Oliva’s
book “ Europa- America – the different avant-gardes “ (F. M. Ricci , Milan).
In 1979, he created “Music From the Sky,” a large scale instalation – concert and performed at: the main piazza Duomo , Milan, Mills College, San Francisco and Irvin University , Los Angeles.
With his project “ Swimming across the Atlantic, ” (1979- 1982) he became well known at art world (see omonimus book ed. Mazzota , Milan)
His interest developed a focus on urban comunication realized using a large brush on paper, creating almost 5,000 black and white portraits of young people on billboard standard m6 x3 (“Amplified painting” , Gancarlo Politi ed. Milan, 1984).
He repeated this experience in Grenoble, France producing 150 people, during his one- man show at the Musee de Pemìnture ed Sculpture (1985).
Thanks to the Lightning II and a brush , an infrared
MIDI controller invented by his friend Don Buchla, he now
realizes his long time dream and efforts, the union
between temporal and atemporal arts: “The painting that play music”.
This has been realized with: a live portrait of the art critic Pierre
Restany, at Fondazione Mudima in Milan, 1997, a performance at Out – Off
Theater, Milan ,1998, and during theiIntenational meeting of art
and new tecnology at Venice “Opera totale 4”, 1998.
In 1999, for the new project, “ Swimming across the Pacific” a special concert at Franco Parenti Theatre in Milan was performed. At this event his quintet, “The swimmers” was born.
Lately he was invited to perform at Venece Biennale .As
usual, he directed and played with “ The Swimmers quintet”. Additionally,
he executed his underwater concert “The Proliferating
Truth of Sentiment “ during the event.
Sidney Fels
Sidney received his Ph. D. and M.Sc. in Computer Science
at the University of Toronto in 1994 and 1990 respectively. He received
his B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Waterloo in
1988. He was a visiting research at ATR Media Integration & Communications
Research Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan from 1996 to 1997. He also
worked at Virtual Technologies Inc. in Palo Alto, CA developing the GesturePlus™
system and the CyberServer™ in 1995. His research interests are in
human-computer interaction, neural networks, intelligent agents and interactive
arts. Some of his research projects include Glove-TalkII, Glove-Talk,
Iamascope, InvenTcl, Sound Sculpting and the context-aware mobile assistant
project (CMAP). Using the Glove-TalkII system a person could speak
with their hands. The device was built to be a virtual artificial vocal
tract. The person using the system wore special gloves and used a foot
pedal. These devices controlled a model of a vocal tract so that a person
could "play" speech much as a musician plays music. His collaborative work
on sound sculpting is an extension of this idea to create musical instruments.
The Iamascope is an interactive artwork which explores the relationship
between people and machines. In Iamascope the participant takes the
place of the coloured piece of glass inside the kaleidoscope. The participant’s
movements cause a symphony of imagery and music to engulf them. His
other artwork includes the Forklift Ballet and Video Cubism.
Sachiyo Takahashi
Studied new philosophy (culture and representation) at
the Tokyo University and as an assistant of the same course ('93-'96).
Researched on Japanese traditional theater (Noh theater and Japanese traditional
puppet theater Bunraku) and performance
in this century focussing on voice and body
in performance. From childhood, played several Occidental musical instruments
and later learned Noh flute from Master Yukimasa Isso for 10 years and
deeply involved and influenced by Noh theater. From interests on the fine
combination of sound and action in performance, started to create experimental
pieces in Tokyo from 1988, applying traditional concepts to develop a new
art form.
In 1996 came to Belgium to work with Jan Fabre and learned
theater direction from him and played in three of his works including "Glowing
Icons". Studied electro acoustic composition with Prof. Annette Van de
Gorne.
In December 1999 created sound-action performance "Aviation/Abbreviation"
(production: Troubleyn vzw) in Antwerp. On tour in 2001. Several collaborations
with artists from different fields, Akitsugu Maebayashi,
Sidney Fels, Alzek Misheff, etc.