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Last weekend the 2010 Bent Festival in Brooklyn, NY concluded its three days of circuitbending wizardry and wonder. Since this was my first full-fledged Bent Fest (I only caught one of the workshops last year), I made an effort to explore the culture behind circuitbending as deeply as I could. You may have already gotten a glimpse of this from my interview with Gannon, but that was definitely just the tip of the iceberg. Read on for more highlights from Bent Festival 2010.

Also see our documentary on the Bent Fest.

Visitors entering the festival were greeted immediately by Phillip Stearns’ colossal interactive sound/light installation, ‘ENTITY-1’ (above). Resembling a giant neural network made up of high-voltage wires and lamp lights, the installation sends bright light and crackling sound down its winding tendrils. Most festival-goers seemed a tad nervous when approaching the piece, but I’m fairly certain that was the whole point. Of all the the installations present, it was definitely the only one that looked (and sounded) dangerous.

Brendan O’Connell’s ‘Listening Piece For A Selfish Ensemble’ (header image) seemed the most participatory. Seen as a mess of unruly metal wires almost resembling a bramble bush in the middle of the gallery space, the piece allowed participants to explore the hidden soundscape of electromagnetic resonance that exudes from electronic devices by having them circle around the odd, wiry construct while holding special receiver-type devices to their ears. Most positions around the construct produced varying degrees of white noise, but careful observers were able to find a few ‘sweet spots’ where the receivers picked up tonal hums and other odd noises.

In the back of the space was Joe Mariglio and Steven Litt’s sprawling electromechanical sound installation, ‘CrudSpades Ginormous Thing.’ The piece used a modified step sequencer to physically operate a variety of found objects in rhythmic patterns. The static noise from an old TV, rattling suspended wires and a metal bolt hitting against a coffee can are just a few examples of the miscellaneous junk that the Ginormous Thing repurposed as sequenced electroacoustic instruments. With all of the attendees constantly toying around with the sequencer, it seemed to be playing a different rhythmic pattern almost every time I walked by.

Much to my dismay, I wasn’t able to make it to see any of the Thursday night performances. But when I arrived the next day, I began hearing tales of what I missed: Most notably, an interactive sound/body art presentation from Torino:Margolis and a surprising nightcap performance from New York locals Loud Objects, in which they sliced a projector in half with a chainsaw. The latter especially made me regret not being there, but it left me with a staunch determination to see and hear everything that the next two nights had to offer.

The first live performance I managed to catch was from Derek Holzer (above), an experimental sound artist from Berlin. Holzer isn’t a circuitbender by definition, but still put on what I thought to be one of the most unique and engaging performances of the entire weekend. Using a stand-up projector to channel different colors and forms of light through a set of light-sensitive machines capped with spinning plastic discs, Holzer presented an arresting ambient sound performance entitled ‘TONEWHEELS.’

Starting off with fluctuating low-frequency tones, the piece built tension as Holzer moved the spinning machines into different configurations and introduced different light sources, including blinking LEDs and the flame from a cigarette lighter. The most dramatic changes occurred when he switched color filters, with the final color, red, ending the piece in a brilliant climax of distorted noise.

Saturday began with a beginner’s circuitbending workshop with Peter Edwards of Casperelectronics. Misbehaving subway trains caused me to miss the majority of this, but I arrived in time to see the results of everyone’s hard work, the most impressive being a bent flower toy that blurted out some seriously heavy distortion and glitchiness. The person responsible, a local high school teacher named Georgia, claimed it was her very first time circuitbending. “I found this place on the board that controlled the pitch and noise. We attached some knobs and wires and it just sounded really cool,” she said, explaining that she had no prior experience with electronics. “I definitely want to do it more now that I see the potential for making really cool stuff.”

Playboy’s Bend, a two-piece group from Belgium, were one of the second night’s stand-out acts. Taking a more melodic approach than most of the performers that preceded them, they enhanced their poppy vocal duets with keyboards, a circuitbent Pikachu doll and various other squeaky electronic instruments.

It wasn’t until Japan’s Dr. Rek began playing that people finally began to get out of their chairs. Dressed in a cartoon bear suit, Rek provided a hypnotizing set of acid house that got people moving despite the now obvious disparity between DJs and performance artists present at the festival.

There were still grey areas, however. Austin duo Bodytronix (aka E-Squared) headlined the night with a set that combined analog synthesizers, crunchy beats and experimental sound, using what seemed to be the largest stage set-up out of any performer present. Most interesting among the piles of electronic gadgetry heaped on their massive table was an electronic ‘brain scanner’ toy from an old board game that played back samples by reading patterns on index cards as they were swiped through. The result was a repetitive but thoroughly enjoyable set of IDM-style beats that didn’t hesitate to become abstract and noisy when needed.

The Bent After Party brought the night to close with sets from two more performers. After knocking over all the remaining chairs to make sure people would stay on their feet, Computer At Sea invited six audience members to join him on stage for his first song. Participants tweaked all manner of circuitbent toys while CAS danced around energetically, belting out song lyrics at point blank range to an increasingly enthused audience. Cleveland trio Ken Rei rounded out the Festival, using some of my favorite instruments at the Fest: A bent Game Boy and Commodore64.

Although the intricacies of DIY electronics culture might still be new to me, Bent Festival was most definitely an eye-opening experience, filled with new discoveries and plenty of surprises. One of the best features of Bent is its ability to exhibit such a wide variety of wonders from year to year, and there’s no doubt that next year will bring about a completely new collection of sights and sounds.