Of all the events that take place night after night, the O.K Night at the bar on the top floor of the O.K Center beats them all.The event title itself has nothing interesting about it, but the event itself is quite an interesting performance.

This year, they used a hard disk to make noise. Someone holding a guitar was beside the hard disk guy, but he wasn't playing it. Rather, he was using the effecter to make a howling-like sound. Even more interesting was the fact that the guy manipulating the hard disk was actually a staff member in charge of the carpentry for all the exhibits. And the guy and girl bartenders were also infotrainers who I saw during the day in the exhibit space. The family atmosphere that you get at Linz is one of the event's most charming points, and even if you don't know anyone there, someone will come and have a drink with you.

The night before O.K Night was the annual Klangwolke. It has become easy-to-understand like a Universal Studios show and a Hollywood-like pop style that leaves you feeling cheated. But participating in this local event afterwards, allowed me to really feel just how much Ars rocks. This is it!

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An Indian Music Festival was held in Hauptpatz. Nothing much was happening at first and I was beginning to wondering what exactly was going on, when a couple of Indian youth holding black radio-cassette players appeared. Some stood still, while others walked around. After a while, I heard someone singing. Following the voice, I saw a woman singing from the window of the University of Arts building. You could also hear her voice through the radio-cassette players, which resonated throughout the plaza.

Although I was skeptical about the cheap-looking gadgets at first, I was pleasantly surprised by the rich sound that they were emanating. To think that this performance may be an homage to the first ever Klangwolke (when the citizens of Linz placed radios and stereos on their windowsills and played electronic music throughout the city) made it all the more poignant.

After marching around the plaza, the band of Indians moved to a carpet and played 6 songs using traditional instruments. There were some television sets showing another Indian band playing music, and the band in front of us played along with the band on screen. Of course, the band on screen weren't playing live. The performance was steeped in nostalgia, what with the radio-cassette players and old TV sets.

Anyway, there was something special about listening to Indian music in a European town. A man and a woman sang songs infused with Kabirian philosophy as if it were an anthem of this town. I especially remember how the plaza gradually filled up with people being drawn to the sounds of the tablas and sitars, and everybody sitting around and cooling off, savoring the summer's end.
Come to think of it, the ARS festival is always held during the perfect season...

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My final recommendation. The last work of ARS was Toshio Iwai's TENORI-ON performance. TENORI-ON is the next-generation instrument Iwai is collaborating with Yamaha to develop, and can be played by anyone, regardless of whether they're a novice or a pro.

The first thing to catch your eye is the 16x16 matrix of LED switches. If you push the switches or slide your finger over them, they emit these beautiful sounds and lights. And another Iwai-like feature is that there aren't only LEDs on the control pad, but on the back of the instrument, as well. The TENORI-ON isn't just enjoyed by the performer, but entertains the people watching it, too. And what's more, even if you don't have the techniques you'd need for other instruments, you can create the most unexpected LED miracles with it. I found it to be a truly happy musical interface.

It has a weight to it when you hold it, and feels well-made. When I held it in both hands, my spine naturally snapped into an upright posture, which made me imagine what I must look like holding it and think, "Hey, I might be looking pretty cool right now."

You can make music with it even if you don't know how to use it, but I think that you'd need more time with the TENORI-ON to make music the way you want it to sound.

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Firstly, an especially cool, stoic performance.

Clickety-clack it goes. The sound makes me shiver, as if I'm being made to listen to the sound of a "phenomenon" occurring then and there. Wondering what it could be and eyeing the stage, I see a laptop on a board, and above that, a wooden board with a small iron rod dancing on it like crazy. The sound of this iron-rod dance is captured not by a normal microphone that only picks up aerial vibrations, but instead a contact-microphone that records solid vibrations.

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For me, this performance by Mr. Sawai was the highlight of Sonar. It was so cool. I got goose-bumps, and was so caught up in his groove that I often forgot that I was filming. The sounds pierced through my flesh and set fire to my musical heart. So the camerawork might be a bit dodgy, but I guess that in itself gives the footage a certain flavor.

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Last year I introduced Toshio Iwai's TENORI-ON performance at part of last year's ARS Electronica 2005. Following on, Sonar sees Mr. Iwai creating sounds from 3 of his "instruments" - Sound Lens, TENORI-ON, and Electro Plankton.

Rootsy sounds of Sound Lens, TENORI-ON's short sound loops slowly overlapping to create music, and Electro Plankton's catchy, poppy sounds... Although very experimental, Mr. Iwai manages to present it as entertainment. Apparently this was the first live performance of this sort for him, and I feel immensely happy that I was able to see and record it.

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First up is Ms. Yanagisawa's performance. I actually shot this video at the very start of the first day of the festival. I went to the venue an hour before the performance to check the stage out, and confirm the positioning of the camera. However... once the performance began and I started rolling, I realized that her face and hands aren't in the picture. The stage is high up, and the instruments are larger than I thought. And Ms. Yanagisawa is petit. I should have known... I break out in a cold sweat! Oh no! I can't shoot anything. Time is ticking away. I desperately try to swing the camera to the sides and place the camera on stage, but the performance soon ends. The results were miserable. Mr. Maeda, coming from the back of the venue, asked me how it went. My reply: "I couldn't get a thing". Truly awful.

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Next is a performance with moving images and scratching (Visual-Scratch). There were 2 people on stage, and for a while, or rather until the end, I thought that the leader/V-SCRATCH was the guy scratching. I was shooting the guy scratching, all the while thinking "and who is that skinhead next to him?" I felt bad omitting him entirely, so at times I swung the camera towards his direction. How wrong I was. The skinhead was V-SCRATCH...

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An Argentinian star. The uncoolness of his costume, his performance on stage... I don't know what exactly it was, but anyway, it was awesome. Check it out.

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