Benoît and the Mandelbrots (LV/CO/DE/EN)
Holger Ballweg (DE/EN), Patrick Borgeat (DE/LV),
Juan A. Romero (CO/DE), Matthias Schneiderbanger (DE)
Benoît and the Mandelbrots see the laptop as their main instrument; they are mainly dedicated to live coding. They use the programming language itself as an at first sight non-intuitive, but simultaneously expressive interface between man and machine in order to improvise sound and music.Sonic conceptions and structures are expressed live as source code, and interpreted by the computer. With the flexibility of live coding the sounds are generated specifically to fit the room characteristics and the audience of the performance.
As every performance setting is unique and improvisation is the main paradigm of the group they don’t perform ‘works’ in a classic sense, but consider their whole oeuvre and underlying concept as their work, which expands with every performance. The musical results vary from electronica and ambient to experimental, noise, drones and avant-garde depending on the event, audience, venue and course of the collective improvisation.
Since 2009 the band has played more than 90 concerts in Germany and all over Europe. They received an Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica 2012 in the category Digital Musics & Sound Art. In 2016 they released their self-titled album on the Karlsruhe label Syff which is available as double vinyl or digital download.
NIKLAS REPPEL (ES)
Niklas Reppel (born 1983 in Witten, Germany) is a live coder, sound artist, composer, musician, and a committed eclecticist. He’s been living in Barcelona since 2017, where he found a home in the local TOPLAP community.
He performs nationally and internationally, mostly (but not always) as a live coder, using homemade software that over time became a little live coding galaxy within the larger live coding universe.
His work flows seamlessly between various styles of electronic music and sound art. Two major pillars of his work are improvisation and a DIY approach to things, whether it’s live coding languages or multichannel loudspeaker setups.
ROGER PIBERNAT (ES)
Illustrator, animator, livecoder for music and visuals, and — sometimes — poet. I have been member of the Barcelona Laptop Orchestra and I am co-founder of the collectives Wú and Axolot.
As a live coder I’ve developed Živa and contributed to TidalCycles with Superfm. I am also the co-developer of Animatron, a tool to collectively improvise 2D animation collages in live performances, which I use in my own projects, as well as in collaboration with artists from many other disciplines.
