Club Transmediale 09

Club Transmediale in Berlin was one of my first experiences of the European festival phenomena. I attended the 2004 edition as part of SHARE.mobile. It made a huge impression on me. Lots of experimental electronic music and art along with a public that was curious about such things. Modul8 did not exist yet.

(Using the speed slider) fast forward to now.

I have been attending the 'MAO' nights at club Maria. Some amazing performances by a variety of electronic musicians both new and seasoned. For those who are not familiar at all with club Maria there are as of this writing three major rooms. The first is the center stage. A very large space with a bar, lounge like seating area and dance floor area, its walls from the top of the emergency door all the way to the ceiling are entirely filled with projections that continue into and behind the stage. This room is the main stage. To the left of the stage, next to the end of the bar there is a passage way with a 'smoke room' on the right, leading into a smaller room that serves as 'quiet' space with a bar and another installation area. Turn right and then a sharp left passage into the smallest of all the rooms with another bar on your right, seating area and a more intimate stage.

It is here, during the two nights I attended that I became acquainted with vj teams Suicase on deck for Monday night and Tritamin for Tuesday night. Both happily running modul8.


Suicase oriented more towards using the transformer with the sphere with a lightly blurred matrix at low opacity. The performed for El Fog, NQ, Tillman Ehrhorn and Quip. It was mostly a blue mood but was a good compliment to the sound, especially with the vibraphone of El Fog.


The following night Tritamin provided a more image based accompaniment. Spiders were on order along with other organic matter. Again blue appeared to be a popular hue for this back room. As it so happens Visual Berlin member Jork who is a seasoned VJ and a constant at several clubs in Berlin was on hand and introduced me to Tritamin. They happen to be one of his favorites and he was eager to share his comments on what they do.

On Wednesday night this back room was occupied by Raster-Noton.Rhythm_Screen. After two nights straight I was losing a bit of pace with things and I am deeply saddened to have missed the audiovisual work of Frank Bretschneider who is apparently as modul8 user as well. I hope to be able to catch his next performance or at least get a chance for a personal demonstration of how he is using it.

Overall I had a great experience at CTM this year. Besides being on hand to see some modul8 users at work I saw a lot of fun performances and met up with some old friends and probably made a few new ones. You can check out some audio recordings of the festival at Samurai FM including the performance of Frank Bretschneider. If you were not at CTM this year or have never gone before maybe next year can be your first. I'll definitely be there to say hello.