Standuino: fraAngelico

Standuino: fraAngelico workshop is inspired by the widespread phenomenon of DIY electronics in communist Czechoslovakia. Its name consists of the ‘uino’ from Arduino and the prefix ‘Stand’ which pays tribute to a pioneer and inventor of DIY musical instruments, Standa Filip. These two generations of DIY are mixing and overlaying in the project. At the present time the Standuino team is working in the fields of open-source hardware, contemporary art, experimental music, media, and ethnographic mapping. The most common outputs of the project are interactive workshops, where participants learn how to build their own musical instruments, modify, and hack them. During these workshops the Standuino team speaks about the old DIY scene and how electronics creativity was important for society in the past and how it might have been a parallel to the emergence of media arts in the western world. To support these talks they undertake research performing interviews with people that have been part of the scene and collect stories from the past. One of the most popular workshops offered by the Standuino team guides participants through building a synthesiser and is followed by a concert performance from the participants (the Standuino Orchestra) that includes a presentation of the instruments made earlier. Each workshop is intended for 10 to 15 people and at the end each participant will take home his own DIY instrument fraAngelico, a 8-bit PWM true-digital synthesiser with extreme hacking abilities in terms of hardware as well as software.

 

Artistic Statement

Around 20 workshops with more than 180 participants have taken place in 6 countries so far and more are being planned. This period of building electronic instruments with people gave rise to a fraAngelico synthesiser and determined its specific shape and use.The workshop day usually starts with a pile of electronic components and in the evening participants play the public concert on their hand-made customized instruments. There are no special requirements for the participants except the language ability. All customised designs of fraAngelico and workshops groups are documented. Some of the groups have gone on to form bands with the instruments they made during the workshop.The core of the Standuino team is Václav Peloušek and Ondej Merta, both Art and Science students at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

 

Link to the festival:

http://www.neunow.com/