Megapolis Festival

The MEGAPOLIS Audio Festival is a weekend-long festival dedicated to the craft of do-it-yourself (DIY) audio creation. The mission of MEGAPOLIS is to provide a forum for artists, documentarians, musicians, and fans to come together to share secrets on producing and presenting challenging audio works online, on-air, and on the stage. The Festival aims to provide an affordable way for people of all ages to educate each other via experimentation with new ideas and formats.

The Festival was founded by Nick van der Kolk (Artistic Director) and Justin Grotelueschen (Managing Director).

The name Megapolis is a variation of megalopolis, referring specifically to the Northeast megalopolis of the United States, and the cultural influences such an urban environment has on the soundscape.

Past festivals

2009

The inaugural MEGAPOLIS Festival^[1] occurred in Cambridge, Massachusetts starting on April 24, 2009 at the Massasoit Elks Lodge and continuing April 25 and 26 at the Pierre Menard Gallery. Featured events included:

• A performance by Gregory Whitehead, radio theatre legend
• An audio documentary listening room from the Third Coast Audio Festival
• An opening night of intense musics led by The Lothars, theremin-infused psych rock from Boston, along with a typewriter orchestra, a man manipulating the radio waves with a steering wheel, and a demonstration of culinary auditory delights^[2][3]

Over 40 artists from across North America and from countries beyond combined with local artists to perform, install works, and conduct workshops and tours including:

• workshops for building your own instruments and contact microphones
• an audio-making slumber party
• a bicycle-powered 8-track player
• a clandestine audio tour of an insane asylum
• a presentation on the cross-pollination of poetry and sound

Co-sponsored Festival events included a Media Archeology of Boston at the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, a live cello score of a museum construction at the Axiom Gallery in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and a live performance of the WNYC science program Radio Lab at the Museum of Science in Boston.

2010

The second Festival^[4][5][6] occurred in Baltimore, Maryland starting on May 14 at the Windup Space^[7] and continued May 15 and 16 starting at the Hexagon Space. The 2010 event featured several high-profile artists including:

• Felix Kubin, sci-fi music and radio visionary from Germany
• Lucky Dragons, psychadelic electronic artists from Los Angeles
• David Kestenbaum, science and economics correspondent for NPR

Over 60 artists from across North America and from countries beyond combined with local artists to perform, install works, and conduct workshops and tours including:

• audio scavenger hunts with iPhones and low-wattage transmitters
• collaborative sound-making performances using contact mics attached to parachutes and knitting needles
• 1-800-numbers that attendees could call that dealt out exercises and suggestions designed to elicit aural experiences
• booths where participants could retell their nightmares and strain to hear to tiny sounds
• existentialist theatrical tours led by gnomes who encounter deviant characters along a path to 'enlightenment'^[8]
• audio transmissions between live-mic'd venues using FM and shortwave radio

References

1. ^ Parish, Matt (2009-04-22). "Hear! Hear! The first annual Megapolis Festival sounds off". Boston Phoenix. http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Music/81287-Hear-Hear/. 
2. ^ Lithgow, Michael (2009-04-22). "Audio Ecstasy at MEGAPOLIS". ArtThreat. http://artthreat.net/2009/04/acoustic-ecstasy-at-megapolis-boston-ma/. 
3. ^ Manning, James (2009-04-27). "BIG RED ON-THE-TOWN: MEGAPOLIS AUDIO FESTIVAL". Big Red and Shiny. http://bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?issue=issue105&section=on-the-town&article=BIG_RED_ON-THE-TOWN_2744640&. 
4. ^ Hirsch, Arthur (2010-05-16). "Did You Hear That? Audio festival hits Baltimore with sounds all its own". Baltimore Sun. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-05-16/news/bs-ci-megapolis-festival-20100516_1_baltimore-man-neil-feather-sound. 
5. ^ McCabe, Bret (2010-05-12). "Audiophiles: sound brings a wide array of artists and artisans together for the second annual Megapolis Festival". Baltimore City Paper. http://www2.citypaper.com/music/story.asp?id=20199. 
6. ^ Klein, Andrew (2010-05-14). "The Air Around Us, Sampled: Baltimore is host to this year's second-annual Megapolis, a festival of all things audio.". Splice Today. http://www.splicetoday.com/digital/the-air-around-us-sampled. 
7. ^ "Megapolis and the Beautiful Noise of North Avenue". Maryland Morning. 2010-05-10. http://mdmorn.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/511103-megapolis-and-the-beautiful-noise-of-north-avenue/. 
8. ^ "GEODESIC GNOME AT MEGAPOLIS". What Weekly. 2010-05-20. http://whatweekly.com/2010/05/20/geodesic-gnome-at-megapolis//. 

External links

• MEGAPOLIS Festival website