Recently arrived back in the UK after a successful week of max/msp programming and general audio visual mayhem Oslo Style. 'Making Sense' was a week long project hosted by Peter Votava AKA DJ PURE and Erich Berger. I was part of a group of artists and musicians who had travelled from as far as Paris, Canada, Austria, Berlin and beyond to participate in the event.
Each artist had arrived with the intention to solve at least some of their intended project, ranging in content from a web activated dildo by audio acoustic duo Decker and Reiter, to an alcohol breathaliser kit / sound manipulator from pile artist
Ian Campbell



Everyday was spent in the muted grey windowless confines of ATELIER NORD sliding around in our socks whilst the minus eight degrees and blue skies saturated Oslo with health given ions. Each night with a numb head from too much on screen activity we checked out the nightlife. Our first stop for a drink at spasibar. where DJ Pure, Erich Berger, Decker and Reiter presented some live audiovisual manipulation.



This was enough to put a halt to the that disco loving friday feeling and left some of the locals with their fingers in their ears, especially to the nosebleeding shell sounds coming from Erich, who'd of thought it? too look at Erich appears quite a nice man really.

One more night out amongst similarly pleasant looking folk at an independantly run artschool that turned out to be infact a Death Metal Rocker Festival, had me ducking and diving from the pints of gozz the flying bottles and dead animals, under the pretense that there was going to be some interesting electronic wifi-beatery and visuals. Bands with names like 'the Darkside of the Force' 'Lydia laska' and 'Diary of a lustful Turkey' continued to insult the crowd, who apparently just couldn't get enough.

Went to a few art openings, all the work is pretty messed up, its no wonder really what with all that death rock.