Buddha Maschine
FM3 (CHN/USA) ///
Thu, May 23 2006, 20:00 ///
quitch, Untere Donaulände 10, Linz ///
FM3 was founded in 1999 by Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian, two active members of the Peking music scene. They are regarded as pioneers of abstract electronic experimental performance in China and are famous for leave a lot of room for live “experiments”. FM3 produce mysterious, meditative and minimalistic sound scapes which are dosed with single elements of traditional Chinese folk music in a subtle way to create a small universe of micro sounds and synthetic glitches. FM3 was named “the most prominent experimental act in China” by the US magazine “Grooves”, XLR8R described the sound of FM3 as “poetic noise” and the British magazine “The Wire” wrote that the live sets of FM3 are “meditative”, “soothing” and “engagingly intimate”.
In 2004 FM3 was commissioned by the Louvre museum in Paris to produce a new sound track for the 1930 classic movie “La Croisière jaune”. The project was finished in June 2004 with three live performances at the auditorium in the Louvre. Sound installations by FM3 have been featured at the Shanghai Biennale 2004 as well as at the Dashanzi International Art Festival, the Kulturhallen Dampfzentrale in Bern or the transmediale in Berlin this year. Releases from FM3 can be found on the Dutch label Staalplaat at the series “Mort Aux Vaches”, on Mutek_Rec or on Sublime Frequencies. And FM3 produces the so called “Buddha Machine”, a box in the size of an iPod which continuously plays 10 Loops. Meanwhile this meditative box has been exhibited in numerous Chinese contemporary art museums and conquers the world.
On May 23rd 2006 the Chinese-american duo comes to Linz to perform at the quitch. They will bring their Buddha Machines with them which they will use in an own game, the so called Buddha Boxing, together with the audience.