The Amazing Rolo

More Pig Gigs

Yann — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:33:14 +0000

Here’s a trailer for some upcoming Matthew Herbert One Pig shows…we’ve been doing loads of gigs around Germany and France, and in the coming weeks we are hitting up England, Spain, and Portugal, with a show in Poland in August too.

The footage in this video comes from our debut Royal Opera House show, which seems like ages ago now!

Come see us in Murcia (5 May), London (9 May), Manchester (18 May), or Brighton (21 May), and be sure to say hello.

Droplets at the Travelling Gallery

Yann — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:42:45 +0000

Droplets is a water-reactive art installation which I recently installed in the Travelling Gallery as part of the Alt-w Shortcuts show.

The Travelling Gallery is an amazing project run by the City Art Centre here in Edinburgh, which aims to bring contemporary art to far flung destinations all around Scotland. It does so with a very impressive specially designed gallery bus, which brings the art to you! I’m very flattered to be involved in the current show, which is comprised of artists who have been supported by New Media Scotland with an Alt-w award in the past, as I was with the Secret Sounds of Spores.

For this show I took certain elements of my Weather Gage piece and modified them to work in the Travelling Gallery, this time using water rather than wind. Pieces of hand cut Maryland cherry wood are spread along the wall, each fitted with a custom built solenoid and LED circuit. These are triggered by a watering can which is placed at the base of the installation, allowing visitors to bring the work to life themselves.

I’m very pleased with how it’s turned out, and I’d like to thank Alison Chisholm and Mark Daniels for supporting this project. If you are in Edinburgh today or tomorrow please go and see it down at the City Arts Centre on Market Street, or on Thursday at Waverley Court. Otherwise, check the tour dates to see when it will come to you!

Ignite presentation in Amsterdam

Yann — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:25:37 +0000

A few weeks ago I was invited to speak at Mediamatic in Amsterdam as part of their Ignite series of presentations. It was Ignite #15 and I had a great time! Many thanks to everyone involved for having me over. Many thanks as well to my friend and sound artist Nanny Roed Lauridsen, who recorded my talk and posted it on her website (a site which is, incidentally, full of great recordings like the sound of ice skaters on a canal in Amsterdam recorded from underneath using a hydrophone).
Here’s the mp3, it’s a very quick 5 minute presentation where I go through the whole story behind the Secret Sounds of Spores and talk about why I did it!
Yann Seznec – Spores, Ignite
The installation is looking great, too, here are a few more photos for you…

Secret Sounds of Spores in Amsterdam

Yann — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:10:20 +0000

A few weeks ago, at the end of a batch of One Pig shows in Germany, I went over to Amsterdam to install my Secret Sounds of Spores piece at Mediamatic. You can see the project page on the Mediamatic site here.

It will be in the gallery until around the end of April or so.

What a great place! It was super fun and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. My work is part of the Paddestoelen Paradijs show, which features a number of fungus-themed artworks in their amazing gallery. One huge advantage of this is that there are plenty of mushrooms to use in my piece – so every few days a new one is put in the jar to drop some spores through the laser.

Here are a few pictures of the setting up and final product:

I’ll be heading back next week to present the project at Mediamatic as part of their Ignite series. Please come by if you are able – you can RSVP at that link, it starts at 8:30pm.

Pug Synth from Lucky Frame

Yann — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:49:59 +0000

Today my company Lucky Frame launched our follow up to Pugs Luv Beats: Pug Synth!

It features the same adorable and hilarious Pug characters from Pugs Luv Beats, this time doing nothing but singing to their hearts content. In other words: it’s a super fun synthesizer and drum machine – changing their costumes and hats changes the sounds and drums.

Best of all – it’s free to download! So you have no excuse. Go to iTunes and download it now.

One Pig on Reuters

Yann — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:15:28 +0000

Here’s a short video from Reuters about the One Pig project I’m involved in. It goes into some background of the album, as well as the live show and the styharp, together with some footage of us rehearsing for our recent show at Cafe Oto.

You can also check out this great review of the gig from Clash Music and see a lovely gallery of photos here.

Pugs Luv Beats

Yann — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:43:40 +0000

Pugs Luv Beats, a music composition game for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, is now available on the App Store!

My company, Lucky Frame, has been working on this project for a while, it’s very exciting to have it out! We’ve even made a great promo video for it:

Focusing on musical creativity, Pugs Luv Beats offers a refreshing change from the standard karaoke-style music games currently on the market. Instead of forcing a player to accurately recreate an existing song, the game encourages exploration and musical composition – playing the game will create original music, different for every user.

In the game, the player controls an alien breed of pugs. Once the masters of a wondrous and highly advanced civilization, these pugs are the victims of their own greed. They loved nothing more than to collect beats, which they cultivated with their special brand of “luv”. But an ill-advised scheme to grow the biggest beat of all time spun wildly out of control, and their home planet was destroyed. The player must help the pugs to grow more beats so they can rediscover new planets, build houses, and recover their lost technology.

Head over to the Pugs Luv Beats website to see lots of videos, screenshots, and information. Give it a download and let me know what you think!

Seznec Bros – Jagged Land

Yann — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:45:23 +0000

I am very excited to announce that my brother Cory and I have finished our new album, entitled Jagged Land.

It is available on CD and as a digital download, through iTunes, CD Baby, or Bandcamp. Here’s a sample for you:

Long Red Road by Seznec Bros

I’m very proud of the album. It’s a rootsy bluesy gospelly emotional contemporary jumble, which I think is a pretty good reflection of Cory and me.

The digital download of the album is currently on sale for just $5 minimum from Bandcamp. If you buy from there you’ll get two bonus tracks for free!

Please visit the Seznec Brothers website for more information.

More One Pig Live shows coming up…

Yann — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:52:21 +0000

Next week I’m headed back out with Matthew Herbert and company to do some more One Pig Live shows. I’ve spent the last few days tweaking the Sty Harp and I’m looking forward to the gigs!

The dates and places are:
November 17th, Berghain, Berlin info in English, German

November 18th, STRP Festival, Eindhoven info in English, Dutch

November 25th, Ancienne Belgique, Brussels info in Flemish, French, English

December 2nd, Club Silencio, Paris the internet is curiously devoid of information on this one

December 3rd, Gaswerk, Zurich

Let me know if you’ll be coming along, hope to see you there.

One Pig on the road

Yann — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:30:51 +0000

Over the last few weeks, in addition to doing some exciting things at Lucky Frame, I’ve been on the road with Matthew Herbert for his One Pig tour. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve built an interactive musical pig sty for his show, and I’m performing it onstage with him (and an incredible band made up of Sam Beste, Tom Skinner, and Hugh Jones).
We’ve only done three shows in the past few weeks, but they have all been brilliant. The first was in Bolzano, Italy, for Transart. We played in a giant abandoned aluminium factory on the outskirts of town. It was a packed show, and the chef on stage (fittingly named Hannes Pignater) made some amazing bacon with leek and apple. The venue also provided us with a recently butchered pig’s head, which was…um…interesting…

A couple of photos of you, which show Matthew testing out the styharp during the soundcheck and a picture from the show:

After a quick stop back in Scotland, where I spent the day working on the Man High Mixer project that you can read about over on the Lucky Frame website, I headed off to Japan with the band for two shows in Tokyo. It was an incredible trip (despite the giant typhoon that hit the day we arrived). The crowds were great, the staff at Liquid Room was brilliant, and the food was delicious.
We have a few more gigs scheduled, and more are being booked all of the time. For the moment it looks like the next three gigs will be:
17 November, Berlin
18 November, Eindhoven (STRP Festival)
25 November, Brussels

And there are more to come!