Thomas Ankersmit (born 1979, Leiden, The Netherlands) is a musician and artist based in Berlin and Amsterdam. His main instruments are a Serge analogue modular synthesizer, computer and alto saxophone. His music and installation work have been presented at Hamburger Bahnhof, KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Podewil, Berlin; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Kunsthalle Basel; Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York as well as at festivals across Europe, the Americas and Asia.
"Jump-starting his performance on the intimidating Serge modular synthesizer, Ankersmit created a fractured, tension-filled stream of electric sound. Flicking switches and pulling at patchcords at breakneck speed, he shaped his swarm of synthesized blips and metallic jabs into a very deliberate, beautifully coherent composition. Constantly reconfiguring his electroacoustic pinpricks and distorted crackle, microscopic but detail-rich and intensely vibrant, sonic fragments skittered across the stereo spectrum like fireflies.
Continuing on acoustic alto saxophone, he slowed down the event density but maintained the heat, pairing intensely focussed energy and sonic determination with a delicate sensitivity to texture. Ankersmit's saxophone voice is an entrancing, violent mass of multiphonic, shapeshifting sound, oscillating endlessly through circular breathing, penetrating every corner of the room. Far removed from the syntax of jazz or improv, his was a spectacular recontextualisation of the instrument's possibilities, forcing it into uncharted sonic territory." - VPRO
Tony Conrad (b. 1940) teaches media studies at SUNY Buffalo. Over the last twenty years he has been especially active in video. His work with music composition and performance started while he was a mathematics student, after which he was associated with the founding of “minimal” music and “underground” film. His movie The Flicker is one of the key early works of the “structural” film movement. His art videotapes are widely seen, and he has produced more than 250 programs for public access cable in Buffalo. Conrad performs his recent music regularly at festivals, clubs and new music venues in the US and Europe.
“Tony Conrad is a pioneer, as seminal in his way to American music as Johnny Cash or Captain Beefheart or Ornette Coleman, one of those really savvy Old Guys whom all the kids want to emulate because their ideas, their style are electric and new and somehow indivisible.” - Steve Dollar
