Preview
The Alternative Party
General Public Invitation v1.2 (10 Nov 2001)
The Alternative Party stands for the continuing fight against the
mainstream. The battle for the rights of the individual and their chance to
express themselves freely. We stand by machines forgotten by the masses.
We investigate music and art which is widely ignored. To understand new
ways of thinking and unique perspectives.
Our main event will bring together creative people focusing on art, music
and computers that bring out the best in us. The party is equally relevent
to people with a ZX Spectrum or C64 as it is to people with a horrifically
powerful UNIX workstation or weird experimental hardware. The Atari scene and
the Amiga scene will finally unite. Improvised jazz will sit beside dark
industrial. Do you see things differently?
Where and when?
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The revolution will take place January 11th to the 13th, 2002. Doors open
at 12:00 on Friday, and close at 18:00 on Sunday. We are organising it in
'Gloria', Helsinki, Finland. Gloria is a fantastic place for an event such
as this. Internal A/V system, large audio system, video projectors,
sound mixing facilities, special lights, cafe with its own sound system and
DJ table, Internet streaming, showers etc. It is close to a wide range of
pubs, restaurants, discos and clubs. It is definitely the best venue so far.
Exact address: Kulttuuriareena (Culture Arena) Gloria, Pieni
Roobertinkatu 12, Helsinki, Finland.
How much?
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If paid beforehand, the fee is 20 euros. This must be paid before December 1st.
Contact mailto:tuomas.toivonen@fishpool.fi for details.
At the door, the fee is 25 euros.
The fee is the same for everyone. There are no separate fees for people without
computers or people visiting for only one day.
Artists
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Pnmf! will be playing their mix of experimentation, electronics and ambient.
http://www.cs.Helsinki.FI/u/pirtola/pnmf/
Telamurska combine HC techno with distortion and noise into an appealing
factory-like sound.
http://telamurska.cjb.net/
Happo (or Juha Matinmäki). An act from Turku with a long interest in
techno & acid.
http://reimari.saunalahti.fi/~djbeta/happo.htm
No I Aint. Harsh industrial, distortion and thumping beats. Just the way
we like it. http://koti.mbnet.fi/akauo/noiaint/
Tero Mäyränen is famous for his beats and sounds created with a C64 and
mixed live. http://mp3.com/tero/
To chill off, Analogia will play ambient and sounds to help you relax.
http://kohina.cjb.net
Competitions
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Overhead Projector Competition
* We provide the overhead projector, you provide to show. Graphics, animation,
lights, puppets or anything else you think appropriate. Some slides will be
available at the party place but we recommend that you finish (and practice)
your presentation beforehand.
* You have 5 minutes to show anything you wish.
* If you wish to have sound in your presentation, bring us a cd or generate
the sound by yourself (a narrator or live band, perhaps?).
* You are not allowed to use liquids or anything that could damage the
projector.
Realtime Music Competition With No Samples
* During the party you can use some of the Amiga 500's we provide. You have at
least an hour to make your song and more if no one wants to use the machine.
* You will be given an auto-booting disk containing the ProTracker 2.2a
executable and some documentation. You are to save your work on this disk (as
standard PT MOD) and hand it to the organisers.
* You are not allowed to use any sample disks or insert any other disks in the
machine's disk drive! If you think you need samples, you can use the
executable or the docs as sample data and modify them to suit your needs.
* Maximum playing time of the song is 5 minutes.
Alt-Machine Demo Competition
* You can participate with any computer except PCs with a CPU better than a
386.
* You must bring your computer with you!
* If you are going to bring a Cray supercomputer or something similar, please
bring your own portable power plant.
Most Obscure Machine Competition
* As usual we will pick the most obscure, strange or rare machine we can find.
More competitions are to be announced.
Community
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We have set up a community that anyone can contribute to. Our goal is to
have a wide range of information on alternative platforms, demoscenes
and groups, as well as articles and news about music and other forms of
experimental art. Anybody can help build the site: just click "Edit text"
at the bottom of any page, and edit the text freely. Read the help to find out
how to add new pages and links. The community site is available at:
http://www.altparty.org/wiki/
In addition, an IRC channel is available for active discussion (in English).
The name of the channel is #altparty, and can be reached from any IRCnet
server.
We have also strived to keep an open organisation where anybody can take part
in suggesting ideas and actively having their say. We have two mailing lists,
altparty and altparty-announce. The former is for discussion about the
party: what to do, how to organise compos, how to advertise. Anything
related to the Alternative Party organisation. The latter is for party-related
announcements (which are also posted to the altparty list). For details on
joining those lists, see our website.
More information
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For updates about the party, the alternative scene and more, see our website
at http://www.altparty.org/.
If you have any questions, suggestions or comments about the party, please
feel free to email mailto:setok@fishpool.com, or phone +358-40-7312273.
Final words
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We truly believe this will be the best Alternative Party ever, and one of the
greatest parties of all time. If ever there was a good moment to visit and
take part, this is it. I know I'm already very excited and I do hope to see
a lot of people from all round getting to know each other, showing off their
machines and just having a really good time.
-- Setok / Aggression