Dazed in Shoreditch

Dazed & Confused magazine’s first festival promised a day and night of art, music and ideas, and delivered all three. Five venues across Shoreditch hosted the event, held on a gloriously sunny Saturday afternoon.

The problem with festivals is that you can never see absolutely everything. Organisers will taunt you with the dilemma of two excellent things on at the same time miles apart from each other, and you’ll have to make a snap call on which one you decide to see. So if I’ve missed the must-see of Dazed Live 2011, I apologise in advance – my DeLorean was in the shop.

My festival began at the hub of Dazed Live 2011, the Tramshed in Garden Walk, and a brace of talks in Dazed Lab, a basement platform for bright young minds under 35. Interactive digital designers Champagne Valentine got the ball rolling with a talk about their work. Geoffrey Lillemon and Anita Fontaine are inspired by intuition, imagination and feeling , and creations – such as the interactive music video for Placebo’s Neverending World – play with space, with sound and visuals customised for where you are. ‘We’re trying to make things feel like a heartbeat,’ Anita said.

Political journalist and enfant terrible Laurie Penny, who blogs under the name Penny Red, was next. Laurie spoke about the massive shifts in politics over the past year and a half – especially the past six months – and how the narrative has swung against the protestors in the past two weeks.

Laurie said there was a difference between protest and resistance, in that governments could tolerate (and even benefit) from the former but really disliked the latter, such as the peaceful occupation of Fortnum & Mason’s on March 25. ‘The worst damage that happened was three chocolate rabbits were knocked over,’ she said. ‘These are acts of civil disobedience with surgical precision, and that really bothers the government.’ She said there would ‘almost certainly’ be another financial crisis. ‘So what is our narrative of resistance going to be? Sometimes cool isn’t enough.’

Off to St Leonard’s Church where Aaron Koblin, creative director of Data Arts at Google Creative Labs, showed how thousands of numbers and thousands of helpers could be turned into remarkable digital art. Aaron’s entertaining presentation showed how seemingly boring sets of data – flight paths in the United States, SMS messages sent in Amsterdam and viewer loyalty to TV channels – could be turned into something visually impressive and highly interactive.

The presentation also showcased his work in the music world, and his part in the filmclips for Radiohead’s House of Cards, Johnny Cash’s Ain’t No Grave and The Arcade Fire’s The Wilderness Downtown. Aaron said while the novel was the method of expression in the 19th century and cinema took over last century, the interface would take its place in the 21st century. ‘The interface is the message,’ he added. ‘I call it data art, but I hope that term will go out of date soon and it will just be called art.’

Levi’s hosted three bands at XOYO as part of its Craft of Music session. The promised Q&As were lacklustre – perhaps it was too early and not intimate enough – but the two bands I saw were worth it. London indie quartet Fiction opened with a tight set of angular pop-rock, sounding a bit like Talking Heads with a dash of Vampire Weekend guitar swing. Good stuff.

Fiction was followed by Austra, who have recently signed to Domino Records. With strong rhythms and choral vocals, the group was highly reminiscent of an operatic metal band who have suddenly realised they don’t need some guy thrashing away on guitar and have kicked him out of the group. Think the vocal stylings of Goldfrapp/Bjork/Kate Bush mixed with the sweeping sounds of Muse.

I missed Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat as I had to hustle over to Village Underground for the start of their music. Turns out I needn’t have rushed, as a 7pm opening turned into something more like 8pm. Volume was the order of the day in the cavernous venue, with bands giving their drummers full reign. About Group, featuring Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, was first up, and gave less of a performance than a jam session.

The blurb of ‘blurring the line between improvisation and songwriting’ was an accurate one, as the quartet would be operating seemingly independently for several minutes, thundering drums drowning almost all of the sound out, only to all come together apropos of nothing for something more structured and melodic. When everyone wasn’t trying to compete with the drummer, it was quite good.

The heavy sounds continued with Factory Floor. Bone-rattling bass frequencies set the tone, as the trio threw out a wall of sound, driven by a relentless digital drone. Slight twists to the syncopating rhythm led into the next song, with the guitarist employing a drumstick on her guitar for staccato bursts of noise.

Overall, Dazed Live 2011 was highly impressive for a first-up event, and should easily pull in a similarly big audience if it keeps the quality up. I did indeed walk away dazed, but that was only because I might have been too close to the speakers.

St Leonard’s Church
Shoreditch High Street
Shoreditch
E1 6JN

Tel: 020 7739 2063

The Tramshed
6-8 Garden Walk
Shoreditch
EC2A 3EQ

XOYO
32-37 Cowper Street
Shoreditch
EC2A 4AW

Tel: 0207 729 5959

Village Underground
54 Holywell Lane
Shoreditch
EC2A 3PQ

Tel: 020 7422 7505

Dazed Live took place on April 9.