AV alchemy

Optronica's cutting-edge fusion of music and cinema offers a dazzling vision of the future, says Daniel West.

Mar  8 2007

Optronica is a reel from the future. The NFT will be filled with interactive synthesisers, the IMAX will be transformed into a live arena and Peter Greenaway will turn VJ for a night. Next week's five-day festival is a riotous celebration of audio-visual (AV) culture – beyond that hollow term, Optronica's innovative and varied content obstructs a clear overall definition. The cinematic alchemy on display makes conventional filmic terminology seem Shakespearean. Optronica's framework is familiar enough: screening programmes, concerts, installations and talks. Some of the artists are household names, too – Lemon Jelly will headline the opening night, for example. Beyond this is a motion blur, with the boundaries between linear film and live music all but erased.

'We're a music festival in a cinema environment,' explains Graham Daniels of Addictive TV, the company behind the event. Daniels unites Optronica's programming under the banner of 'visual music' – an intimately related combination of sound and pictures that can be live or prerecorded. The majority of the festival's programming eschews character and plot in favour of visual abstraction and sonic rhythm – the difference between medieval ballad and a techno 12". Immediacy and humour are the cornerstones of Addictive TV's performances. Arguably best known for rehashing mainstream films in an entertainingly frenetic manner, the production company-cum-VJ collective will remix 'Get Carter' with dystopian anime cult-in-the-making 'Tekkon Kinreet' at next week's fest.

With source material this diverse, Optronica stands out from the NFT's conventional retrospectives, but the festival's approach reflects a wider trend of contemporary curation. Companies such as ResFEST and onedotzero have pioneered the future of moving image for over a decade and most electronically-inclined music festivals now also host cinematic programmes (eg the Big Chill, Barcelona's Sonar). In this crowded AV landscape, is Optronica offering anything new?

Certainly, it's unfashionably late to the party, debuting in July 2005, and its programme categories have all been premiered by different organisations in previous years. It could also have greater curatorial clarity: both the Optronica on Screen and Video in Demand strands feature motion graphical shorts and music videos. It does, however, offer a mouth-watering line-up of live talent. DJ, designer and counter-culture mogul Trevor Jackson will premiere a geometric symphony in the IMAX. Revered minimalist Ryoichi Kurokawa will play a solo set for the first time on British soil. Austrian soundsmith Christian Fennesz will perform alongside video auteur Charles Atlas, and Peter Greenaway will remix his own 'Tulse Luper' material live. The talks also look promising, from the history of AV experimentation to synaesthetic art.

Optronica's audiences will also be able to create their own visual music. Reactable is a physical sound and vision instrument – as free-standing cubes are shifted around an illuminated surface, their movement plays a Moog-like synth, the sounds of which are reflected by graphic oscillations – while Gridio is described as a human AV sequencer: the floor will be covered in pressure-sensitive pads that trigger video samples by Ninjatune's Coldcut on an adjacent screen. You'll be able to stamp out a realtime AV performance – VJing crossed with arcade game 'Dance Dance Revolution'.

Optronica may lack some of the curatorial cohesion and finesse of other AV offerings, but its triumphant return to the NFT and IMAX theatres is an important achievement. AV performance deserves recognition from such venues, because Optronica thrusts Londoners into a dazzling rebirth of the moving image.

Optronica, part of the PlayStation Season, is at the NFT, IMAX and ICA from March 14-18. Head to www.bfi.org.uk/optronica for more details.

• 
•