Foton, FoAM and the Beursschouwburg have their birthdays in 2015. Foton and FoAM their 15th, Beursschouwburg their 50th. On the 25th of April we’ll celebrate with a joint audiovisual party - FO(am)tones (aka Fotones Special Edition). Expect a peculiar blend of electronic music styles, visual media, edible and tactile materials to be fused in a memorable synaesthetic evening.

We will begin in a meditative atmosphere, a dark 'horizontal' listening space. Lophorina eases us into the evening with her minimalist trip through silence and chaos. Her sound flows into Mahadev Cometo’s melange of Indian sitar and electronic rhythms, followed by abstract resonances of Angel. Peter van Hoesen’s Berlin-techno coax us to move from intently listening to merrily dancing to Lowdjo’s booty & bass in a crescendo to meet Antz with his Jamaican joie de vivre. Filastine & Nova’s energetic percussion and melancholic vocals brings us back to the gritty reality of a globalised world and 6siss closes the evening with his quiet, cinematographic fade-out. All the while we are immersed in FoAM’s otherworldly ambience, constructed from light, air, pixels and recycled materials.

Dress-code: Anarchodandyist costumery

The following artists are invited to help us make the evening a truly special one:

Haunting electronica - http://lophorina.bandcamp.com
Following several years’ experience in the performing arts, Graziella Torrigiani aka Lophorina explores a world of sound in tension where only the essentials are kept. Her vocal and electronic research mixes authentic tenderness and roughness, calm and chaos, taking the listener on a particular journey.

Horizontal trance - http://www.al-comet.com
Since 1989, Alain Monod is a member of The Young Gods and he is also launching a successful solo career, developing his own style in concerts and album production under the name Al Comet. Since 2011, when he spent six months in Varanasi, India studying the sitar, Alain has been working on the fusion of Indian classical music with western electronic rhythms. In 2012, he published a book about his journey in India and changed his artist name to Mahadev Cometo, as musician friends renamed him in Varanasi.

Physical resonance - http://mirrorworldmusic.com/tag/angel
Angel is Ilpo Väisänen (Pan sonic) and Dirk Dresselhaus (Schneider TM) who play time-transcending freeform sound, weightlessness and gravity of electromagnetic signals together since 1999.

Experimental warehouse techno - http://www.t2x.eu
Peter Van Hoesen is a Belgian electronic music producer, DJ and label owner of Time To Express. Immersed in Belgium's electronic scene, a young Peter came of age during heady days of cold wave, industrial, post punk and acid house. New underground music was simply excitingly futuristic, edgy, raw and of the moment. Some years later Van Hoesen lives for electronic music, deeply concerned with the exploration and development of sound. An involved producer and label boss, Peter continues to run the Time To Express label, founded in 2008 as a platform devoted to a forward-pushing club sound.

Booty & bass - http://www.lowdjo.info
Lowdjo moved to Brussels in 2000 and explored the more experimental side of the music spectrum. Using soundscapes, drones & noise in his mix combined with breakcore, elektro and jungle. He joined Foton Records in 2004 who organised the legendary FOtones-nights in Brussels, Belgium and abroad. Since 2000 he performed in Belgium and abroad, alongside musicians as Einstürzende Neubauten, Pole, Peaches, Emir Kusturica & No Smoking Orchestra, Patric Catani, Koçani Orkestar, Venetian Snares or Dj Rupture. Lowdjo’s sound takes the audience on a journey with his ethnic beats extra-ordinaire: Thaï pop, Tropicalia, Syrian Tekno, Cumbia, Iraki Choubi, Balkan bass, all this laced together by a tantalizing mix of contemporary electronix. Lowdjo takes you on a dizzying trip exploring the globe's weird musical heritage.

Bashment - http://pages.foton.be/artists

Hans wears many masks: robotics engineer, Foton founder, concert & party promotor, multimedia curator, installation artist and dj. As dj Antz he is one of the pioneers within the belgian breakcore-scene. Like no other he links like extreme 'core'-madness to a booty-attitude: ragga-, jungle-, break-, speed- and deathcore are mixed into a solid whole, smile included.

Outernational bass - https://filastine.bandpage.com//
Grey Filastine is the composer of a gritty electronic music that collides the lowest frequencies of bass music with the highest-level beat science, acoustic instruments and field recordings. His work often features Javanese indie rapper Nova and avant-garde cellist Brent Arnold. Filastine also produces award-winning videos, designed a post-crash currency, and conducts public sound interventions. Before getting into digital arts he founded the prototype anarchist marching band the Infernal Noise Brigade. Nova grew up singing pentecostal spirituals with her preacher grandfather, koranic recitations in the mosque, and javanese gamelan music in school. She was half of the Indonesian rap sensation Twin Sista, and has been collaborating with Filastine since 2010. When not on tour Nova can be found in Java giving workshops on art and environmental activism.

Cinematographic electronica - http://6siss.bandcamp.com
6SISS aims to create the most unique atmosphere with a chilled vibe and well-produced self-crafted sounds. Top-notch percussion and moody charming strings in his tracks … catch the amazing cinematic drama-sound.

A distributed network of labs for speculative culture, FoAM is a co-creator of FO(am)tones, responsible for the visual, tactile and gustatory experiences. FoAM members from Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK come together to infuse the evening with ethereal atmospheres, alchemical glitches and anarcho-dandyist costumery.

Tangental oscillations – http://agalmic.org/
Nik Gaffney is the co-founder of FoAM and operates as a tangential generalist, designer, programmer and sous-chef with a focus on long-term thinking, experiential futures and stochastic tinkering. Since 1998 he has intermittently operated as a human fragment of farmersmanual, a pan-european, multisensory disturbance conglomerate. His work has been presented at venues worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou, ICA, COP15, Ars Electronica, NTT-ICC, Iceland Design Center, Vooruit and Z33. In 2014 he was awarded an honorary membership of the Cloud Appreciation Society for his photographs of Undulatus Asperatus.

Live coding – http://www.pawfal.org/dave/blog/
David Griffiths is the founder of FoAM Kernow and an award winning game designer, creative coder and livecoding artist. With an early education in weaving, bell ringing, 8 bit computers and animation, he worked in the games and film industries for 10 years (Moving Picture Company, Sony Eyetoy R&D) and went on to robotics research for the FP7 EU funded Lirec project with FoAM. Alongside Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk he created the satirical Facebook game ‘Naked on Pluto’ which won the Telefonica Vida competition in 2011. He performs internationally with ‘slub’ a livecoding algorithmic rave group and also works with scientists for bioinformatics and science outreach work.

Spatial transformations – http://cockyeek.tumblr.com/ http://fo.am/sphaerae/
Graduated as an award-winning experimental fashion designer in the 90s, since the millennium Cocky’s work has been mainly revolving around lightweight spatial compositions and her favorite media have become wind and air. This resulted in floating and flying experiments in large, voluminous forms. In 2012 she created Sphaerae, an inflatable multi-dome pavilion for immersive and synesthetic experiences (presented at Ars Electronica, TodaysArt 2013, GOGBOT and AxS- Pasadena). With Schweigman& she created the scenography for two contemporary theatre pieces; Frame (Shanghai 2012) and Blaas (2013 Oerol, Torino, Boulevard/Den Bosch, Fort aan de Klop/Utrecht 2013-2014). Cocky is the co-founder of FoAM Amsterdam, as well as a teacher and member of the core team of of the ArtScience Interfaculty in Den Haag.

Peak experiences - http://fo.am/people/maja/
Maja Kuzmanovic is a generalist, experience gardener, oscillating futurist, cook, patabotanist and a recent apprentice in the craft of doing nothing. Throughout the 1990s, she worked in MR, VR and online, infusing digital technologies with physical movement, narrative alchemy and audiovisual poetry. For her works, Maja was elected one of the Top 100 Young Innovators by MIT's Technology Review. She initiated FoAM in 2000 and has since functioned as FoAM's principal invigorator, eco+media artist and head chef.

Culinary atmospheres - http://fo.am/people/rasa/
Rasa Alksnyte is a member of FoAM, teacher, dancer-choreographer, photographer, cook and an artistic advisor-mentor, working with anything that grows and transforms - from plants, to movement, food to children. She studied dance at the Vilnius conservatory and the Contemporary dance school P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels. She worked with a range of choreographers, theater directors, video artists such as Pal Frenak, Tamar Rogoff, Carlotta Ikeda, Ko Murobushi, Eisa Jocson.

Ethereal drones, otherworldly voices - http://www.loganartsmanagement.com/stevie-wishart.html

Stevie Wishart is a composer, performer and improviser. She explores medieval and contemporary extremes, using voices, ancient technologies such as the hurdy gurdy, and electronic music technologies of our own time. She has composed for modern orchestras and vocal groups and for her own group, Sinfonye. As a composer she works acoustically with music notation, sometimes combined with improvisation, sometimes using computer music systems, and sometimes using all these elements.