PRESENTATION

The FEST ?

Second set of the Festival Echos Sonores Tunis, the FEST takes place from June 26 to 29, 2008. Four days of programming at three venues: Carthage Cathedral: Acropolium, Kanvas Gallery, and the Club Palace Hotel in Tunis, for over 45 hours of music, graphic art and visual installation.

High standards, diversity and openness

FEST is dedicated to electronic music and culture, as it is built on the multiplicity of these trends. Demanding and full of discoveries, the festival’s programming is open to the diversity and emergence of this innovative music, with Djing and live concerts interacting with electronics.

For this second edition, sound/image interaction is a priority. The aim is to deepen the approach to graphic arts and Vjing practices by offering the public video installations on the various sites of the event.

The sound/image dialogue raises the issue of interactivity as a dominant value in electronic culture. From the relationships between artists and audiences, to the various festival features, digital technology is revolutionizing the language of art.

By taking over prestigious sites in Tunisia’s architectural heritage and combining musical and visual programming, the FEST aims to encourage the emergence of new forms of performance, while combining creativity, encounters and experimentation, and offering artists from diverse backgrounds a shared space in which to work.

In this way, we propose an event that will bridge the gap between populations, enhance and increase the creative capacity of local artists, and offer the Tunisian public the various components of electronic culture.

Event ambitions

The success of the first edition of the FEST enabled us to confirm the enthusiasm of the Tunisian public for this type of event, which is in tune with the times, enriching the Tunisian cultural landscape with an innovative and topical event.

The existence of such a festival is essential to enable a wider exploration of the different currents of this music. While raising awareness among local artists working on a viable platform conducive to encounters, the FEST boosts the electronic movement in Tunisia while sparking vocations.

The event thus serves to raise the profile of national artists and creates an original gateway to musical productions and video creations in the world of electronic music.

An international electronic music festival is fully justified in Tunisia, a country open to modernity and contemporary creation. Afka Production, a forerunner in this field, has the experience, know-how, local knowledge and maturity to launch this unique event in the Maghreb and the Arab world.

Debate

Philosophy and electronic music

The aim of this discussion is to examine the musical practices involved in electronic music, free improvisation, bruitism, post-rock and even a certain type of contemporary music. Neither styles (they are very diverse), nor filiations (they are very disparate) bring them together, but common traits do. This complicity has less to do with the content of the music they produce than with their modus operandi, their use of techniques and their apprehension of sound material. One of their main characteristics is to constitute listening and production practices in the history of music.

These musical practices are accompanied by a certain number of words, supposed to say what these musicians do and with which instruments they operate. These words are then turned over to the discourses that seek to understand and, sometimes, embellish them. We’ll be taking this particular lexicon, made up of: mix, remix, cut, sampling, material, amplification, machine, rhythm box, synthesizer, computer, club, rave, modular room, dub, kick, bass… ,for what it designates: gestures, operations, instruments.